Please Help Our Children (Houston, Austin: how much, home, school districts)

[hornetmom]

As a former Hornet, and currently a parent of a Hornet JV football player, I look back at high school with mixed feelings, one of shear terror, and one of admiration. As we, all know how stressful high school can be, with all the pressure of grades and social interaction that we all to well discovered to be a “double-edged sword”.

The school district, and the faculty back in the day, as I remember it, was behind the youth of Azle. We had school functions to break up the monotony of everyday life...
If we take out our year book from any year we attend high school or junior high, we will see and remember having dances, bonfires, pep rallies, homecoming mums, crazy dress up days for spirit week, and all the special events to promote social interaction, student morale and community support.

As a parent of a sophomore, it saddens me to say it seems that most of these fond memories will not belong to our children, as they were to us. It has been most difficult for me to understand the current policies of the school district, right down to the miss information, and lack of communication between the parents and people we entrust with our children’s minds, social development, and lives.
Therefore, let me just say, it is time for all us to stand up for our children, being that they are a reflection of our values, integrity, understanding, and resolve.

Currently there are more disreputable influences around our children than we would like to believe. Azle has grown from a small town where “everyone knows you and your parents”, to having a separate campus for students “known to local law enforcement “. Can you believe it? Small town Azle no longer exists as we remember.

I am writing this today with a heavy heart, asking… no pleading for someone to help myself and other concerned parents understand the answer to the following questions...

Why should our children be subject to this type of discrimination? Why don’t they have the right to enjoy the same extra benefits from working hard and studying as we did? Other school districts look forward to providing these activities to their student body. Our children should have the same right to enjoy the things we had as students, and the things other school systems provide for their children.

Why are our children moving up thru our school system, held accountable for former students’ past mistakes? A system that takes a one-time incident and turns it in to a policy for future students cannot be a system that allows students to show growth and responsibility.

Thus, the reason I am writing this, as I stated before, I am a parent of a sophomore at AHS. The week before homecoming, my son came home and told me, he heard we where not having a homecoming dance. Consequently, I called the high school and talked to Ms. Gathright the teacher in charge of student council. I was told, by her that they had already planned for everything, but this year Ms. Bynum decided that a homecoming dance the Saturday after the game was not possible due to the “Dazzler’s being at TCU”.
Well, the Azle Pride Band had at a competition that she knew nothing about, but would return at 6 p.m, in time for the dance.
Therefore, the concerned parents of Azle got together, and called everyone they could the week of the homecoming game to convince her to revisit her decision...

Ms. Bynum did not return any of my phone calls for two days. Finally, she returned my call and we tried to work out another date:
"No, not next weekend” and I quote “I have plans, we have lives you know”, and the weekend after that she said “No, and because I said so”.
Ms. McKinney- Vice Principle – returned phone call within two hours stating she would talk to Ms.Bynum
Finally, Ms. Bynum gave in after she spoke with Mr.McCambridge (the Director of Student Affairs), who said after reviewing everything it was planned for October 25, 2008. It would be called a fall dance.

This morning I called wondering why they had yet to announce the dance and found out that Ms. Bynum did not tell Ms.Gathright that we worked everything out and it would be held on October 25.

Why is it so hard to put together something for our children, that they have earned and deserve?
How can you have a homecoming with the trimmings and no dance? All we want is for our children to have the same chance at the wonderful memories we have, even if it is after the fact…

In conclusion, I urge everyone who is decent and pure, find your old yearbooks and dust them off, find that special homecoming mum or photo, get out that beautiful prom dress that took forever to find… Now imagine a world where your child has none of that, no memories, no reminders, no idea of what a special time this is in their lives and how much they should cherish every moment of it…. It is only four years long…

Sincerly,
Hornet Mom & Dad

[Philip T]

welcum to da hoodz.

[crbcrbrgv]

Hornetmom, it may be due to the fact that times are changing. Homecoming dances are no longer in vogue, even in Texas it seems. It sounds to me you are longing for a time that has passed in a city that has changed. You are becoming a part of the Metroplex. I graduated in '91 and even then such dances were starting to become out of fashion. Couple that with an administration that obviously has no idea how to deal with its new found diversity and this is what you get. Is it sad? I'm not so sure. Homecoming and football (sports in general) are so entrenched into our Texas culture that it is often times to our detrement. We have a world class University in Austin....that is never ranked higher than 40. Universities such as Michigan, Minnesota, Virgnia, Illinois continuously rank higher than Texas. And it is in part a perception that we take sports and homecoming events more seriously than academics. Also, it has been my experience the small towns in Texas are very poor at handling transition. Has there been an effort to welcome the new population? Were the parents offered the same PTA/PTO opportunites as everyone else? Or were they looked at with disdain all along? Azle is going to keep changing. It's too close to DFW. I remember when Keller was a field and Roanoke looked like the poorest white trash town in America. DFW will get you in the end.

[lonestar2007]

Yes, times are changing. Is it for the better? I think not, but that's just my opinion.

The school system just completely baffles me at times. Last year at my daughter's high sxhool a couple of boys jumped out on the gym floor during the Friday mprning pep rallly and started doing cheers and they were pretty enthused and all the students were laughing and getting a big kick out of it. Well, the boys got escorted out of the gym and then it was later announced over the PA there would be no more pep rallies for the rest of the season due to their actions.

Now since they thought the boys were so out of line, why didn't they posed a punishmment for them and not the entire student body? They went for a couple of weeks without a pep rally, then the gods that be that are in charge of our kids while they're at school, relented and let them start having pep rallies again. Wow! What a mature example they are setting for our kids.

[crbcrbrgv]

Originally Posted by lonestar2007

Yes, times are changing. Is it for the better? I think not, but that's just my opinion.

The school system just completely baffles me at times. Last year at my daughter's high sxhool a couple of boys jumped out on the gym floor during the Friday mprning pep rallly and started doing cheers and they were pretty enthused and all the students were laughing and getting a big kick out of it. Well, the boys got escorted out of the gym and then it was later announced over the PA there would be no more pep rallies for the rest of the season due to their actions.

Now since they thought the boys were so out of line, why didn't they posed a punishmment for them and not the entire student body? They went for a couple of weeks without a pep rally, then the gods that be that are in charge of our kids while they're at school, relented and let them start having pep rallies again. Wow! What a mature example they are setting for our kids.

I think part of the problem (especially in the smaller exurbs of Houston and DFW) is the smaller towns are having a hard time adapting to outsiders. And a lot of the outsiders are not from Texas. As for the punishment being towards the entire student body? Definitely a Texas thing. This is how it works in Texas high school athletics. If one kid falls behind on laps or ladders, the whole team has to run. I remember if our team lost in baseball, we didn't get to eat (that is until several parents raised hell). Heck, look how angry and reluctant many football programs became and were when they mandated water breaks for the kids. The "punish everyone" mentality is one example where we are most certainly behind on the times.