Bordetella Bordello

I’ve often wondered what would happen if the skin peeled on my tattoo. Would the peel be black? I now have the answer: no, it doesn’t peel black unless it’s a microscopic black and I can’t see it without the help of a microscope. I’m so tempted to get out the microscope and look but I might scare myself. I think, maybe, the bigger, more burning question would be, “Why do I even wonder about this stuff?” ‘Cause I’m a freak like that.

Our dogs have kennel cough aka Bordetella. We are sure they contracted this from the plethora of unhealthy dogs living next door to us. We will be presenting our neighbor with the vet bill and this will cause a shit-storm of crappy proportions. I hate having to be so confrontational but, whoop(ing cough), there it is. They still haven’t done anything with the dogs or their yard and it’s a mess. I’ve had it; we are calling the city and an officer will come out and check out the situation. Oh, bother!!

::Update!:: It is confirmed: the dogs have kennel cough. It cost me $157.64 to have them checked and get meds. I got an extra copy of the bill just for my neighbors… I can hardly wait for them to get home from work. *sigh*

It seems that Albuquerque Public Schools is having a lot of controversial activity these past couple of weeks. The superintendent is shuffling principals and creating new administrative positions. She’s also looking at shuffling some teachers around. All of this is supposedly to move better principals into low achieving schools to jump-start better education possibilities for the kids. It’s been called a “bold move” and a “proactive” engagement. We’ll have to wait and see about that.

Also, there’s been uproar about a teacher refusing to change a grade allowing a kid to graduate from high school. It seems an administrator stepped in and ordered the teacher to change the grade so this kid could graduate. What’s interesting about this is that the kid’s parents are a county commissioner and a former Board of Education member. The parents claim they weren’t notified of their child’s failing grade. The teacher stands by her grade based on the kid missing 17 English classes, being 4 1/2 weeks late on makeup work, and barely passing the final. The administrator claims that, since the parents weren’t notified in a timely manner and the kid did the work, the grade should be changed and the kid should be allowed to graduate. It seems that the parents were notified that he was failing math and that he did the makeup work and got a passing grade but they were never notified about the failing grade in English.

I’m pretty sure that kid knew he wasn’t going to graduate and that he was failing English. What do you think? It would seem to me that the parents should have known this, as well. This kid is 17 years old which, to me, is old enough to be responsible and accountable for his own behavior. It sounds like the parents stepped in, made a raucous, and demanded that his grade be changed. These are people who should know how the system works and it is beyond me to not sound snarky about this situation considering the amount of times this kid obviously ditched class and didn’t do the work. It’s totally not fair that the kids who did do the work will now graduate with someone who didn’t and who has powerful parents to get him out of this jam. This also usurped the teacher’s authority for assessing his work and assigning a grade. The teacher’s union has filed a grievance against APS. What a mess.

And then there’s the APS police department which, recently had an internal and external audit done and the findings were not good. They had bought service revolvers and didn’t take or keep an inventory of them, performed illegal background checks, and kept terrible records for petty cash and evidence property. From KOB TV: “Police equipment and cars were found at employees’ homes. Guns and bullets were used by civilians. Time cards were not filled out properly either. All examples, the audit says of district time and money squandered.” The chief of police has been under investigation for months and on administrative leave, with pay, while all of this has been going on. APS has decided his contract will not be renewed. They are considering turning the findings over to the DA to determine if criminal charges should be applied. What a mess.

And then there is our situation in which I’ve been dealing with the Student Transportation department and safety on the buses. Our youngest is special needs and rides the short school bus to school. He was being terrorized and bullied by the other special needs child on his bus. D-Man has scars and scratches on his chest from this kid grabbing at him, he’s been spat upon, kicked, hit, bitten, scratched and his backpack has been torn apart. The bus monitor does everything she can to control this other kid but he’s so unpredictable that it’s incredibly difficult. D-Man does not provoke this other kid, in fact, he ignores him. This other kid has spat upon me (and the last time, he got me right in the mouth… gross!!) and tried to hit and kick me, as well.

It took over 3 weeks for the district to deal with this situation and get this other kid, the bully, off the bus. I had to fight with the person in charge of transportation and listen to him tell me how difficult his job is and how much money it costs to get this other kid off the bus as well as how this other kid has rights, too. It wasn’t until I concocted a scenario of similarity for him (ie: an analogy of a fifth grader bullying a third grader to this same extent) that he began to understand the gravity of the situation. I had to deal with his boss in order to get anything done. I had to copy the superintendent with emails concerning what wasn’t happening and how poor the communication was and that this was an unsafe situation for our son, who’s rights were being stomped on, before anything actually happened. And it all took three freakin’ weeks for a change to occur. We actually received a phone call, after the situation was supposedly changed, and were asked if we would transport our son to the school if they paid the mileage because the mother of the other child was being “extremely uncooperative and threatening to sue.”

S and I had been cooperative, persistent, and even threatened to go to the media and, still, nothing happened until I finally contacted the superintendent and the director of the department. Now, why is it like that? Why do I have to bother the superintendent and director just to get anything done? Why is this guy, Larry Madrid, still in that job? He’s obviously ineffective and unable to handle the complexities. I don’t know. It’s over now, until next year, and, hopefully, we won’t have to go through this again. What a mess.

But…

What I see as a common denominator between these aforementioned scenarios is a tremendous lack of clear, productive communication, connections between parents and administrators (and possibly educators), and a lack of solid policies.

I said I wasn’t going to bitch about APS anymore but I just can’t help myself. I want to be positive and productive but every step of the way it’s been a bureaucratic nightmare, two steps forward and three steps back, and a completely inefficient grasp on reality within the district policies and procedures. To this day, I haven’t heard back about creating better Best Practices/policies for our kid’s safety while getting on and off the buses which are, by the way, the most vulnerable place a kid can be in for being snatched or harmed.

APS is doing quite a lot to try to accentuate the positive. They’ve changed some of their communication methods and seem to be trying to be more forthright with the community. It looks like the BOE are at odds with each other yet are trying to stand united within themselves and the district. The questions that are currently coming up and the situations continue to beleaguer all of them. It ain’t easy being green… is it? I think a big part of the problem is that it takes so long for any level of effective change and some of the administration is still operating on old or previous methods of communication, lack of cohesiveness, and a general malaise within the troops.

The “leaders” are not all operating within the same message and are not espousing the need for change and holding their subordinates or their peers accountable. Maybe this principal/administration shake-up will do some good and everyone can get on the same path.
For now, I see everyone going in different directions and heavily employing CYA tactics. Kinda sounds like the Bush Administration, doesn’t it? What a mess.

And this is why I haven’t been blogging as much of late: there’s so much going on around this crap that it’s hard to not talk about it, rant about it, try to understand it, try to be supportive, and just get my danged garage cleaned out, my sunburn slathered, and finally answer that question of, “Would the peel be black?”

I guess everyone’s feeling a little under the microscope, as of late.