Joe High School Changes His Name

Another--and my last--South High graduation. South High has been part of this family's life since 1997. No more. A new era begins. He is no longer Joe high School.

It was a well choreographed event, and a good thing that was, as another school--Edison High--was waiting to get in exactly two hours after for their own festivities. And the precision was despite the inevitable disasters. The class treasurer fainted. The honor song drum didn't show up on time. The principal neglected to introduce the superintendent. None of this took away from the charm of the event. The Pop Singers, an excellent acappella group, sang. The band/orchestra, in which Joe College played four years ago, was probably great, but we couldn't hear them because there were no mikes.

And Joe HS, who had wanted to skip commencement, seemed to be glad he attended. I sure was. But, predictably, he neglected to pick up his cap and grown on time, so did not have the fancy hood for honors grads. Oh well--it's the diploma that counts.

The italian model

Joe College Grad just got a new job -- if all goes well, he will be teaching first grade next year in a Minneapolis charter school. It means a significant pay cut for him -- 50% at least. And he leaves la-la land for the sub-arctic climate of the Northstar state. Joe is really excited, despite the forthcoming change in his financial and environmental circumstances. It's nice to be wanted. They recruited him -- even better.

Ah, to be young and able to indulge your best self. Kind of inspiring. But unlike young Italian men, he will not be able to live in the parental house -- although I will probably cook for him from time to time. Mangia!

In the twinkling of an eye

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July 17th update...see below at end of post
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Something terrible has happened. A good friend of Joe-College-on-Leave (Joe COL), Joseph Sodd III, was murdered last week while riding his moped home late at night. Joe was a high-school classmate of my Joe for three years, leaving South High in his fourth to follow his dream of becoming a dancer. He went to the Perpitch School for the Arts here and went on to dance school in Seattle. He was home for summer vacation.

I can't imagine what his family has experienced. What I did see is the amazing network of college juniors who descended on Minneapolis after Joe died. From all over the country they returned to the city to mourn and celebrate. By the time Joe's death was reported in the Star-Tribune, my Joe already knew about it at the meditation center north of Chicago where he was helping in the kitchen. These young people are connected to each other in remarkable ways, in part because of cell phones but also because they seem to understand the importance of being together, especially in terrible times.
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July 17 update, by OLGS. Louise and I were away for a bit. Minneapolis Police have not made an arrest in the case. The Police are still seeking information about the murder. The phone number is 612-692-TIPS (8477)
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School lunch

Got a notice the other day that Joe High School's lunch account will expire. Given that I'm a gal of a certain age, the notion of an online lunch account, where no sordid money ever changes hands, is quite wonderful. The lunch account manager just sends you an email when there is no more money in the account, you transfer money from your checking account, and bing, it's done. Ain't modern technology grand?

All very interesting. What's even more amazing is that Joe High School now actually eats lunch (or did until Tuesday, the last day of school in the benighted Midwest). When I made lunch for him or he made his own lunch, it was seldom eaten and the dead PB & J sandwiches turned up in his backpack months later with interesting turquoise blue mold on them. When I gave him cash to buy lunch, it was usually spent on candy or potato chips because, he said, school lunch was incredibly bad. Now he eats lunch. I can tell because there's a report that one can access online. Because of the beef tacos consumed (he's a vegetarian) I suspect that he's also feeding a dozen or so close personal friends from his lunch account. Whatever.

Rain in June, Minnesota-style

Historically, June is the rainiest month in Minnesota. And this year is no exception. It's been raining, off and on, for at least a week. Why do brides in the state with more than 10,000 lakes risk ruining their big day with even more water?

I remember six years ago, when Joe College Grad was supposed to graduate from Minneapolis South High. He wasn't even at the ceremony, because he was off at a debate tournament. It rained and rained. In those days, the ceremony was held in the grubby football field outside the school -- the backup plan was the near-by YWCA basketball arena. There were no seats in the arena, except for the grads. Pretty terrible, so I'm glad he wasn't present.

By the time Joe-College-on-Leave graduated, the ceremony had been moved permanently to the Augsburg College fieldhouse. Much better, although there is something to be said for the great outdoors. But not in June.

The Twin Cities last night: Joe High School at the "U", Sen. Obama at the "X"

by OLGS, guest blogger

Last night, Joe High School and I went to an orientation session at the University of Minnesota (the "U") for metro area students admitted into the PSEO program. PSEO stands for Post-Secondary Education Options. The Minnesota state legislature provides funds for hundreds of high school seniors to take college-level classes on college campuses. Joe applied and got admitted for next year and last night showed up for orientation.

The "U" staff tried hard to keep the attention of the 400 or so students and family members in attendance. The staff provided handouts, pocket planners, a PowerPoint show, cookies & lemonade, but still, no high school kid wants to sit still through a two-hour orientation session. Even I got a little bored with trying to follow the specifics of how to read the online class schedule and how to pick a Chemistry lecture and lab section. Mercifully, the PSEO orientation session ended a little after 8:00 p.m.

When Joe and I got to the car, we turned on the radio to listen to coverage of Senator Clinton's expected end-of-campaign speech from New York, and Senator Obama's expected victory speech from the Excel Energy Center (the "X") in St. Paul. The radio reporter live on the scene at the "X" said that the senator was in the building and that only about one-half the seats were filled. I asked Joe: "Should we drive over to the X and see the next president for ourselves?" Joe answered: "Let's go home and ask Mom if she wants to go." Mom--Louise--had baked a rhubarb cake. Joe dived into the cake and forgot the next president getting ready to speak in an arena with apparently plenty of empty seats and only about a ten-minute drive from our house. Under questioning from Louise, Joe admitted that he had homework that he had not completed. Therefore, Joe, Louise, and I passed on the chance to go see Sen. Obama deliver what some commentators said was the first of two nomination acceptance speeched (the other one to come in Denver in August).

Meanwhile, at the X, about 40,000 people had lined up for the 18,000 seats inside. The reason the arena was only half-full when the radio reporter gave his account was that so many people were still outside waiting to pass through security and the metal detectors. By 9:00 p.m., the place was packed and 20,000 people outside followed along on outdoor giant screens.

Louise and I listened at home on the radio. The senator mentioned four places in American history where Americans made their own history: Philadelphia in 1787, Antietam and Gettysburg in the Civil War, Omaha Beach in 1944, and the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965. The people in the X last night certainly felt that they were making history watching their candidate accept his party's nomination.

Swim Time

Here it is again. Minnesota Boys High School Swimming. For the next three months, Joe High School will be the long distance guy for Minneapolis South High. The first meet is Wednesday--stay tuned. Today there was no practice. Rather, there was a chewing out by the coaches. Apparently some of the swimmers are getting out of the pool before the end of practice to avail themselves of the YMCA sauna.

Being a high school athlete is tough. Joe had wanted to take a class at MCTC, the local community college, but it will be hard to get there during the school day and still have time for swim practice. We'll see. But he is remarkably determined to take calculus before he graduates from high school. The only way he can do it is to take pre-calculus outside of the normal school day or year. Summer school, anyone?

Back to School

Here it is again. This calendar has governed my whole life, spent on the periphery of academe as it has been. OLGS started today, although he had no classes. But he did have 45 freshmen advisees. Joe High School and Joe College also started today. Joe High School has a schedule that includes two classes he's already taken before. They don't have the teachers and sections at Minneapolis South High to give him what he requested, but I will not allow him to take classes he's already taken. I can't begin to spell out how stupid that is. Joe College seems on track, although the AFSCME staff at the U of M are planning to strike on Wednesday. I've urged him to buy his books, but he hasn't. So unless they settle tonight, he (and 49,999 other students) is out of luck.

And so it goes, Academe is not a bad life, as such things go. But OLGS does not recommend it to either his students or his sons. Especially in public institutions, the urge to justify the educational activities of the place to the yahoos who provide the funding has lead to some truly nutso stuff. And the mossback legislators, all of whom benefitted from atending schools like the University of Wisconsin or the University of Minnesota, seem to feel that now that they and their children are out of college, it's OK to turn off the spiggot. Not surprising, but sad for the community, the state, and the country.

Minneapolis school conferences

It's school conference time in Minneapolis. It probably is where you live, too. Joe College Grad, who is teaching first grade in the Bronx, reported that he had sandwiched in parent-teacher conferences in between the high holy days and Columbus day. Apparently few parents attended.

That's not the case at Minneapolis South High, where I'm doing PT conferences for the third time. Most of the teachers are now familiar faces, and there are lots of middle aged parents milling around, learning that little Sean or Nick or Emily is doing very well.

And that's the problem with PT conferences, of course. The families who should come don't. Kids who have marginal school performance often have families who are diengaged from their school life. And it's easy to become disengaged. Now that I have kid #3 at South High, Joe High School, I feel as if I know the ropes. I don't pay as much attention to details as I did 8 years ago, when Joe College Grad hit South with a bang.

But education is the pre-eminent value in our family, so my disengagement probably registers as over-involvement on some meters. But what really struck me this time was that all the teachers are old, over 50. And that, of course, is the result of the funding scene in Minneapolis for schools. There is no money for teachers, and only the most senior have been able to hold on to their jobs.

And while there is some benefit to having a teacher who really knows what he or she is doing, there is also some benefit to having fresh perspective, energy, and gratitude for the job. And there is really major benefit to having enough teachers that you don't have to have 38 kids in a French II class. That is really disgraceful, and any Republican who tells you otherwise should have to teach that class for a week, although I suspect that they won't know French....

Back to school

Another year has come and gone. I measure the passage of time by the turning of the year in September, rather than in January. From early childhood on, my calendar was the academic one. But there are lots of other ways of marking the passage of time and the changing seasons. There are religious calendars, and until the industrial era (sort of), the Gregorian calendar followed the Christian one, with the beginning of the year, or its end, somewhere around Easter, depending. There is the fiscal calendar, which begins in July or October or January, depending. The Jewish New Year takes place in September or October, depending. Chinese New Year, the Hindu New Year, and other festivals marking the new year take place sometime in January. It depends.

Here in flyover land, and mandated by state law, public schools cannot start until after Labor Day, when the State Fair is over and all the resorts have closed for the season and there is no longer any need for cheap, teenage labor. But private schools, whose students apparently don't need to work at the State Fair, usually return before that sacred date. Of course, there are places in the US--Aroostook County, Maine, for example--where school starts at the beginning of August and then stops so that all available hands can work the potato harvest or bring in the hay or whatever. And then it restarts again, and kids return to the classroom, or become fishing guides, or drop out. Depending.

South High Minneapolis

My third son, Joe High School, started at Minneapolis South High this week. He will be in all tenth grade classes as a ninth grader except for French. Since he has a tin ear, I suspect French, or any spoken language, will be difficult, despite his native smarts. He should have taken Latin, which they offer. That way there would be no worries about the accent.

He is the third of my kids to enter the Liberal Arts program at Minneapolis South. This is the district's effort to provide a prep school program at public school prices. In addition to Latin, they offer Ojibwe, most AP classes, and really fine music and theater programs. This is all done on a very small budget--one that's become ever smaller since my first kid (Joe College-Grad) hit South High eight years ago. Despite this, Minneapolis South High is one of the jewels in the otherwise rusty crown of Minneapolis education. But it won't continue for much longer. The classes are large--usually more than 35 students. This is not good, and it's not improving. Go to South High Sucks to get a pretty good view of what's happening to a once fine urban school.

I've offered to send him (and his brothers) to St. Paul Academy, where the average class size hovers around 15 at worst. I firmly believe that it's class size, not the qualifications of the teachers, that separates the sheep from the goats, educationally speaking. Minneapolis South has some outstanding teachers.

But those boys won't go. All their friends go to Minneapolis South. Moreover, going to an inner city school gives kids an edge when they enter the real world, whether it's at college on the south side of Chicago, or teaching first grade in an elementary school in New York City. So I've let them choose public schools.

And when I attend the South High concerts, I am amazed both by the abilities of the kids to make music, and the ability of the conductor to develop a coherent and skilled voice from a disparate gro