Assistant Principal Elvena Colbert sent out an e-mail stating that all underperforming students would now be required to sit on the front row in classrooms.Works for us!
But Colbert didn't quite phrase it that way. She specified that those required were only the Black male students.
We still don't see the problem!
Principal James Broussard later sent out an e-mail urging staff to disregard the one distributed by Colbert. Broussard's e-mail explained that the intent was to identify students who received low Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills scores.
Then, teachers would have those students sit toward the front of the class or change the seating chart so they could be more easily engaged in classroom discussions, said Willis Mackey, Beaumont assistant superintendent.
"People want to beat (students) down and talk down at them," he said. "We need to have the ones who are not successful and put them on the front row. Kids who are not excelling need special attention. ... Why are we letting kids sit on the back row and fall asleep or look out the window?"
He said it is not a black and white issue but one about economically disadvantaged students.
No, it's definitely a Black issue. It's a lack of male role model issue, a celebrating of all things gangsta issue, a unwillingness to stop dancing around this crisis and call it out issue!
Many of our Black boys are the most unmotivated, unfocused, underachieving, disrespectful, disruptive and disdained students in the classroom. Nationwide! And this comes from Black teachers!
With data consistently showing these boys performing poorly, what do you do when only 50 percent of these young brothers pass state assessments in math and science?
Mackey, who visits Ozen, Texas about four times a week and sees how teachers are trying to come up with inventive ways to encourage students, urged members of the group to identify low-performing students and mentor them throughout the year.
"They (the young men) need to sit in front of the classroom and not in the back dozing off. ... There is no intent of anybody for all the black kids to go to the front or black males to go to the front." He added members of the group want the low-performing students to be more aggressive about their education by paying attention in class and not "pass notes" or "goof off."
Roberto Flores, League of United Latin American Citizens, said on the outset it seemed to forget other groups but that once he understood the goal was to encourage low-performing students it made sense.
"I think everything got lost in interpretation," Flores said, adding he understands how some students want to just skate by in school.
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