Technologically, La Mesa Middle School stuck in late 1990s

To the editor:

La Mesa Middle School is a sad, misguided relic of the 20th century

Grades sent home on paper.  Teachers who refuse to use email or post assignments or grades online.  Online school calendars not kept current.  Fascist administrators. Policies that stifle students’ personal development.  Administrators who insist that Facebook is an irrelevant form of communication.  

Yes, this is the state of affairs at the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District.  Most notably at La Mesa Middle School.  

My son has recently completed his schooling with the district—from kindergarten through eighth grade.  It’s been a roller-coaster nine years.  Here’s a smattering of his experiences at La Mesa Middle School:

• He’s received “In School Suspension” for not sitting in his ASSIGNED SEAT during lunch.  Yes, lunch.
• He’s been reprimanded for speaking with another classmate during passing-time in the hallways.
• He watched a dozen of his classmates get marched off for discipline (some of them suspended from school) because they witnessed a fight during PhysEd.  
• He spent 2½ days of manual labor rearranging classrooms at the direction of the principal—during the academic school year. He got 2½ days without instruction. Great for a school where fewer than half of the students are considered proficient in math or social studies.
• His report card has never been posted online.
• He’s never had a teacher who posted the current week’s assignments online (at least not during the current week).

Technologically, La Mesa Middle School is stuck back in the late 1990s.  Teachers have email addresses.  Not all of them use them.  Over 40% of the school’s teachers, as of 3/31/2011, did not have active websites.  Of the remaining, only two teachers had weekly assignment schedules that were current.  Most didn’t have any time-sensitive or relevant information.  

For the last three years at Back to School Night, we’ve listened to my son’s teachers describe how excited they are to have these new online tools.  My wife, an IT professional, has offered her services on a volunteer basis to all of my son’s teachers to help them set up their websites, so that they could post grades and assignments online.  

Not one has asked.  Not one has even come close to effectively using the tools available to them.  

For three years, we have struggled to keep abreast of our son’s studies in a timely fashion, envious of parents in other schools who could simply look online for the day’s topic of instruction and assigned homework.  What a luxury it must be to not have to harangue teachers to keep us apprised of our son’s progress!

How is it that La Mesa Middle School has been allowed to fall behind in the adoption of technology?  It is from a lack of leadership beginning with the principal, leading to the superintendent, and ending with the LMSV Board of Education.

When I questioned the principal, Beth Thomas, about the teachers’ use, or lack thereof, of email and online tools, I was told that she could not force them.  How is this possible?  Can the principal not dictate policy?  The superintendent?   

I sent a letter to the superintendent of schools and the Board of Education, bringing this to their attention.  I didn’t get so much as an emailed response or form letter——clearly it is not a priority.

What Principal Beth Thomas does have as a priority is sanitizing the “middle school” experience for the students in her care.  Students have spent large portions of their school careers with most of their in-school interaction confined solely to their core group of classmates—25 or so students who sit together in class, move together between classes, sit together at lunch, etc.  

They’re not permitted to sit with their chosen group of friends at lunch, nor to speak with another student in the hallways.  What kind of experience is this?  How do you learn to get along with people of different academic, social or ethnic backgrounds if you are forbidden from interacting with them?

This is a principal who has little regard for the sanctity of the classroom and lacks time-management skills.  Not once have we had a Back to School Night follow the pre-programmed schedule, which leads to mass confusion as bells go off and she drones on endlessly over the PA system.

Students and teachers complain of her frequent interruptions via the PA System and in person, while classes are in progress.  The last band and orchestra concert of the year—where students get to show off their hard-won skills, was scheduled for the same time as Helix High graduation (two years in a row), forcing students to choose between performing or seeing their siblings graduate.  (Lots of empty seats in the band for that concert.)  

You can’t imagine the parking nightmare this causes for the entire neighborhood.  

It’s been a tough three years, and frankly, we can hardly believe that the school is so far behind its peers when it comes to the use of modern communication tools.   

Let this letter be a challenge to the district and the school board to take the next 60 days and make the necessary changes to policy to utilize current technologies and improve the experience of students and parents at La Mesa Middle School.

John Garrod
La Mesa resident and concerned parent