Pretty clear what the respondents to this little News14 insta-poll want CMS to do with kids who walk out of school: Suspend them. Almost 70 percent of clickers choose that option.
And again, the side-story here is that some CMS high school principals were prepared to do that until the sharpies at the Ed Center undercut them by announcing that any walk-outs would be counted as an unexcused absence. That is CMS-speak for “no biggie,” and at worst puts the kids in line for some magical “recovery” time, the time-bending CMS practice of allowing a couple of hours on Saturday or after school to “recover” days and days of missed school. With effectively no punishment for walk-outs, it is no surprise we’ve seen more of them — and will continue to see more.
But CMS absolutely, positively cannot abide principals being in charge of discipline in the schools. No, that must be micromanaged from the Ed Center, all lip-service about autonomy and de-centralizing power to the contrary.
You watch, now that the community is inflamed on this topic, CMS will soon issue some complicated directive telling principals to suspend students who walk-out — possibly, maybe, if 87 different tests are met. And that will be a solution worse than the problem.
The real problem, as always, is the bullet-proof, brain-dead CMS bureaucracy.
