Denying students this hard-earned privilege because of drinking, drug busts, criminal acts and all sorts of other bad behavior would be one thing. An honest mistake that a student could account for after graduation is quite another.
Perhaps Bahnam and school officials should focus on more urgent tasks at hand. The Globe also reported that black and Hispanic third-graders keep producing "stubbornly low" scores on a key standardized test, even as results rise for others.
"The statewide scores are identical to those from the previous three years, and they showed that the achievement gap persists along racial and ethnic lines," the paper said. "Most white and Asian third-graders are strong readers, the scores showed, compared with just 39 percent of black students and barely a third of Hispanic students. Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll said that reading scores are good overall but that he is concerned about the gap between the highest- and lowest-scoring groups."
Maybe things would be different if they'd just learn a few life lessons, such as not losing their laptops.
Rules Set in Granite
Today's other example of bureaucracy gone silly is set 134 miles to the north in Tamworth, N.H., where the school board axed K.A. Brett Middle School librarian John Perkins.
Perkins, the Conway Daily Sun reported, is "indispensable, inspirational and computer savvy," according to his fans who testified last Tuesday at a hearing to save his position. Problem is, the 17-year-veteran of the school will be replaced as part of a bid to bring the school into line with the state's computer curriculum standards, the Sun said.
"A plan drafted by school officials will cut Perkins's job next year and replace it with two new positions, a library aide and a computer teacher -- a shift outlined in a curriculum approval request sent recently to the N.H. Department of Education for review," the Sun quoted Superintendent Gwen Poirier as saying.
Perkins told me in an interview this morning that he and five other candidates applied for the computer teaching position, and he received a letter from the school saying he is still under consideration. He is supposed to meet Poirier for an interview on Wednesday.
It's hard to say what sparked this sudden decision to drop Perkins and make him reapply for a lower-paying job. The school, according to the Sun, has been operating outside the computer curriculum guidelines for two years under a "conditional state approval."
It could be the old story that it's time for the school system to find cheaper help. Perkins started as a part-timer making $10,000 a year, and has reached the top of the full-time pay scale at $47,000. I tried to reach principal Noel DeSousa this morning to ask about this but had to leave a message.
Either way, the school system should go through its "competitive" hiring process and strongly consider keeping Perkins. It's not easy to find computer specialists who can help take care of a schoolwide computer network, work a library and teach -- these are all things that the Sun reported among Perkins's qualifications.
Not only that, he is the kind of hands-on instructor who on at least one occasion took his kids beyond the traditional "learning" role and turned them into junior researchers. Consider the book on 19th-century president Franklin Pierce that Perkins published with the children's help. According to the Franklin Pierce Bicentennial Web site (there really is one), proceeds from sales of the book go toward a scholarship fund for the students who worked on the project.
