For a Change, Students Critique Administrators and Teachers
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 29, 2007; Page T03
Students from four Prince George's County high schools asked their teachers and administrators for more recognition, a looser dress code, refurbished buildings and better food at a quarterly meeting of the Region I Student Coalition last week.
About 50 students from Potomac, Crossland, Oxon Hill and Friendly high schools met in the Potomac High media center Thursday to have a candid conversation with their adult leaders. After a warm-up, music and speeches by the invited guests, including Superintendent John E. Deasy and student school board member Leslie D. Hall, the students got down to business, discussing what would help bolster academic achievement.
  WILLIAM CHIN |
"Please, be brutally honest," Pamela Robinson, an instructional specialist, told the students.
They were.
One group of students wrote that students with low grade-point averages should be rewarded for improvement just as star students are recognized for having top grades. Some said school food is not varied enough, and that in science classes they could not do experiments properly because they were in temporary buildings.
Jasmine Ross, a senior at Potomac, said that students should not miss classes, but added that teachers also had attendance problems on occasion.
"Everybody knows which teacher is late," Ross said. "You don't want to come to a class where you sit there for 90 minutes doing nothing."
"Our walls are yellow. They have holes in them," said Brittany Birdsong, a junior at Friendly. "You can't learn with mousetraps in the corner."
Birdsong added that the uniform policy was too strict.
"The uniforms really took away from our individuality," she said. "If you want our grades to improve, we can't be restricted."
The administrators watching were sympathetic to some of the complaints.
"We know that the quality of the teacher impacts the quality of instruction," said Janice Briscoe, the Region I superintendent, adding that they are trying to improve the rigor of training for teachers as well as students.
