Wednesday, March 15, 2017

2017 - Time to Catch Up with Changes, Big and Small, Strarting Here-

Getting on to 2017

I finally took a little time to bother with finding out how to post here again and can ramble on as I feel like it since Facebook has less room for detail on most things that people just don't feel like reading.
Besides, Facebook is turning into mostly comments in the Negative realm where people just complain but never bother to give solutions or positive suggestions.

Back to local scene on LINCOLN HIGH subject-    If any memories of your LHS experience are still with you without new ones added from re-visiting as a parent, or in my case, a teacher, the days of old have largely been replaced by so much.  That includes the elimination of vocational classes from shops as well as what were called home economics. 

Here is what was changed when I was there for a couple of years to 2005:
 No more 'homerooms" that you had for the entire LHS years. Instead, roll call and announcement were done in an expanded 2nd period, whatever the  2nd period class happened to be. The "break" and regrouping of thoughts for the day and socializing with fellow students in homeroom each day was gone.   I thought was a big function of having homeroom and at least you had the same people to know for the years at LHS.

We had to have, in the 60s as I remember, 1 year of P.E. required and P.E. or sports for the rest of the semesters  which  could be substituted with ROTC.  There were lots of team sports populated by the students who chose that instead of regular P.E.   You could earn a letter in sports but not in P.E. and stay in your selected sport instead of just the P.E. activities.

That left when P.E. became something of a year or two requirement, can't remember which, and so going to the alternative of the 6th period sports was truly a choice that fewer made, weakening the population of sports teams from years past.

SCHOOL FACULTY

There was a big push by the District for getting teachers to retire as more reductions were in progress. An incentive program to make the deal sweeter was put together and many long-time faculty members pulled the pin, some a little earlier than they otherwise might have chosen, and that was that.    I can go over more about changes another time.

GETTING TO WHAT'S NOW HAPPENING-

The biggest thing to comment on now is the size of the student body, way down as more students that would be at LHS have gone to charter schools that have become so numerous, and more so in lower grades than at the high school level.  With the lower enrollment, you have less need for teachers and the 112 or so faculty that existed there in 2005, my last year at LHS, has gone down to something way lower. 

OK .    Will have to get to more another day. Many more differences at LHS that I think affect performance but will leave for another day.   City Politicians:  They continue to be weasels and disappoint, but not as disappointing as the people who register and don't vote.  Then, the ones in L.A. city (about 2 of 10 registered voters) decide to pick the SAME people that have made L.A. more expensive to live in and with a DECREASE in quality of life.  Again- leave for later post.

"Reading fatigue" is something that I noticed that students experience and I don't need to continue generating that effect right here for whoever happens to get this far in the post.   More later.