Opportunity High School

At “special” high school where all the disruptive kids finally end up, the students came in unsmiling and bedraggled, as if they had stayed up too late the night before. Some still had wet hair and put their heads down on the tables, hiding under their parka hoods.

At “Opportunity School” the students are encouraged to develop job-seeking skills. There was a pile of magazines on a table by the podium. The students read them, listened to music and talked among themselves. I stood at the podium and took roll.

After giving them the assignment, I heard stories about why they didn’t have to do it, or had already done it. One girl asked me if I had any problems I would like to share because her specialty was problem solving. I said yes, that I needed more work. I wasn’t getting enough sub calls to manage financially. She just turned to her friends and began talking again. I guess she was just joking or trying to be the class clown and didn’t seriously think that I would answer her.

Sorting through the notes on the teacher’s desk and by asking other students I learned that their regular teacher was also a sub. They felt they had driven away the teacher and the previous sub. This is quite a spectacular fete for students – to drive away a sub. What limited power they have can be exercised in this way. Among the notes I found one of caring concern cautioning the teacher to look up Matthew 9:36-38.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

I figured the passage must be one about compassion for others. So I circulated among them, trying to find out what their future plans were. One girl had done some retail work for a while, but she quit. You can get school credit for working. You have the employer sign off on a note, which then is brought in to class after work. The girl didn’t like the work because people talked about her. I imagined she had low self-esteem, as she was overweight and shy.

Some boys were sharing pictures of their girlfriends. One boy bragged that he had a kid. When I asked him how he would care for this child he said he was a laborer and planned on going to junior college at night. I gave him kudos for this. There was such little interest in school; I asked them why they didn’t just get jobs. Some said they were too young, only sixteen.

I wondered how their grades were and if they were “socially promoted.” For years eighth-graders in the city could flunk their classes and still become high school freshmen. But in 1996 when a new majority was elected to the Board of Education, the school leaders called for minimum entrance requirements and an end to the practice of “social promotion.”

Now flunking eighth-graders find it more difficult to advance to high school as the Board of Education approves tougher rules for holding back struggling students. This school district held back 21 eighth-graders who had failed both their English and Math classes. What will happen to the failing students? Will there no longer be “Opportunity High School?”