peace caren,

i am forwarding you this link from last week's (last friday to be exact) "big news".  i know this story broke out even in San Diego (news and newspaper)!!!

the school mentioned is the same school both Joanna and Beverly (students i brought to your class) and a host of my other former students attend.  it is also the same school that has been notriously in the media for the past few years.  its about to be taken over by "greendot" which is basically making it a business run charter school... privitization in education.

anyway, i send this to you to further illustrate my point and address some of the concerns of your students... of the realities the students in the area i teach (and those like them nationwide) have to go through.  roughly 250+ students (including my student joanna) had their parents keep them from coming to school the following monday and for this week there were cops patrolling the campus (more than the usual).  they even had the students separated by race

these are hard topics to breach, i know, but as a teacher who has students that feed into schools like that... have older relatives that currently deal with that, etc... we always have to ask ourselves what we are willing to do... how far will we address these issues that the students come in with? 

luckily the backlash hasnt been so severe and the folks i know (joanna and beverly included) were not directly affected even though people tried to start stuff with joanna.

well just thought i'd pass on the happenings

peace

laurence

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24555065/from/ET/