By Tony Cruikshank and Leah Shoberg
Mini-School is considering a new policy. In order to give more students a chance to be in Mini, the staff has to choose some students to drop. In order to aid in the selection the staff thinks that if a student doesn’t earn more than three quarters of a credit per quarter for two consecutive quarters that the student will get dropped. The following is two opposing view points of the policy.
The pro side: It seems to me that there is an increasing number of students in Mini that don’t take advantage of the program. It isn’t that hard to get credit in Mini-School. All you really need to do is pay attention. Which means to earn 1 credit all that you really have to do is make it to school for four hours and stay awake. How hard can that be?? Plus Mini gives you credit for having a job.
Which means the majority of Mini-School is being handed credit for something that they should be doing anyway. Is this a sweet deal or what? What if the student just finds themselves in a hole or rut or whatever you want to call it and doesn’t do so well. Will this student get dropped for having bad karma? No! Of course not! Every now and then everyone falls into a slump {myself included}.
So to make sure that it was a true level of performance, you have to have two quarters of inadequate performance to get yourself dropped. After one not so great quarter you know that you are going to have to put your nose to the grindstone.
Talk to the Mini-School teachers. They are some of the most understanding people anywhere. If you let them know that you are really trying they will help you out. Which is another benefit of being in Mini-School. If you aren’t using the program to your advantage and are just taking up time and undeserved space then maybe you shouldn’t be in Mini. That is just my side of the issue.
The con side: {note: for argumentative purposes only} There are students who don’t take advantage of the Mini-School program! What about those people who fall into a slump? Will they have only two quarters to deal with whatever problem they have. It sounds like: “You can go ahead and deal with this problem, but you only this certain amount of time to get over it.”
Now that sounds pretty awful to me. What if some people only earn just enough credit to get by on this policy? Will a new policy be made to deal with those people who don’t perform as well as others have?
What about those people who do want to succeed and just don’t have the means to do it. There’s just so many different circumstances that pertain to so many different people, that a policy like this might make Mini look more like mainstream rather then an alternative school that deals with individual students. That’s just the other {possible} side of the issue.
Really though, the policy seems pretty fair. Mini-School teachers are very fair and understanding, but they must have some standards.