More and more, and yet more again, Riverhead’s school system suffers. And it has much to do with community apathy. We shake our heads while others defend the indefensible. The different schools in our district continue to fall below standards. The system in turn fails to correct it. Recently, state officials once again had a good start. They assessed and then cited three of our schools in Riverhead as having far too many failing students. Then, however, the system once again fell apart so badly as to seem rigged.
As these poor performances pile on, all the schools have to do in response is to submit “self-reviews.” They grade themselves. With a grade range of “highly effective,” “effective,” “developing,” and “ineffective,” Riverhead’s administrators never, but never, rate themselves or their schools as ineffective. It has never
happened and never will. Instead, they are always “developing,” drafting yet more “plans” which, they assure the state powers-that-be, will work just fine.
Talk to some present and former school board members, and one will find that this rigged system has so well settled in as to have morphed into a culture going nowhere. The elected board of education of Riverhead seems mesmerized by the top-heavy administration. Rather than setting policy for the superintendent and managers to carry out, and oversee how they do it, the board and administrators are often a happy, cordial little group not receptive to criticism. And oversight is just not in anyone’s vocabulary.
Far too many problems – a poor graduation rate, previously inadequate background checks of bus drivers, some students without adequate grades to play sports ending up on the teams anyway, the school district’s annual payment of $11,300 to subscribe to NYSSBA for “updates,” hiring uncertified teachers in the hope that they will someday pass the required exams; even low quality food services in the cafeterias, as well as these alarming assessments from the state – are addressed by the board and their administrators with one common approach: absolutely no one is held accountable.
Let’s not overlook the litany of unwieldy problems presented to our schools every day: too many parents who either inexcusably, or owing to their jobs or personal problems, disconnect from their children’s school work, or who regard academic demands in the classroom as threatening and unfair; some weak teachers eternally protected by tenure; and ever-increasing numbers of kids who have trouble with the English language. In that last category alone, Riverhead High School last year had an influx of 160 students with English as a second language, and 60 more so far this year.
Many students do quite well in Riverhead, and are blessed with an excellent education offered by some remarkable teachers, coaches and administrators. But the decline overall is beginning to overshadow this, and deserves public scrutiny far more intense than it gets.
What underlies much of the problem in Riverhead’s schools, however, happens to be us — we the people. This is because all authority, in any level of government in America, including in our schools, derives from the people. In the Riverhead School District, we the people are blissfully uninvolved, don’t care, are too busy, or just plain fed up. Not only does a declining school district hurt our kids, it also hurts our community. It even impacts the value of our homes. About 20 years ago, a civil libertarian, James Bovard, made an interesting observation, “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”
The Riverhead school board only meets two times per month. Yes, there’s no salary, but now more than ever, we need local citizens to volunteer to serve on it. And yes again, it means going out for votes, in short, politics. But consider how our apathy creates a vacuum, filled by the influences of those who review themselves. Thousands of years ago, Pericles warned us about this very kind of apathy: “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” Maybe he had us and our kids in mind.
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Greg Blass has spent his life in public service since he enlisted in the U.S. Navy as a teenager. He has worked in the private sector as an attorney and served six terms representing the East End in the Suffolk County Legislature, where he was also presiding officer. Greg has worked as an adjunct professor at Suffolk County Community College, as Greenport village attorney, as N.Y. State family court judge and as Suffolk County social services commissioner. Now retired, Greg is active in volunteer work and is a member of the board of directors of several charities. A resident of Jamesport, he and his wife Barbara have two grown children.
Send Greg an email.
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