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Wednesday December 31, 2003
PPA is dead
It is now 12:19, so it's technically tomorrow. Here's an entry.
What follows is a letter I sent to the school board following the informational chat.
Today we heard about the decision to combine PPA with McClintock and implement changes per the original proposal.
I realize that this was not your decision, and I also realize that the decision cannot be repealed or anything, but I would just like to share with you some quotes. These quotes pretty much summarize how everybody is feeling right now.
"...then this school has been a lie... then we've never been a school... we';ve been an institution that screws students over and messes with their minds!"
"my life has been messed up all because I fell in love with a school that never existed"
"and to think we could all be back at our home schools hating ppa like everyone else... if we didn';t feel the need to respond to that flyer about ppa.."
"the single decision to go to ppa has screwed us over. we could be at a normal high school living a hormal teenage life without playing political games"
Person A: "i firmly believe that 2004-2005 will be an awesome year"
Person B: "awesome for who... for the new students who never knew us... who never knew what it once was...all of us that fought so hard for this school... that loved it for what it meant to us... will be gone"
These quotes were the general consensus of the PPA population tonight, and they, quite mildly, express our sentiments on the matter. We've grown sick of the ups and downs of the battles--emotional difficulties that students shouldn't need to endure for a right to keep their school. I'm not expecting a particular affect of this email, I just thought it would only be right that our voices be heard.
I hope you realize that, because of these changes, PPA is doomed. PPA will cease to be what it was meant to be, a change that has already started. One of my friends said that she is looking forward to this change because there is nothing else left to hope for. Nothing else to put our faith in. We have hit bottom, and all that can happen is that we can improve.
Well, maybe.
But we will have lost forever what we were.
Pretty much, in case you didn't hear, the entire proposal is being implimented. When we won that night at the board meeting, we won nothing more than the right to exist for four more years. The format was up in the air for admin to decide. And, of course, Buchanan is an admin. So, the result is the latest (and successful, since this can't be repealed in any way) effort to crush PPA into nothing.
The main points of the "proposal:"
-We will be ranked
-We will not have any admin or a counselor
-We get a "director" of the program instead
-PPA curriculum is now available to all other schools freely
-We are a program under McClintock
Results:
-Ranking us hurts all students who have not cared about grades for the past three years, simply content to try their hardest at challenging classes
-No counselor means we go to MHS counseling, and so we get nowhere
-No admin means there's no one truly in touch with the students and what we need. Also no one in touch with the original goals of the Academy. So we are slowly smothered into McClintock and silenced.
-A director is basically an admin with no real power, and so nothing we need to get done gets done.
-Curriculum being available freely means no one wants to come here if they can get the same thing at their host campuses, so they won't and PPA dies
-All these changes mean instability meaning the parents of current kids pull those kids out and PPA dies.
Mark my words: this is the end. After our current freshmen graduate, there will be nothing left of PPA except a few titles and the curriculum. Everything we fought for the past three years will have been obliterated forever.
Edit: Well, I'm getting reports back from the meeting. Apparently, we will not be a program, but we will be degraded (to use your words, David). Mrs. Boles moves to district and a director takes over control of PPA. The director answers to both Mrs. Boles and Mr. Serrano. Basically, we're still our own school, just with an indirect admin at district level. And this format can't be touched for four years. Well, at least it's not completely bad.
And Mr. Perkins, if you're reading this, thank you. The rest of the board too. Apparently, even though your hands were tied, you were still able to get something out of it. Thank you for standing up for us. Honestly, thank you.
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