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2015 Parsimony Award nominee — Principal Joan Monroe [Darleen Click]

For excluding 100 poor kids from the school carnival

PS 120 in Flushing held a carnival for its students on Thursday, but kids whose parents did not pay $10 were forced to sit in the auditorium while their classmates had a blast.

Close to 900 kids went to the Queens schoolyard affair, with pre-K-to-fifth-grade classes taking turns, each spending 45 minutes outside. The kids enjoyed inflatable slides, a bouncing room and a twirly teacup ride. They devoured popcorn and flavored ices. DJs blasted party tunes.

But more than 100 disappointed kids were herded into the darkened auditorium to just sit or watch an old Disney movie while aides supervised — the music, shouts and laughter outside still audible. […]

“Are we being punished?” one child asked an aide in the auditorium as kids sat there with no movie playing, a staffer said.

Principal Joan Monroe tacked up a list of the number of students per class: “How many attending, Paid,” and “How many not attending, Not paid.” […]

Another teacher was sickened by the inequity.

“If you are doing a carnival during school hours, it should be free,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s one kid or 200 sitting in the auditorium. They all should have been out there.”

Frank Chow, president of the parents association that sponsored the carnival, said Monroe insisted that kids whose parents didn’t pay could not partake.

“She was saying it’s not fair to the parents who paid,” Chow said. “You can’t argue much, I guess. The school is under her.”

Hopefully, not for long.

62 Replies to “2015 Parsimony Award nominee — Principal Joan Monroe [Darleen Click]”

  1. Ernst Schreiber says:

    In the prior post, we’re mocking some schmuck who actually thinks she grew up poor in today’s United States. Now we’re calling for the head of a principal who, I would argue, refused to go along with the prevailing socialist paradigm (“If you are doing a carnival during school hours, it should be free,”) because that would be unfair to the parents who paid for their children to participate in the carnival.

    Am I the only one who sees the irony here?

  2. happyfeet says:

    failmerican public schools serve two basic functions –

    they’re a make-work program for stupid women who can’t get real jobs

    and secondly they perform a valuable service in providing free daycare for parents who cannot afford to send their kids to a real school

    It’s hard to see how the performance of either of these two core objectives justifies the hosting of a carnival.

  3. Ernst Schreiber says:

    It’s the end of the school year moron.

  4. happyfeet says:

    woo and also hoo

  5. Why does anyone feed ‘feets?

    Starve him for the attention he craves and lives for.

    Too many threads get damaged by his rank Stupidity.

  6. Darleen says:

    Ernst

    I don’t believe the carnival should be “free”, but there should be some provision to help out the kids whose families couldn’t send $10.

    It WAS punishing the kids by putting them in an auditorium while the others played outside. It so smacks of detention.

    When I was a band booster mom there were some families of kids who just weren’t able to scrape all the money necessary to have the kids go on tour … I made it a point to make sure there was enough money from our fundraisers to help subsidize these kids.

  7. Darleen says:

    griefer

    the carnival was hosted by the parent association — partially as a fund raiser for the next year. I’ve done so many of these in one form or another for years.

    Oh, btw…. fuck off.

  8. happyfeet says:

    that is not nice Darleen

    i read your post and i gave to you, freely and with utmost serious, my considered thinkings about the public schools

    and you, in turn, offer only withering scorn in return

    and i am out of coffee

  9. happyfeet says:

    *seriousness* i mean

  10. edrobotguy says:

    I’m with feets on this one. Children are supposed to be in school to learn what they need to know to become responsible adults. Do a fundraising carnival on the weekend, not during the hours the teachers are being paid to teach.

    Otherwise, why have your kids in school at all?

  11. Ernst Schreiber says:

    we’re talking ten bucks to cover the cost of inflatables, popcorn etc. Not the cost of taking the school band on tour. And if it was a PTA fundraiser, as you’ve said, then the parents who didn’t want to pay should have expected their kids to sit it out. I’m tired of the free lunch mentality. Feed your own damn kids.

  12. LBascom says:

    Life is t fair. Big newsflash. When I was in school there was all kinds of shit going on I (or more accurately, my parents) couldn’t afford. Unfortunatly, my family only won a few three figure scratch-offs, not life’s super lotto. One learns to cope.

  13. LBascom says:

    Here’s an n, use as needed.

  14. LBascom says:

    In a country where the biggest problems are bad weather and poor obese people, it’s hard to get worked up over the poor dears having to spend the afternoon watching cartoons instead of going down the water slide.

  15. LBascom says:

    Speaking of the lotto, I bet at least half the kids whose parents didn’t pay spend $10 a week on lotto tickets. Their priorities probably should be examined before the schools.

  16. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I was thinking along the same lines.

  17. LBascom says:

    Also, while I’m on the subject, I can damn well guarantee most of the problem with the quality of public school education can be placed squarely on parents that take no part in their own kids education at best, and actually hinder it with their own screwed up attitude at worst.

    Trust me, my parents were teachers, I saw the letters they got from parents complaining about the poor grades little Johnny earned but didn’t deserve because he’s entitled to better.

  18. newrouter says:

    >Also, while I’m on the subject, I can damn well guarantee most of the problem with the quality of public school education can be placed squarely on parents that take no part in their own kids education at best, and actually hinder it with their own screwed up attitude at worst. <

    blame it on the matriarchy. you go grrl.

  19. newrouter says:

    not LBascom

    the matriarchy shaft style

  20. Rich Fader says:

    Not wanting to be unfair to the kids whose families paid is one thing. Making the kids who weren’t paid for sit in the auditorium and listen to the festivities strikes me as being tacky and cruel to them. So I’m having a very difficult time feeling sorry for this woman getting the New York tabloid treatment. I really am.

  21. McGehee says:

    If I were responsible for arranging that day’s festivities I would have distributed tickets to the kids whose parents ponied up, and those with tickets could go in the fun houses or water slides.

    How any given kid wound up with tickets once outside — short of robbery — would have been no concern of mine.

  22. happyfeet says:

    if I were responsible for arranging that day’s festivities i would be seriously questioning my life choices

  23. McGehee says:

    You’d make a better straight man than Bud Abbott.

    If you were…

  24. bgbear says:

    The kids only spent 45 minutes each at the carnival so they still had some instruction so that criticism is weak.

    I would have had the non payment kids help set up and or clean up afterwards as their payment. Maybe kids aren’t allowed do such things today. If so, that is where I would focus my rant.

  25. 11B40 says:

    Greetings:

    I was the beneficiary of 13 years of Catholic education (with no do-overs) back in the Bronx of the ’50s and ’60s. The understanding that I got was that the local Catholics thought it might be a good thing if they put their hands in their own pockets to develop the intellects and character of their future generations as opposed to turning those youngsters over to the minions of the state.

    That being said, in my junior year of high school, we had a class trip to an upstate “dude ranch” (original meaning of “dude”) that required students and no doubt their families to pony up some cash. Some students went on the ersatz cowboy adventure some didn’t. Some were missed and some weren’t. Significant amounts of weeping and nashing did not seem to occur.

    Call me parsimonic if you must, but this country is awash in idiot-level compassion, accomplishment-free self-esteem, and false equalities. That this principal passed on an opportunity to help grow a sense of entitlement from the state is not a bad thing in my eyes. Possibly, it could have been handled somewhat differently, but as I learned back in the Bronx, “money talks…”. I don’t seem to recall that being an unuseful lesson.

  26. McGehee says:

    Money does talk — and like a lawyer, it will happily speak for anyone that has it.

  27. McGehee says:

    A ten may not have much to say, but it’ll speak.

  28. Darleen says:

    11b40

    Going away on a trip is one thing … the activity is taking place elsewhere and the left behind kids weren’t being publicly humiliated.

    and even on our band tours, not everyone went for a variety of reasons. I just made sure that those that really wanted to go where the finances of their family were the issue got some help.

    I didn’t attend my Grad night from high school because I just wasn’t interested.

    There were a lot of different ways this carnival could have been handled. Even setting it up on a Saturday with only those kids with tickets allowed in would have been preferable.

  29. Darleen says:

    Speaking of the lotto, I bet at least half the kids whose parents didn’t pay spend $10 a week on lotto tickets. Their priorities probably should be examined before the schools.

    Lee, I don’t disagree. But you don’t treat the kids of such parents cruelly. And that’s what this principal did.

    That is my objection.

  30. 11B40 says:

    Greetings, Darleen: ( @ May 25, 2015 at 10:29 am )

    One of my father’s oft repeated mantras ( second perhaps only to “You shouldn’t have to drink the ocean to know it’s salty.”) was “Practice your patience; enjoy your deprivations.” I don’t come across that latter bit much any more.

    My argument admits that the situation could have been handled differently but, as someone who collected probably more than his share of detention slips, this isn’t exactly Beslan now is it. Even if some of those precious little snowflakes lost a couple of their fractals, I’m guessing that they’ll grow them back in a week or so.

    So, I asked myself “Why the upset?” and what I came up with for an answer was because it undermined the “idiot-level compassion, accomplishment-free self-esteem, and false equalities.” that are being repeatedly beat into thinking capacities of today’s Americans. So, the next time someone tells you that it’s all about or for the children, you might want to call to mind the Gershwin brothers’ advice that “It Ain’t Necessarily So”.

  31. sdferr says:

    Beslan. Oh memory. As today is May 25, we can substitute for Beslan the more recent Al-Houla, conducted exactly three years ago in the ribbon cutting franchise opening act of Lil’ Barry’s Halal Charnel House and Meateria.

  32. sdferr says:

    Oh, and in fairness to George and Ira, Sportin’Life’s advice is the advice of a pimp.

  33. LBascom says:

    Sorry Darleen, I find your use of “cruel” to be about as compelling as the previous posts use of “poor”.

    Your attitude, instilled in the objects of your pity, creates the kinda person that attends a 99% demonstration and shits on a police car.

    Best for the little dears to understand different people have different priorities which create different opportunities. Life ain’t really a cabaret ol’ chum.

  34. LBascom says:

    Cruel things in life:

    My 1600 sq/ft home next to the neighbors 3700 sq/ft home.
    My 10 yr old chev 1500 being passed by a new Mercedes.
    Pitching a tent next to my canoe in the same campground as that million dollar motor home pulling a powerboat.
    My NFL team not going to the Whitehouse because they lost.

    Imma going to go kill myself. GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD!!

  35. Ernst Schreiber says:

    So now watching dvds in the auditorium is humiliating and cruel? Give me a break.

  36. happyfeet says:

    apparently the dvds were really lame and it was hard to focus cause you could hear the excited yells and screams of the happy children outside whose parents love them

  37. Darleen says:

    Lee

    We are going to disagree on this. I see no advantage in being deliberately cruel to kids because of their parents.

    And public humiliation is, indeed, cruel. This isn’t about “special snowflakes” at all and has not a damned thing to do with kids who feel entitled.

    I saw lots of petty cruelty visited on kids as I was growing up. When it is from other kids — making fun of the “retard” or the kid who wears ill-fitting hand-me downs — you learn to stick up for your ‘retard’ or poor friend and help them stick up for themselves.

    But when such humiliation comes from the principal?

    Fuck her and anyone that sticks up for her.

  38. Darleen says:

    Well, Ernst, I guess as long as the detention hall has a comfy chair, no one should complain.

  39. LBascom says:

    Darleen, do you know how humiliated I was having to eat PPJ’s out of a brown sack while other kids ate hot sloppy Joes off a tray, just because their parents paid the school for it and my parents wouldn’t/couldn’t?

    That was a trick question, because I wasn’t humiliated. It was a life lesson that I like to think improved my character and gave me strength to deal with other of lifes disappointments. Gave me a proper self esteem instead of a “good” self esteem.

    Oh, and fuck you too, commie.

  40. happyfeet says:

    it’s funny how these days bringing your lunch has way more cachet than eating the shit food the school serves

    it’s cause of michelle obama raped the school lunch program to where all the food is nasty like her

    oh my goodness those poor children

  41. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Detention hall implies that those kids were being punished. The only ones punishing those kids are the ones telling them that they were being punished.

  42. LBascom says:

    That IS funny. Schools now outlaw kids bringing cookies in their sack lunch because it’s humiliating and cruel to the poor bastards that have to eat school slop.

    Which is always the end result of people so bursting with compassion they demand everyone gets a trophy…

  43. Darleen says:

    Lee

    This isn’t about your PPJ vs other kids buying regular school cafeteria food

    This would be about your PPJ if your principle posted lists of all those that could & couldn’t afford the cafeteria and then made all the kids whose parents didn’t buy lunch eat in a segregated the lunch room with a curtain with the cafeteria kids on one side and the rest on the other.

    Life itself isn’t fair, but no where is it written we add to it with unnecessary cruelty.

    When a 7 y/o has an accident in class & pees his pants, the teacher can quietly help out the kid or they can point it out to the rest of the class and perp walk the little pisser out the door. That’ll teach him to have better control of his bladder, right?

  44. McGehee says:

    I think I’d leave the pursuit of justice in this instance to those whose kids were directly affected. I’m just damn sick and tired of being expected to take sides in every damn fool thing that every damn fool does.

    All o’ y’all, check your drama!

  45. cranky-d says:

    Clearly you are a hater, McGehee.

  46. happyfeet says:

    what’s a ppj

  47. LBascom says:

    pBj it was supposed to be. And there WAS a list. Those who paid up were allowed to get in line and fill their trays, those that were not on the list mostly ate a sack lunch at their desk or outside under a tree or whatever. Without even the benefit of Donald duck cartoons.

  48. LBascom says:

    “Another teacher was sickened by the inequity.

    “If you are doing a carnival during school hours, it should be free,” she said”

    So, it sounds like 800 students who paid got rotated in and out for 45 minutes each, while 100 students who didn’t pay were left out of the rotation. This teacher would rather none got a carnival. Cuz there ain’t no free lunch carnival. So 800 have to do without because 100 didn’t want to pay.

    Sounds like a socialist modern America to me…

  49. happyfeet says:

    that’s not a lot of bang for the buck really

  50. bgbear says:

    Local folks being charitable to others is not the same as big government entitlement. A little creativity was all that was needed here.

    I was poor, I didn’t let it get to me. Missing the prom and Grad Nights at Disneyland were no big deal. This might have hurt.

  51. LBascom says:

    What a weak and pathetic generation we seem determined to leave in our wake.

    Sorry, that likely deserved a trigger warning, though whichever master, be it Islamist or Chinese, that rolls out sorry asses up probably won’t worry about such nonsense.

    What a fucking conversation to have today, of all days…

  52. edrobotguy says:

    Once again, if attendance required payment, why was the event held during school hours? It isn’t as though the teachers have nothing to do during the time they are being paid to teach. It isn’t as though the principal has nothing to do.

    Do we really send kids to school to attend carnivals and watch cartoons?

    Heck, while I’m at it, why is there a summer vacation anyhow? Do we really need to have the kids all on the farm all summer like we did 100 years ago?

    khanacademy.org

  53. parallax says:

    The principal should be excoriated for allowing the fundraiser to be held during school hours.

    The local elementary holds a yearly carnival fundraiser the last Friday of the school year. It opens 2 hours after school lets out. Those parents who don’t want to put up the bucks for the pony rides and bounce houses simply don’t drive their brats to the carnival.

    But here in the backward West we haven’t perfected the art of educating our kids to the professional and laudatory standards found in the highly-rated New York school systems that matriculate what, a full 50% of all students? Give us time, we’ll get there.

  54. bgbear says:

    It was probably being held during school hours because they wanted to maximized participation and dollars.

  55. edrobotguy says:

    That’s lame, bgbear. It costs a hell of a lot more than ten dollars per student per hour to run a school. That’s only taxpayer dollars though, being spent keeping the school open and the AC going and paying the teachers and custodians and librarian and coaches and principal to do their damn jobs.

    If carnivals and cartoons don’t fall under the category “extra-curricular”, then why should taxpayers be paying for these schools at all?

  56. bgbear says:

    I didn’t say it was logical, I just meant it may have been a motivation.

    Take a chill pill Phil.

  57. Merovign says:

    WTF is it with people who believe that capitalism and meritocracy require you to be a douchebag?

    *Free* social systems run on trust, and you can’t trust douchebags.

    I guarantee you there was a better solution to this, either by offering a chance for other parents to chip in to help those without tickets, or having those without tickets help out in exchange.

    Then again, collective systems like public schools are *always* distorted in stupid ways, so this crap is about what I’d expect.

  58. happyfeet says:

    that lady should get an award for parsonminy

  59. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Given that the classes were rotated through in 45 minute increments, it’s likely that carnival period replaced gym or recess for the day.

    Think of it as a field trip. But I suppose some of you think those ought to be free too.

  60. Ernst Schreiber says:

    BTW, the scenario I described is how the elementary school my kids attend handles “field day” the last week of the school year.

  61. Public Schools should be declared Menaces To Society.

Comments are closed.