Guidance Counselor At USD 380 In Kansas Lies To A Parent

Interesting. In a state that allows students to transfer to different schools, outside of the student's home district, Tom Schroeder, the guidance counselor of Frankfort School in USD 380, noticed a parent in the public library who had tried to do this and accosted her in front of everyone about it. He insisted that Kansas offers no such options, which is contrary to what the superintendent had told the parent. Tom Schroeder's inappropriately and violently intoned rant was completely false, as the Topeka Capital Journal ran an article casually addressing the subject of transportation for out of district students! He may look enough like a circus clown to dance circles around the average frankfurter about this, but the parent he verbally attacked in public had actually heard an attorney at a USD 380 school board meeting discuss the ease and legal access Kansas parents have to schools outside their districts. So why did this parent have a problem? It all turned out to be a handful of teachers and a principal who do not understand what FERPA means. That's right, boys and girls, it wasn't legal to discuss, with cohorts, the horrors of parental disagreement with teacher criminality without a release of information from said parents. No more legal than a guidance counselor publicly yelling at the top of his lungs, before witnesses and cell phone cameras, about his lack of agreement with the parents of his students. Yet another reason to send one's children elsewhere for school; four or five children were turned into potential witnesses. Way to go, Frankfort. Thank the Gods for cell phone video, as well.

Something that the school in Frankfort would probably like to lose in the midst of all the faculty theatrics and administrative circus stunts is the reason a parent initially desired to send her children to school outside of the district. Tom Schroeder gets away with not only disrespect and public violations of federal confidentiality laws, but with driving student away from school property for sporting events and leaving them with no supervision. One child was abandoned by herself, and only made it home because she accepted a ride from a stranger. The rest of Frankfort Kansas, seven hundred and fifty people or so, thought this was funny, and the school board finds his tenure acceptable. This may be one of the reasons Governor Brownback recently signed a bill eliminating tenure for public school teachers. It sucks for the teachers who are decent, but one or two creeps like the above described guidance counselor ruins the profession for everyone.

In Hawaii, a man was recently convicted of second degree child endangerment for doing something similar, only the distance in this case was only a mile. The age of the child involved was not shared. The distance at which the Frankfort guidance counselor  abandoned his student was four miles. And when he realized she was officially missing, his response was that of going home and having dinner. Here's what the Hawaii judge, Kathleen Watanabe, had to say about cases like this: She said that it is dangerous for children to walk alongside the road due to potential pedophiles.  (Yahoo news)

Why would anyone of reasonable genetic variation want to send a child to Frankfort? Especially while Tom Schroeder is employed?

Petition Requesting Fairness Of Marysville Kansas School Board

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote this post concerning the residence of a talented high school junior in a Kansas school district that would rather cut and cut the curriculums and extra curricular activities for their students, rather than consolidate with other Kansas school districts, enabling the availability of more educational options for students. Sports, of course, was not touched; only the classes which appeal to the more artistic or intellectually inclined students, of which USD 380, Vermillion Kansas, has too few.

Rhiannon Ambrose would love to attend a school that offers forensics, speech, and drama. She also would like to sing and take music. Unfortunately, Frankfort, her home school, does not offer those classes, and when she tried to take extracurricular vocal, the music teacher denied her, reserving the slots in his choir for children who have lived in Frankfort since birth or early childhood, or whose parents have political connections in the area. He admits this, too, and says he has been doing this for over twenty-seven years, and that he is not going to change now! Okay, fine; but J.D. Gallion even took it a step further, and told Rhiannon her voice was terrible, and not to ever sing again! What a jerk! He also discriminates against anyone who does not attend a Christian church, too, and proudly discriminates in the name of Frankfort United Methodist Church, but that's another post!

Rhiannon Ambrose decided to simply ask USD 364, a neighboring school district, if she could take advantage of "open enrollment" in Kansas and attend Marysville High. The answer was "no"! Apparently, "open enrollment" is only "open" to "certain" children, even though the law and the policy, itself, state that it is open to any student in good standing!  It would be better for USD 380 to keep Rhiannon and suck up those enrollment dollars for her presence, rather than let go of her, and allow her to attend a different school, where she could happily take the classes in which she excels. I am sharing a link to the petition that was written about this, and I am asking everyone to sign it and share it. This is unfair, and it has made a political casualty out of a high school student.

Rhiannon's petition can be signed if you click on the link. Thankyou, everyone!