It may be true that no malice was intended when the Bunnell Elementary school administration and three staffers, one of them its suspension-enforcer, singled-out Black students, herded them into the cafeteria, branded them a “problem” to their face, threatened them with jail or an “early grave” if they didn’t raise their test scores, paired them off to compete against each other and promised the winners fried chicken.
It is true that all three of the staffers who choreographed this latter-day minstrelsy are Black, none of them called Tom, and that, aside from having grammar skills worse than many of the students they were addressing–failing skills the principal, a former teacher, did not flag before they flashed their flaws for all to see–none of them seemed to have the slightest idea they were reviving plantation-era menaces about raising quotas or else.
It may be true that, as far as we know, the staffers didn’t also bring in the school cop to stand there as an extra reminder of what could be ahead.
But it’s irrelevant. Put all the well-intentioned lipstick you want on last Friday’s spectacle. What took place can only be rationalized so far, especially when the motives behind those intentions, those supposed good intentions, the very motives even the district is defending, are the heart of the problem.
Because what took place at Bunnell Elementary last Friday had nothing to do with helping those students. It had everything to do with a school panicking about its risk of becoming a failing school and using Black students both as scapegoat and means to lift scores the few percentage points necessary to escape state censure and local embarrassment.
These staffers weren’t addressing a single individual student, a single human being. All they saw was a “cohort,” or a “subgroup,” as the district, even the superintendent, continues to call them without realizing the smuttiness of the term. I don’t care where children fall in the cultish jargon of education departments. They’re nobody’s “subgroup.” They’re nobody’s means to any end but their own.
That’s what Bunnell Elementary doesn’t get. More disturbingly, that’s what the district doesn’t get. It is now so routine to reduce individual students to cogs among subgroups enslaved to the expectations of standardized testing that our educators have lost sight of their purpose in all this. The state’s transformation of education into a dehumanizing machinery has a lot to do with it. Districts have to meet standards. But districts don’t have to be so complicit with the state’s blinders.
That’s why the school board’s emphasizing the next superintendent’s title as a “CEO” feeds that very obscenity, further turning students into widgets in a business of bottom lines rather than human beings to be educated for their own sake. There is a direct line between what happened at Bunnell Elementary and the school board’s surrender to running schools as a business. It’s what happens when you treat children as objects, as “sub groups.”
Of course there’s a business end to running school districts, to running any government. But that business end is limited to finances. Even then, the aim isn’t to run finances as a business–no one should be making a profit here–but to balance budgets. That’s all. Beyond finances, no single school district department is a “business.” Teaching and learning isn’t a business. Exceptional student education isn’t a business. English language arts, math, social science aren’t a business. The IB and AP programs aren’t businesses. A classroom, a media center, a counselor’s office aren’t any part of a business and shouldn’t be.
Nor should they answer to a “CEO,” but to educators at every step who keep in mind that the goal is not aggregate scores of subgroups, it isn’t bottom lines, financial or otherwise–there are no bottom lines in education–but educating the child, individually and with dignity, on the child’s terms, not the school’s, not the state’s, certainly not the “CEO”’s. That’s what child-centered education means. We say the words, only to contradict them at every turn.
We have drifted so far from those principles and have so surrendered to the mechanization of education as a set of nameless algorithms that not a single teacher, not the principal, not any of these professional educators at Bunnell Elementary batted an eye when Black students were reduced to animals and circus performers to benefit a bottom line: “We only have 32% of our students who are at a Level 3 or higher for ELA/Math,” the segregated assembly’s teachers told the students, as if that was the students’ problem. “We are supposed to have at least 41%.”
That’s all that mattered. The school’s bottom line was hurting. To that end, students were demeaned, threatened, scared, paraded, and turned against each other.
Let’s not single out Bunnell Elementary the way Bunnell Elementary singled out Blacks. We do the very same thing all the time. Every time a teacher or a principal says their goal is to mold “productive, tax-paying citizens,” they’re doing the same thing, only in seemingly less vulgar language. They’re reducing the child, the student, the human being, to a cog. They’re saying that education for its own sake is for losers. Only ends matter.
And when only ends matter, getting there by any means necessary becomes as justifiable as a segregated assembly. Of course no one batted an eye in Bunnell. Even as they were crucifying every child’s dignity, they were all thinking they were heroes, because that’s the message from the district, that’s the message from the state: get those scores up by any means necessary. The principal whose good heart no one has ever questioned even celebrated the indignities in her Tweet: “Thank you to Mr. Hines, Ms. Steed, Mr. Gabriel for loving our students and challenging them to be their best self!!” (She has since taken down the tweet.)
No one batted an eye. At least not within the school’s ramparts: one more massive disconnect between school and community. It was business as usual, in a district that wants to run its schools as a business, and where good hearts and good judgment are worlds apart. If you’re wondering how a pluralist culture that prizes individuals becomes an authoritarian bully that glorifies ends over means, this is how.
It wasn’t always so. You may recall former Superintendent Jim Tager’s “bunker” at the two high schools, bunkers designed to do exactly what the Bunnell minstrel show was attempting, but by focusing on students individually, collaboratively, and getting them to the graduation line without threats or cattle-prodding. It worked.
Tager is the only superintendent to have returned the district to an A since the days of Bill Delbrugge–another champion of the individual–almost a decade ago. And of course our school board railroaded Tager out of here the way it would his successor, the way it will LaShakia Moore if she dares perform.
We do have a subgroup problem. It’s not our students.
Pierre Tristam is FlaglerLive’s editor. A version of this piece aired on WNZF.
Note: Interim Superintendent LaShakia Moore is hosting a forum at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 29, at the G.W. Carver Center at 201 E. Drain Street, Bunnell, to discuss the fallout from the segregation assembly at Bunnell Elementary earlier this month. The district did not mention the issue in its announcement of the forum, describing it as inviting “everyone in the community to join her for a sit-down discussion on the power of school and community connections. […] This will be an opportunity to have an open dialogue with Flagler Schools administrators, local officials, community-based organizations, families, stakeholders, and students. Bring your questions, concerns, and ideas on building better connections within our Flagler Schools community.”
Eileen Araujo says
What’s done is done…only word to describe that mess is UNACCEPTABLE. Now we will see what the whispers behind closed doors and the ones who agreed and created this fiasco do to fix it. Sounds like there may be some job openings coming soon from the bottom to the top. In my opinion, there should be.
Palm Coast Citizen says
There it is.
Deirdre says
It’s painful to read this, because it applies to every school in Florida, pretty much across the country.
In actual practice, we have some of the best teachers in the state of Florida and they do celebrate the individuality of each child.
The testing is ridiculous, I hear what you’re saying about the focus being in the wrong place, I understand what you mean about sub groups, but truly Flagler County school students are lucky to have such wonderful teachers. We’re one of the most successful counties in terms of education in the state.
The problem has to do with the laws which attach funding to test scores also. The changes needed happen at the voting booths. I hate seeing our schools called out for something that every educator is dealing with across this country.
This is a conversation that needs to happen, but the actual changes happen when people vote. This includes voting for competent school board members that also celebrate the individuality of each student.
We’re spending more time and money dealing with books that someone wants banned, or fear of students who might be gay, it’s a ridiculous waste of time snd money.
Deborah Coffey says
Well said.
Cindy D says
Well said!!!
Chris says
Well I guess we know who the sexual confused are now !
Laurel says
Chris: It’s okay, we’ll support you anyway.
Jonthan says
I don’t like this article, it feels wrong, they offered the kids “McDonald’s and Chic Fil A” fast food restaurants kids love. Why say “Fried chicken”. I feel like Flagler live is taking advantage of the moment and making this more than what it is.
Chicken lil says
I agree jonathan. Chick fil A can hardly be called fried chicken and McDonalds can hardly be called food at all.
In the same way what happens in public schools all around the country can hardly be called education. It’s more aptly named programming. Memorize, regurgitate, perform. That’s the right stuff.
I don’t blame anyone of our educators. They’re in an impossible position and one can understand what they did as an act of sheer desperation.
One thing is for certain, no one will be coming to fix this problem. The system will continue to grind until the upheaval at the end of the saeculum.
Willy Boy says
The final word a new one for me, thanks.
Local says
Of course they are…”herding”…” branding”….”cattle”… many words that could have been left out of this Article.
Glad none of this staff involved were people lacking color.
Judith Michaud says
The proper thing to do was to call students, not just black ! Very poor decision by the principal and very sad what is happening in our school system !
Leila says
How sad that our new Superintendent has only had the job days and she and the board are attacked. I am so sorry for these teachers, students and parents here who live under this cloud of constant judgement before the facts are all known.
These kids don’t stand a chance. Back off and allow them to breathe. No wonder nobody wants to teach in this country anymore.
Deborah Coffey says
No. No one wants to teach anymore BECAUSE of what is written here. The problem isn’t the teachers and their beautiful students…the problem is at the top. It’s with the state, the school boards and the administrations. It truly is a top-down problem. What happened at Bunnell Elementary is a world class disaster!
Laurel says
Pierre: You hit the nail on the head.
I’m going to go in a different direction for a minute. Now, will the voucher system leave these kids in a worsening situation? The high achievers will have less supplies, less support, less upgraded classrooms, and the moderate and low achievers will be left twisting in the wind.
Deborah Coffey says
Spot on, Laurel.
Brian says
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The faces of this crew in the picture accompanying the article speak volumes.
Not Shocked says
Why anyone could expect any other outcome when the voting citizens of the Flagler School district elected a school board member who ‘graduated’ from the ‘school of hard knocks’.
Mom says
“Promised the winners fried chicken” Sir, you are part of the problem. There is absolutely no excuse for what occurred at BES. Your choice in words further adds fuel to the racial fire. They were offered fast food. Why not use those words instead? Why choose a term to with racist undertones?
Pierre Tristam says
Harsh, I agree, but not nearly as harsh as the horrors of that day, about which nothing was an undertone, and everything was premised on racist assumptions. (Incidentally, not “offered,” bribed.)
Xxxxxxx says
So very wrong and unacceptable…what ever happened to trying to help students with tutoring…extra help….instead of putting them in a room to single them out why not put them in a classroom to tutor them help them where they are struggling ….all in all it’s down right wrong what was done to those children ….try helping them….not threatening them and a reward of fried chicken if they do better how about helping them achieve higher so when they get older there reward will be I made it over hurdles thru school and look where I am now living a life that I worked hard for.
Zuffalina says
Bravo Pierre. Well said.
Here is a rundown of what I’ve heard from neighbors, friends and local business owners since school opened and BEFORE the current incident. These comments were unsolicited and many of these people do not share my political views, but they are all good parents concerned about their children and they know I have an interest in education and have been involved with supporting opportunities for Flagler County students for many years.
1. A woman with children at Bunnell Elementary spoke to me of her concerns regarding the level of experience of the Bunnell principal. She said she would give it time but was looking at alternatives.
2. Another parent questioned the short staffing at the school.
3. Another parent talked about the confusion and lack of coordination of the school buses.
4. Another mother mentioned the unfortunate occurrence that on “meet the teacher” day there were classes with no teacher to meet.
5. And one parent said that one of her neighbor’s children came home from the 1st day of school and said he could not understand his teacher because her grasp of the English language was not adequate.
Sad but true. We are destroying the public school system in this county and this state. And Florida is the blueprint for others elsewhere seeking the same outcome.
A final note. Little Flagler County has achieved outsized notoriety in the national news. I read 3 articles today and heard 2 broadcast national reports on my way to work about the Bunnell school incident and the response thereto.
Purveyor of Truth says
Don’t forget the other subgroup, that is disinterested parents.
Pogo says
@P.T.
Thank you for furthering a necessary conversation.
However, I think the word subgroup may be misapprehended, especially so, depending on whom uses it. I suggest it may well be intended as it would be by someone referencing set theory (and subset, etc.):
“…Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly concerned with those that are relevant to mathematics as a whole.
The modern study of set theory was initiated by the German mathematicians Richard Dedekind and Georg Cantor in the 1870s. In particular, Georg Cantor is commonly considered the founder of set theory. The non-formalized systems investigated during this early stage go under the name of naive set theory. After the discovery of paradoxes within naive set theory (such as Russell’s paradox, Cantor’s paradox and the Burali-Forti paradox), various axiomatic systems were proposed in the early twentieth century, of which Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (with or without the axiom of choice) is still the best-known and most studied.
Set theory is commonly employed as a foundational system for the whole of mathematics, particularly in the form of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice.[1] Besides its foundational role, set theory also provides the framework to develop a mathematical theory of infinity, and has various applications in computer science (such as in the theory of relational algebra), philosophy and formal semantics. Its foundational appeal, together with its paradoxes, its implications for the concept of infinity and its multiple applications, have made set theory an area of major interest for logicians and philosophers of mathematics. Contemporary research into set theory covers a vast array of topics, ranging from the structure of the real number line to the study of the consistency of large cardinals…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory
Or maybe not.
My impression of everything reported about this incident was that it’s exemplary of several unfortunate, and bad ideas:
You will be understood by simply increasing volume, e.g., DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?!
Scared straight — in all its varieties.
Considering the tone, actual words and deeds, and shameless authoritarianism of this state’s leadership, this result is all but inevitable.
Mean, twisted children are running the zoo. This will end badly.
Atwp says
Were the teachers wrong?
dave says
They tired an angle to address the bad performing students, but failed to bring in ALL the bad performing students of all colors. That’s were it went totally wrong.
Deirdre Rutledge says
I feel it’s important for someone to offer an explanation of what happened from the standpoint of the people who put the assembly together. As a retired educator who also worked in inner city schools (with primarily black populations), I can see why someone thought this might be a good idea.
I believe the teachers that organized this assembly truly had the best in mind for the students, but their methodology was stupid stupid stupid.
I feel it’s likely their thinking, in arranging it for only black students, was to give them a reality check on the importance of tests and success in school, because statistics clearly show the correlations between failing in school and struggling later in life. They didn’t want to see these young students grow to be part of another statistic.
As the current political climate has been to further disempower people of color, it’s really no surprise something like this could happen in reaction to it. Also, taking money away from public schools to put it into vouchers for private schools certainly impacts everyone in public schools. Do private schools have to worry about this kind of testing? Depends on the school.
It’s also sadly no surprise that black kids are sometimes victims of gun violence, and certainly disproportionately put in jail for relatively minor infractions. That’s the reality if the situation. A large percentage of prisoners do not have a high school degree.
However, I think pointing those things out to young kids is absolutely ridiculous – aren’t the tests themselves stressful enough? Wow would I ever be pissed if I was a parent.
I think the teachers involved wanted to better the chances for these students to be successful in life, not just on a test(s). It’s not just about scores for a portion of the population, it’s the big picture. They are members of the same community, and likely wanted emphasize the message that success in school will open doors in their lives.
However, I’m sure heads will roll over this, it was such a dumb idea to handle it this way and I’m sure more than one career will be ruined because of it. I wanted to put this idea out there myself because anything those teachers now say will only look like a lame excuse.
FYI students are given gift cards to fast food and other incentives including T-shirts for being successful on testing in every school, and it helps the scores in motivating kids. The ‘fried chicken bribe theory’ doesn’t hold up, just looks terrible in this context.
Laurel says
Giving gift cards for fast food is literally feeding kids trash. Some success. We used to get A’s and B’s, etc., and that was our gift. The school was not getting A’s or B’s and the staff was placing on the heads of black children. Very poor judgement.
Samuel L. Bronkowitz says
The problem with flagler schools, and schools in general, is the Ed. D. degree. It’s a management degree in education that focuses on the business and admin aspect of things, treating students like products and educators like cogs in the machine, and people that get these degrees are the lowest on the totem pole, garbage human beings that view kids as things and not people.
Kim Pandich-Gridley says
Mr. Bronkowitz,
I don’t know who your acquaintances are with Ed. D. degrees (if anyone) but I can assure you, sir, that I neither viewed my students as anything other than human beings with enormous potential nor did I ever view my place on the totem pole as anything but hard earned. Perhaps you need to rethink the broad stroke of your condemnations.
Respectfully,
Dr. Kim Pandich-Gridley
Pierre Tristam says
A text I received this morning is worth sharing:
“I don’t know where to begin other than to question any system that would see raising test scores enough to have 41% of all students compliant in basic reading and math as some sort of victory. I agree that the “bottom line, we’re all capitalists here, running public schools as a business” may appeal to a certain type of voter but is a wretched way to educate human beings growing up in 2023 who will actually need the “product” the system thinks it’s “selling” to live their lives with some chance of not being cogs for the rest of their careers as “productive, tax-paying citizens.”
I see the state Dept of Education has been called in. I’m tempted to snark that, once they determine no white people were made to feel bad about being white, they’ll close the case, congratulate themselves for not seeing color and head back to Tallahassee – with a reminder to Ms. Moore et al to “get those test scores up.”
But this begs the question of what is an appropriate response to this event. Reading student and parent comments in the NJ this morning, calling for “justice” and asking members of the “community” “if you see something, say something” – (see what, say what?) doesn’t really seem to provide much guidance.
I think all but the dimmest members of the community, of all colors, realize this was an incredibly stupid idea but the way to go from here- short of the “round up the usual suspects” approach of firing a few people and declaring the problem solved – is not clear to me. I do not envy Ms. Moore in the slightest.”
Laurel says
Two things:
1.) When I was in college, in a business class, it occurred to me that the courses I was taking were structured to produce people who would work for someone else. When I confronted the teacher about that, he told me, basically, yes, that is true. I realized that any push towards entrepreneurship did not exit in college.
2.) I once had a boss who told me he was not a bigot towards any one group of people. This was, he said, because he was a bigot towards all groups.
Mike M says
There are many good points in this article as is often the case on this site. Equally as is often the case here, it is an editorial and not clearly labeled. It misleads the reader by design while asking for other local institutions to be held to a higher standard. For me the hypocrisy makes it hard to take serious the content and I want theirs to be credible journalism holding local government to account because our community needs it and their service. This is not a blog, so in my opinion, they should consider if the site is fullflling it’s journalist mission – especially given the warranted critism of the school board and upper tiers in this school itself, and as nobody short of a local paper is going to be interested in holding a candle to these local institutions, thus I would kindly ask: Please consider this comment not as a negative critism but an suggestion from a reader who might just have a point too.
FlaglerLive says
The article is clearly labeled as “The Live Column,” which is synonymous with opinion, but the site certainly could do a better job of more consistently identifying columns that aren’t always as clearly marked.
Tired of it says
This fiasco is what you get when you let the likes of Flurry, Chong and Hunt to the school board.
Judith Michaud says
Perfectly stated !
Bill C says
Let’s go back to the beginning. The School Board fired Cathy Mittelstadt in a 3-2 vote. The Board was as divided due to intrigue and possible conspiring around Mittelstadt’s job this spring. Board member Sally Hunt and Wadsworth Elementary Principal Paul Peacock had texted back and forth, with Peacock apparently coaching Hunt on how to initiate Mittelstadt’s firing before the 3-2 vote that ousted her soon thereafter. Peacock himself was fired over the summer break. It was a victory for the pro book banning ultra-right MAGA board members. Nothing feared more by the incompetent than the competent. Good luck LaShakia Moore, you’ll need it to deal with this befuddled School Board.