It’s amazing how less funny these stories become when you have school-age kids:
Verenice Gutierrez picks up on the subtle language of racism every day.
Take the peanut butter sandwich, a seemingly innocent example a teacher used in a lesson last school year.
“What about Somali or Hispanic students, who might not eat sandwiches?” says Gutierrez, principal at Harvey Scott K-8 School, a diverse school of 500 students in Northeast Portland’s Cully neighborhood.
What about ’em? – Unless the argument is that the presence of peanut butter sandwiches is the reason why Gutierrez’s school is scraping the bottom of Oregon’s ratings system. Which is, I suppose, probably more palatable to Gutierrez than the notion that the real problem is that her school is being run by a person who worries more about ‘white privilege’ than ‘teaching kids to read.’ But don’t mind me: I’m a white privileged conservative Republican. Who is thankfully – for Verenice Gutierezz – just over 2,800 miles out of her school district, and thus not likely to be a persistently annoying presence in her PTA meetings*…
Moe Lane
*My parents loved being obnoxious PITAs when it came to the local school system. They’d tag-team: Mom was a teacher, so she knew the jargon; and Dad was a long-time union guy, so he knew how to needle management. Teachers used to either dread or eagerly anticipate parent-teacher conferences with them; it would depend largely on just how good a teacher the teacher was. I can only dream to be half the thorn in the side that they were…
Here is the real tagline: “Eighty-five percent are eligible for free or reduced-price meals.” – why are all of the students at this middle school in one economic class. The answer: the government forced them there. If there was a voucher system, parents could get their kids the heck away from Verenice Guitterez who’d rather blame the failure of the kids not being able to read or right on the kid’s “lack of whiteness” (really, talk about racism) than the fact that she and her teachers have failed them.
“What about Somali or Hispanic students, who might not eat sandwiches?”
.
Think of it as a chance for them to experience a different culture.
I was going to play devil’s advocate, but I read the article and the principal – and the ‘journalist’ – don’t deserve any slack.
I might have gone for an argument that peanut butter is a cheap and shelf stable nutritional powerhouse that is often forbidden in schools because more affluent families have gone nuts about peanut allergies. That is, the poor are often denied a cheap nutritional food source and nutrition impacts schoolwork. It is a bit of a stretch, but at least has some fact and logic to it. But this article was nonsense. Worse, the program prob promotes more racism that it prevents. (For the record, I’m not dismissing the seriousness of peanut allergies, but their over Dx and the zero tolerance policies that come with the worry, such as banning peanuts in snacks because a classmate has a sibling with a peanut allergy.)
Here in KY, at least in my area, I was surprised when the school tried to enroll MY kids into subsidized lunches. Apparently participation here is near universal. My kids are odd balls for bringing their own lunches. The school sent me a form, demanding to know what my income was and said that all parents must report their incomes, even if they don’t take the subsidized food. I threw it in the trash.
Didn’t the celebrated black agricultural scientist George Washington Carver promote peanut butter? Because peanuts are legumes that help restore soil (and most black and white sharecroppers were farming depleted soil previously used for cotton) and he thought creating more markets for peanuts would help both farmers and consumers?
Man, they just don’t teach history anymore.
Why anyone would send their children to a liberal public school is beyond me.
It never ceases to amaze me how acceptable racism is when it’s done for The Greater Good. And it’s a good thing that I’m not a parent because there would be teachers sobbing uncontrollably at the sound of my name.
Industrial-strength irony: Harvey Scott Elementary School was named after Harvey W. Scott, an Oregon pioneer and editor of the Portland Oregonian. From Wikipedia:
Around 1880, he vociferously opposed public high schools in Oregon, especially Portland, stating “the machinery of the schools has grown too cumbrous and expensive a system; that there are too many studies; that the high school is not a proper part of the system of public education; … that those who desire for their children an education beyond the common branches of the old-fashioned common school should pay for it.”
I have back to school night tonight. Always a highlight. My wife is a teacher and we never miss a chance to talk to our daughter’s teachers. My daughter has civics this year; she has asked me not to make it impossible for her to pass the class by scaring the teacher. I told her I only expect her to learn the truth. Fortunately, our local schools are guided much more by the local populace than by DC.
So Verenice Gutierrez (the idiot principal at Scott school in Portland, Oregon) thinks that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are racist? This woman is beyond stupid and has no business being in a school. She certainly has no business being a principal of a school.
Let this idiot principal know what you think. Contact her!
Scott school phone number: (503) 916-6369
Verenice Gutierrez’s email: vgutierr@pps.net
Source for contact information:
http://www.pps.k12.or.us/schools/scott/317.htm
Verenice Gutierrez is a racist and an idiot.