In the Tennessean of Saturday February 4, 2004, Diane Long was given a story about Maplewood seniors who might not graduate because of a program of studies that did not include all required courses. This was presented as incompetence of the Maplewood guidance department and Central Office personnel were trying just as hard as they could to make things right. Happy story, right?
Reading further into the article, we see that the examples come from 2002-2003, the year of the first "Student Based Budget." At that point, Sandra Johnson claimed that the high schools were overstaffed. She was particularly interested in reducing the number of guidance counselors to a number far below ratios recommended by the counselors association. Schools with low income populations were a particular target. After protests by the MNEA and speeches at the board meetings by guidance counselors themselves, five additional counselors were added. This did not happen, however, until close to the beginning of second semester of that year.
Also at Maplewood, a new principal, Sam Braden arrived and tried his best to follow Pedro Garcia's formula of creating fear through intimidation. Long pointed out in her article that only two guidance counselors were available for 1,100 students. No doubt it is true that student protests about being placed in classes by mistake would have been almost impossible to hear by either counselors or administrators in the atmosphere that existed at that time.
Often in the past, "isolated incidents" of mistakes in student transcripts are discovered in the senior year. Most times the errors can be corrected by the school principal--sometimes at the last minute. This story--at least as it begins--resembles the one involving Ron Harris of Joelton. That is, someone is being set up for punishment. Quite possibly, the one to be punished is not the one who committed the wrong.