NYC Educator: If Not Now, When?

NYC Educator: If Not Now, When?:

If Not Now, When?

by Miss Eyre

My school's intrepid guidance counselor and I spent yesterday making phone calls to parents--about attendance, Regents tutoring, and classes that students are still failing.  As you can imagine, there's a pretty strong link between that first item and the last one.  And while I'm sorry to keep harping on this subject, I can't deny that trying to cajole parents into doing their legal duty to educate their children is starting to wear on me and my guidance counselor partner in all this.

One young lady whose guardian was just here last week has already missed two more days of school.  Two other sets of parents have respectively broken nearly half a dozen appointments to come to the school.  And I teach high school, and it's May...and if not now, when?  When will these kids start showing up regularly, if not now, when their courses terminate in Regents exams?  Or when will these kids, who are most certainly not stupid, realize that they personally must bear at