ADV-EDITORIAL, "We wouldn't even tell you if it was a good day." - words to a media person from a school secretary

Last update: December 02, 2006 – 9:21 PM

He got the boot from school and a lesson in bunker behavior
I got kicked out of school last week.
Nick Coleman, Star Tribune

I got kicked out of school last week.
I hadn't had that kind of fun since 1968, but the experience was educational,
too: It gave me a glimmer of how a school district behaves when it is foundering
and failing. It goes into a bunker.

I had wandered down to south Minneapolis to drop by the Roosevelt Community
Library. Unfortunately, the library - like more than half of the city's
libraries on any given day - was closed. It was two o'clock in the afternoon,
and, across the street, Roosevelt Senior High was still open. So I walked over
to the school.

I've always had a fondness for Roosevelt, where a relative of mine (by marriage)
used to work with immigrant kids, helping them learn English.

I wrote about the school back in 1992, when the kids walked out, in part because
they didn't have enough textbooks to go around. And I was at Roosevelt on its
proudest day, in 1998, when Gov.-elect Jesse Ventura told the kids, "I'm proud
to say I graduated from Roosevelt." And I remember when my son's hockey team
played against Roosevelt (the school no longer has its own team but is part of a
combined program with Edison and South high schools); the gallant Roosevelt
goalie was a Somali kid who could hardly stand on skates but didn't flinch under
an endless barrage of pucks.

Never quit, Jesse told the Roosevelt kids in 1998. "No matter what, if you give
it your all, you walk off that field with your head held high."

So I was thinking warm thoughts as I walked up the steps to Roosevelt. I just
wanted to ask whether the high school made much use of the library, which is
scheduled to close soon. Sometimes, I live in a dream world.

I was met at the door by a school secretary who barred me from entering and
warned me to leave or police would be called. All I wanted to do was to ask
about the library, I said.

"Being you are a media person, we wouldn't even tell you if it was a good day at
Roosevelt," I was told.

Don't bother. Let me guess.

I am not making that up, by the way. Those were the actual words. "We wouldn't
even tell you if it was a good day."

I understand that being a news person does not give me much in the way of
special privileges. And that the old notion of a reporter representing the
public interest has fallen by the wayside. But I naively thought, as a member of
the public and as a parent of three young people who all passed through the
Minneapolis public schools and as a friend of public education, that I might at
least be treated like a taxpayer.

Maybe I was.

Visitors, the signs said, must report to the office. I pointed that out to Miss
Katie-Bar-The-Door, and said I wanted to visit the office and inquire about the
relationship between the public school and the public library. Again, I was told
a police officer would be called to escort me out of the school.

I was glad to hear that a cop was close by. I understand that it is necessary to
have cops in schools these days, because you never know when a thug with a gun
might barge in.

I did not have a gun. But I had something Minneapolis schools fear almost as
much.

I had a notebook. And a question. And I stood there, speechless, as the woman
before me ordered a minion at her side to "Call the police."

Perhaps she was worried that I was going to ask about that 3 percent math
proficiency score Roosevelt turned in last month. Well, I wasn't, but it turns
out that 3 percent is an exaggeration. Out of 228 11th-graders at Roosevelt, a
total of six tested at or above a proficiency level. That is a proficiency rate
of 2.6 percent.

My math is correct. Maybe that's why I got expelled.

Actually, I still don't know why I was booted. The Minneapolis Public School
system, which is on the verge of pancaking, is infamous among the media for its
hostility toward the press. But when I called the school board communications
folks to ask for a copy of their media policy, I was unable to get one. I was
unable even to find out if there is an actual written policy. I am still
waiting.

As I left Roosevelt, the woman who had barred me followed me outside to ask my
name. I had told it to her at the beginning of the drama, but no one had
listened. My name is Nick Coleman, I said.

"That explains the problem," she said. I guess she doesn't like my columns. I
can live.

You know, I told her as I got in my car, "I'm one of the last big believers in
public schools."