Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
By ANDREW MEACHAM
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 29, 2000
ST. PETERSBURG -- In Patti Baldwin's family, everyone went to Azalea Elementary, then Azalea Middle School. Both she and her two brothers had followed that path, and now her daughter is doing the same.
Because of that family tradition, she never looked at magnet schools while her daughter was still in elementary school.
"It never occurred to me that this would not be the ideal school for her," said Baldwin, 43, whose 12-year-old daughter Nikkole Bogardus is in the seventh grade.
But it hasn't been.
In retrospect, she said, "I should have shopped."
It's not that her daughter's school doesn't have good teachers. It's not that parents like herself are powerless. Far from it.
What frustrates Baldwin most is that classrooms are overcrowded, teachers seem overwhelmed and parents are too busy to help out.
"The kids are continually being physically shoved or verbally assaulted," Baldwin said.
Baldwin spends a lot of time at the school as a volunteer and mentor to 14 children in the Doorways program, a privately funded college scholarship for at-risk youth. Between her experiences as a "co-parent" (with her mother) to Nikkole, and firsthand observations at the school and as president of the Parent Teacher Student Association, Baldwin said she is becoming disillusioned with a chaotic learning environment and the absence of effective countermeasures.
"Before the first class, you see 923 kids literally pouring through the doors," Baldwin said. From her daughter, whom she described as "bright, not brilliant," she has heard about classroom time in a cacophony of disruptive noises and students continually muttering or talking out loud.
"She says it's a hard learning environment. Some kids are blatantly belligerent. The teachers try to teach around it, but it's difficult at best."
Part of the problem, she said, is class sizes of up to 35 students, which makes it harder for teachers to manage behavior. Baldwin thinks more parent volunteers on campus would create a "peaceful presence" and reduce chaos. But she is discouraged by low membership rolls in the PTSA -- around 50 parents in a school with more than 900 students, with only a handful showing up at monthly meetings.
This past summer, Baldwin and her mother considered transferring Nikkole to a private school. But in the end she decided that private school is "not really an option."
"The trade-off is, you put her in a private school and then you work 20 hours extra a week to be able to pay for that. The child loses out anyway."
Having to earn extra money would also mean giving up the volunteer work, something she was reluctant to do. The only choice, "in good conscience," was to stay with Azalea.
"Am I doing something different for high school? Absolutely."
Shopping for a magnet school is time-consuming -- a factor Baldwin suspects might play into other parents' choices. Baldwin wants to have Nikkole placed in a high school by October 2001.
Her top criteria are overall excellence and physical safety. A school's art program would factor in after those conditions have been satisfied.
Assistant principal Connie Kolosey acknowledged an average class size of 30 at Azalea, but said that is typical throughout county middle schools. So is boisterous behavior, particularly as some newer teachers get broken in.
"Middle school is a challenging age," Kolosey said. "It's an ongoing process.
"But (students) can be channeled, they can be focused. If you talk to other middle school kids and parents, you will find the same comments across the board. And to define the whole school by that is unfair."