Divemedic

Know it all

Where I teach, like most schools in America, we have a drug problem. It isn’t as serious as most schools, but it is there. The police got wind of some drug dealing, and decided to show up with a drug dog, which they used to sweep the school parking lot. They uncovered some drugs and a couple of weapons. (One of the kids busted with drugs was one you wouldn’t expect- a National Honor Society, straight A type)

The weapons were knives, there were no firearms. After, the vice-principal (the same idiot from this post) was going from classroom to  classroom and talking to the students about the incident. One of the students asked him if they could bring pepper spray to school, and he told them yes, because the law doesn’t consider pepper spray to be a weapon.

He is wrong. The state of Florida defines weapon in 790.001 as:

(13) “Weapon”
means any dirk, knife, metallic knuckles, slungshot, billie, tear gas
gun, chemical weapon or device, or other deadly weapon except a firearm
or a common pocketknife, plastic knife, or blunt-bladed table knife. [emphasis added]


When it comes to weapons on campus, 790.115 has this to say:

(2)(a) A person shall not possess any firearm, electric weapon or device, destructive device, or other weapon as defined in s. 790.001(13),
including a razor blade or box cutter, except as authorized in support
of school-sanctioned activities, at a school-sponsored event or on the
property of any school, school bus, or school bus stop

It seems pretty clear cut, right? Well, I can’t point this out to him because we have gotten in discussions in the past where I attempted to point out to him (politely) that he was incorrect in his belief in what the law says, and he told me to stop quoting the law to him, and for me to remember that I work for HIM and that he gets to tell me what the law says, not the other way around, because he is the boss.
 
I really detest working for people like this. 
 

By Divemedic, ago

Hide the decline

The latest it of gun ownership propaganda disguised as science and as news is that gun ownership is on the decline. They claim that there are fewer people buying guns. Of course, they can’t hide the fact that there have been so many guns sold in the last year, that the NICS system that performs background checks has been overloaded.
So how do they spin this fact? They do a survey to ‘prove’ that gun sales are up, but the guns are being sold to just a few people. The problem is that this supposed ‘fact’ is being proven because of a telephone survey. According to this survey, which is disguised as science, they claim that 20% of the US population owns 65% of the firearms. There are a number of problems with this claim. Let’s take a look:

The entire basis for this claim is a survey where a caller phones your home, and then asks you if you have a gun in the house. I don’t understand how anyone thinks that this method is in any way scientific. There are a number of flaws in this survey: selection bias, response bias, non response error, and other sampling problems ensure that ANY survey of sensitive issues will not reflect the true numbers.

The true test of gun ownership rates is not self reporting surveys, but other metrics like total gun sales. Of course, gun sales in a nation that does not register firearms don’t tell you how many people are buying firearms, only how many firearms are being bought. The closest remaining metric is the issuance of concealed weapons permits.

As of February 28 n my home state of Florida, there are 1,374,341 active concealed weapons permit holders. According to the US census, the population of people over 18 years of age in Florida is 15,795,277. This means that there is one
concealed weapons permit holder for every 11.49 residents.

In December of 2013, there were 1,278,246 permit holders in Florida,
with an adult population of 15,562,646. This means that 14 months ago,
there was one concealed weapons permit holder for every 12.21
residents.

This means that the rate of gun ownership in the state of Florida is 6
percent higher than it was 14 months ago, which translates into about a
5 percent annual increase in gun ownership.

In fact, the number of concealed weapons permits in the state of Florida has more than doubled since 2009, when there were 591,830, which
was double the number of permits from 2002, when there were 295,658
permit holders.
Look at the numbers:
In 1988, there were 32,814 permit holders. It took three years to double that to 65,497.
In three more years, that number doubled again to 132,150.
Another seven years, another doubling to 259,710.
Seven more years, and there is another doubling to 511,868.
Five years later, the number had doubled again to 1,098,458.
In 25 years, the number of adults in Florida increased from 10.0 to 15.8 million, which is a 158% increase, but there are 41 times as many concealed weapons permit holders, meaning that the number of permit holders is increasing 26 times as fast as the population as a whole.

That is hardly a decline.

By Divemedic, ago

The problem

My boss, the vice principal, threw me under the bus today. Let me start by explaining that I have been evaluated through observation and the test scores of my students. My evaluation has come back, and I have been rated as being among the top 10% of teachers in the school. 

I have a student in my class who has been a constant discipline problem. It began in September when this student got a few zeroes for not turning in assignments. She asked me for extra credit, and I explained to her that I do not do extra credit: you either meet the standard, or you don’t. I gave her the opportunity to do the assignments that she missed, and she refused, saying that those assignments were stupid. She then posted on Twitter things like: “Fuck my science teacher, he won’t give extra credit” and “I’m gonna get rid of my science teacher.” I wrote her up for that, and reported it to the principal. Her parents requested a meeting with the vice principal, and immediately went on the attack.

That was when I found out that these particular parents and their children do this every year. They pick one teacher, and spend the year making that teacher’s life miserable. In the past 6 months, these parents have filed over 100 complaints against me. For example: Last month, this student punched another student in the stomach while a third student held the punchee’s arms behind his back. I gave her a referral, and the parents wanted to know why I did that instead of emailing them, and filed a complaint.

In one of the many parent-teacher conferences I have had with this parent and the vice-principal, he accused me of giving his daughter bad grades because I didn’t like her. I showed him some of her work, to show that she turns in shoddy work. He then said that I was probably just putting her name on things that I had done poorly myself, in order to frame his daughter. He then told me that I was a damned liar, and that he was going to get me fired. Not wanting to sit there and be abused, I got up to leave, and was told to sit down by the vice-principal. I was later told that we have to listen to and take whatever a parent or student wants to say to us, and getting up from a parent/teacher conference is cause for termination.

That brings us to today. He was angry because she got detention for calling me stupid and for sleeping in class. He was also angry because his daughter has a D in my class, and because I was making her write reports in Biology class, claiming that I am not a writing teacher and have no authority to make students write in a science class.

He asked the vice principal to move her from my class because he was afraid that I was trying to hurt his daughter. This is the second time in two weeks that he has claimed this. Note that not once have I been near her in anything but a classroom setting, along with 25 other students. The parent stood up, pointed to me, and said “Don’t you fucking eyeball me, boy.” and then stormed from the room. The vice principal told me that if I can’t get along with this parent, I will be terminated.

I went to the other vice principal about an hour later, and I told him that if that child is not removed from my class by Monday, I am resigning. They removed the student from my class, but I just don’t know if I can teach. I don’t think that this career is for me. The problem with the education system in this country is this:

Parents who think that their little snowflake is an ‘A’ student, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar who is picking on them. Then they threaten a lawsuit, and the school backs down, because teachers can’t sue, but parents can. As a teacher, I was told by other teachers that the only way to stay out of trouble and keep your job is to give nearly everyone at least a C, try not to report students for anything, and keep the parents happy. Who cares if the kids learn, the parents don’t want smart kids, they just want kids with good grades.

By Divemedic, ago

2 minutes to midnight

Not only has Obama ruined our relationship with Israel, Russia, China and promoted a nuclear armed Iran, he has threatened to attack Israel to protect Iran, and increased the chances that there will be a nuclear exchange in the middle east.
I wonder if the next move will be to extend the US ‘nuclear umbrella’ to protect Muslim nations from Israeli nuclear retaliation when the nuclear weapon that Iran is developing is used, and prompts an Israeli response. Israel had better be increasing their nuclear alert status.

By Divemedic, ago

Revolving door

Jamal LaFortune began his criminal career just two months after his 18th birthday, when he was arrested for  First Degree Misdemeanor Battery. It is entirely possible that his criminal career began before that, but the state of Florida doesn’t release the criminal records of minors.

Over the next six months, he would be arrested 4 more times for crimes including prowling, grand theft of a motor vehicle, possession of burglary tools with intent, and trespassing. After that, he progressed to the big boy crimes. Before his 20th birthday, he would be arrested twice for aggravated assault and aggravated assault with a firearm. He was a convicted felon before he was even 21.

He was arrested seven more times in the next year for a list of felonies including armed robbery, drug offenses, credit card fraud, and theft. 

Less than a month after his 21st birthday, he entered an Orlando area theme park and opened fire on the crowd. Only the fact that he had bad aim prevented him from becoming another national news story.

In three years, he had amassed a total of  10 arrests that included 5 felony convictions- three of those included aggravated battery with a firearm, yet he was still walking around, a free man. At the time of this shooting, he was out on bail after being arrested for multiple armed robberies in the Orlando area. The last felony arrest for which he was convicted included possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, 5 counts of possession of ammunition by a felon, 2 counts of possession of drugs, and grand theft of $5000 or more. Each of those felonies could have carried a penalty of 15 years. Additionally, he qualified to be a habitual violent felon.

Yet, he was out on the streets, committing more violent crimes, while out on bail. Again and again. Even after his conviction, he was out in less than three months. 

Tell me again how firearms are the problem.

By Divemedic, ago