SE 23rd Ter #22
Gresham, OR 97080

This is coming from the perspective of a parent of a student at this school, as well as a teacher in a different school.School leadership and staff are struggling to keep control of student behavior this year (1st year back from distance learning). We all know that students' behaviors this year are challenging across the board - at all age levels - but McCarty does not seem to be managing well. There are frequent physical violence encounters, frequent theft among students, frequent vandalism of school and student property, and frequent classroom disruptions. Students of color are often subjected to racial harassment (from other students, not from staff). Teacher morale seems to be very low. Simple standards for behavior that could curb a lot of misbehaviors are not being enforced.On the positive side, it seems that teachers are attempting to keep up academic rigor. Relationships between teachers and students seem to be positive overall.

I'll put it this way the only reason I keep my kids here is because despite all the issues I have with this school is because accadmecly they are both doing well and my oldest only has one more year here I want her to stay with her friends.Parents of students at this school need to get more involved.

The test scores say it all as far as I'm concerned. I'm a believer in public schools and went to Reynold's High School and it's sad to see the schools that I've known, attended, competed for and against, and now have seen my kids graduate from become such massive failures. Obviously, funding is not the issue and there's something very unfortunate going on: Our kids are being funneled through a system that seems to be broken, with little regard to ensuring that at each grade level the students have a basic grasp of what they need to know before moving on to the next grade.It's infuriating to me that the superintendents and administrators continue collecting their pay when it's hard to imagine that the state of the education our kids receive would be worse if they weren't there at all.It isn't hard to imagine our kids being overwhelmed and depressed when they strike out in the world to live out their dreams only to find that most companies see poorly written emails and difficulty communicating as a liability. I understand that saying anything negative about educators has somehow become a taboo subject, but I think our kids matter more than us risking the possibility that we may hurt someone's feelings.One specific thing I would add, is that I tried many times to support the projects, assignments, etc. by working with my kids. In many cases, I had a hard time understanding the point of a particular assignment or activity. When they actually had parent/teacher conferences (as rare and irregular as they were), asking if there might be description of the lesson's intent, or even access to an online lesson plan, the bewildered look made it clear that they didn't understand what their job was. Either that or my perception of what they should be doing is way off.I noticed homework was almost non-existent, with the students finishing it at school. I remember when I was going to school, I had homework every night starting on the first day. Definitely math would have at least an hours-worth of homework, and there was always a book to read followed by the inevitable report, at least once per quarter. That would be another hour or so. From my view, homework isn't given out anymore. I will end on a positive note. I will say that I felt that the CAL program associated with Gresham-Barlow was impressive. I hope that more folks begin to demand better because our kids' futures depend on their education.