Security Cameras at Harrison and Concerns Over Grading System (Oct. 6 PTA Meeting Notes)

Surveillance Cameras Coming to Harrison Middle School

Principal Michael R. Wetmiller told the on Thursday morning that Harrison Middle will have surveillance cameras installed next week for use on its campus. 

“If you walk through the halls, it’s really quiet. Kids are really good,” Wetmiller said. “There’s nothing going on, but I’ve always thought that being content is when bad things can happen.

“I want to stay on top of safety and security in the building at all times even though things are going so well.”

Wetmiller said that Harrison will use 15 of the same type of surveillance cameras being used at .

“Hopefully, they’re not really needed for much other than maybe a kid pushing someone in the hallway,” Wetmiller said. “That’s about the worst we’ve seen at all thus far ... 

“What it (the video system) is is, if something happened, then you can go and see what happened (review the footage) … It takes a lot of the investigation out of the work.”

PTA Members Concerned About District Grading System

Multiple members of the Baldwin-Whitehall PTA expressed dissatisfaction to on Thursday over inconsistencies in the way that B-W teachers determine course grades.

The matter of dispute stemmed from the district-wide practice of grading students based on 90-percent formal coursework and 10-percent informal coursework. In particular, what bothered many members of the PTA, each of whom have children enrolled in district schools, is that teachers have the ability to individually choose what is considered formal and what is considered informal, as well as how to give tests and how to grade homework.

The consensus among the PTA members present at Thursday’s meeting was that that inconsistency leads to confusion and stress in district students trying to achieve good grades in every class.

B-W Superintendent Dr. Lawrence C. Korchnak explained the inconsistency.

“There’s a limitation as to what we (district administrators) can do to academic freedom,” Korchnak said. “In other words, we can’t tell them (teachers) how to teach. We can tell them that they must use legitimate means to teach.

“Some teachers give study guides (for example); some don’t … I can’t go to a teacher and say, ‘You have to create a study guide,’ because there are liberties that a teacher has in terms of academic freedom of how to teach.

“We have to make sure they use legitimate techniques, but we don’t want to be totally controlling. We can’t micromanage each classroom.”