The trip to work this morning was a breeze with no traffic problems. There was no school today for the public school kids, so there were no buses to deal with. Never mind that the kids were out for two days just two weeks ago - they were out of school again today. There was no school in Jefferson county today because it was Professional Development Day in the county public school system Let's take a moment and analyze Professional Development Day, shall we? Let's see who was getting professional development.
It wasn't the students. They sure didn't learn anything today. They probably spent the day in front of the TV or in a catatonic haze in staring at their video games. It's no wonder our county schools have such low test scores compared to the other schools in the state and country; the kids have more days off than government workers. I'm not surprised that our county school PATs have trouble reading and doing simple math. Here's a perfect example: The Old Man and I went to the grocery store the other week, and in front in the checkout line were 4 or 5 twenty-somethings. The cashier was a young PAT, probably late teens. The older twenty-somethings checked out first, and the young PAT had to call someone over to scan and ring up their Corona beer. After they checked out, their friends the younger twenty-somethings were ready to purchase some tortilla chips and 3 limes. The PAT scanned the chips, but when she saw the limes she was absolutely clueless. For you see, the limes were on sale 4 for a dollar, and they only had 3. The poor girl didn't know what to do. After 7 minutes of not knowing what to do, I'd had all I could take and spoke up "Limes are four for a dollar. That means they're a quarter a piece. Does that help?" Well, evidently, it didn't because the PAT had to call a manager to come and help her. If she'd had school instead of being off all the time, she might have been able to do simple division and multiplication.
The teachers and school administrators didn't get developed professionally today, either. An anonymous informant hipped me to this. His wife was a Jefferson county public school teacher, as was his son-in-law, and he said that Professional Development Dayis just a day for the teachers go to the mall or to the casino boat. So from the teachers' standpoint, the only development going on today is the money the stores and Caesars is making from them.
That leaves us with the bus drivers. If you ask me, they're the only ones that received any professional development today. They definitely needed a break from hauling the rowdy PATs to and from school. Their nerves needed time to calm back down from all of the bus drama that goes on. A time for them to regroup and be ready for another week of hauling around the PATs is as much professional development as you can get.
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