This Wouldn't Happen At White Station High School

There is a kid at the restaurant I work at who just graduated high school this last May. He was a decent student and a pretty good football player. He’s also hard working, competent, and reliable. He was supposed to leave for college at Division 1-AA school in Kentucky, where he would get a partial scholarship for playing football. He is exactly the type of person the Memphis city school system says it is trying to produce. Unfortunately for this kid, he lives in Frayser and attended Frayser High School. You see, most if not all the graduating students at Frayser High School, as of July 16th 2006, still have not received their final report cards or transcripts. This kid’s opportunity to go to college may be lost. He did everything he was supposed to do. He requested his transcripts be sent to three colleges. They weren’t. When the school wanting him to play football hadn’t received the transcripts yet, it called the kid. He went to the school to get a copy of his transcripts himself. He couldn’t get them. So now this kid may be screwed. He MIGHT be able to enroll for January classes but then he wouldn’t have the scholarship and that may cut his chances of going to college at all.
What the fuck is going on with the Memphis city schools? All I hear is what a good job Carol Johnson is doing with the school system. How is that even possible when a whole graduating class from a high school can’t get their fucking TRANSCRIPTS! Do you think this would be tolerated at White Station? Parents would scream bloody murder and sue the shit out of the school system. But because this is Frayser it’s tolerable. All this says to me is the talk of educating our children and giving them opportunities to better themselves is horse shit.
I found out about this Friday evening and I don’t know what to do about this injustice. There are people from the Memphis Flyer, some people who know lawyers, and political candidates’ campaigns that read this blog, so I’m asking for some help or attention be paid to this. If you’re a journalist and want a good story to tell about how some incompetent school bureaucrat is screwing up kids’ lives because they can’t even send transcripts, well here it is. I’m not sure if this is a viable lawsuit for lawyer, but if it is please put Carol Johnson’s name across at the top of it. Or if you are a political candidate who wants to prove they give a shit about the people of Memphis right before an election and get this and any other of those kids at Frayser High enrolled in college here’s your chance. Steve Cohen, you’re a State Senator and Julian Bolton, you’re still a County Commissioner, why doesn’t one of you have your staff check into this and see if you can fix this. The same goes Willingham and Wharton or just about anybody else. If you want more details and think you can help, write me at polardonkeymemphis@yahoo.com.