Sunday, May 06, 2007

We Have No Words...

Check out the following story, about a school administrator who sent home a nigh-illiterate letter to students and their families after a food fight in the "caferteria."

What really gets us is this: He's not in trouble for his bad spelling and grammar. He's in trouble for failing to show it to the school principal first. Yes, we suppose she could have corrected his errors. But don't you think a school administrator who's probably making six figures or so a year ought to at least have mastered basic English -- and if not that, the use of a spellchecker?

Markham students, parents and staff gag on error-ridden letter sent home after food fight
Posted by Staten Island Advance

Apparently, it's not just students who aren't making the grade in intermediate schools.

A dean at Markham Intermediate in Graniteville is in hot water after he failed to secure the principal's approval before he gave students a policy letter, which turned out to be rife with spelling and grammatical errors.

Following a frenzied food fight in the cafeteria Monday, Health Academy Dean Michael Levy gave the academy's nearly 100 eighth-graders a letter indicating that the group would be collectively punished for the mess and prohibited from attending the prom and the year-end class trip.

Among the misspellings and typos in his letter to parents are "unexcecpable" for "unacceptable," "activates" for "activities" (twice) and the setting for the food fight: The "caferteria."

Also, Levy contradicts his declaration of a collective punishment by saying in the body of the letter that decisions will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

He also asks parents to review the letter with their children -- and warns them that a failure to sign and return the letter will result in an automatic disqualification from year-end activities.

Several parents and students said yesterday they were outraged by the harsh penalty and collective punishment proposed in the letter -- and equally bewildered by its contradictory content and atrocious wording.

How many errors do you count in the letter below? And what do you think he has against the comma?

No comments: