A Teacher's View of John Marshall Alternative School

A teacher posted on a comment on a previous thread (John Marshall Alternative School) that I thought was interesting enough to warrant a separate posting. Anonymous said:

I wish I had found this thread a month ago...I am a teacher at Marshall, and I felt relief when the Times article was published that finally the truth is being told. There is some learning going on at Marshall, in spite of Joe Drake, because of a handful of good teachers who care very much about the students who end up at the school. The story the Times told was only the tip of the iceberg as far as the disservices that are being done to many students. The education of those who want to learn is being stolen by Dr. Drake and a few others, and because the students are mostly poor or otherwise marginalized (like Kathy Graves) their concerns are never heard by the district. I believe that the district knows that they need to get rid of Drake, and are using the school closure as an opportunity to get rid of him. He really is bringing down the whole ship. There is a huge need for a school that serves this population in the north end, and I hate that because of poor leadership and a lack of accountability on the district's part, these students will go back to dropping out of the big high schools. The article also noted that many teachers and parents have complained about Drake over the years, but THERE IS NO RECORD OF THESE COMPLAINTS IN HIS FILE! I smell a rat at the Stanford Center, but maybe not the same one Charlie Mas smells...

I'd love to hear from other teachers, students and staff at John Marshall about their views on this subject.