School serving up side order of shame with lunch for students with bad grades

La Vergne High School in Lavergne, Tennessee is getting some criticism for separating students who are struggling with their grades from those who aren't during lunch time. During lunch time, students with poor grades are sent to what is called a "learning lab" for part of what is supposed to be their lunch break and then they get to eat later. It is part of a program called "RTI Squared," or Response to Instruction and Intervention Initiative, that will be rolled out statewide in 2014. Other schools are already doing it, but not all of them are doing the learning lab during the student's lunch period.

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Just going by my gut reaction here, I don't like it. Let the kids have lunch with their friends, don't shame them and send them off to another room to "study" when their friends get to eat and relax. If other schools can manage to work the program into class time, then I don't see why this school can't.

Also, it doesn't seem like the students who are sent to the lunch-time learning lab are getting any special one on one time with instructors. A student interviewed by the local news makes it sound like they are just told to open up their books and study. That doesn't seem very motivating or inspiring.

Students at La Vergne High School are petitioning to get the lunch time separation taken away. It's not like they are petitioning against getting extra help or needing it, they just think there could be a more effective and less shaming way of doing it. I'm gonna have to agree with them.

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