Browsing articles in "classroom discipline"
Teachers are not babysitters. They’re not parole officers. They’re not clergy. They’re not social workers. They’re not parents. Their job is to teach. The problem with the worst public schools is the kids that are in them and the complete and utter disfunction which produced those kids. If that statement offends you, then I can only conclude that you either 1) have little to no practical experience with the bottom-of-the-barrel public schools discussed here, or 2) you have some other agenda.
First, a true story to illustrate some problems. My wife – a white woman – was a teacher in a school whose student population is about 95-97% black and poor. Most of them would definitely be part of the “black underclass” that has been discussed here recently. My wife taught high school math. Classes with kids anywhere from 9th grade to 12th grade. One day in class, one of the male students stood up in class, tossed his desk aside, and started choking a female student. To be clear, I’m talking hands around her neck, choking her to death. My wife immediately started pulling the guy off the girl, with a couple of other female students helping. After they pulled him off, the guy turned around and started swinging at them. He struck my wife a couple times – glancing blows off her arm, but a physical assault nonetheless. As all of this was going on, no male students intervened, and several of them were laughing and yelling “choke that b*tch! choke that b*tch!” After security (yes, they have armed police officers at the school) had hauled the kid off, the female students went to talk to the guidance counselor, as they were understandably shaken. When my wife asked the principal if the guy was going to be expelled, the principal was non-committal. So, my wife let the principal know that he would not return to her classroom, or else they would have to find another math teacher in the middle of the year. They gave the kid two weeks suspension. After it was over, my wife arrives at her classroom to find several female students standing outside, afraid to go in because the guy who had tried to choke one of them out was back. So, my wife walked directly to the principal’s office with those female students, tells him that they are afraid to go in the room because of that guy, and then – outside of earshot of the students – tells the principal once again that she would walk out right now and never come back if they didn’t remove that guy from her classroom. They assigned him to a different class, and that’s it.
Second true story: My wife’s students were talking about a friend of theirs – also a student at the school, but not my wife’s student – who had been arrested and charged with murder. He and one or two other men were charged with robbing and murdering another man at a card game. The man who had been killed was an illegal immigrant. My wife’s students could not believe that someone could get life in jail for murdering another human being. They were incredulous, asking my wife, “Really? He can really go to jail just for killing someone?” They then commented, and here’s the kicker, “But he wasn’t even a citizen!”
This is the culture of the worst public schools in our state. You have kids with absolutely no concept of the value of human life, no respect for other people, no concept of families or having parents, no concept of personal property, no concept of the value of work or money. They are like toddlers who have not been conditioned or trained in any way to behave like a civilized human being. Their parents are only parents in the biological sense. Some of these kids come from situations that remind me of a scene from David Simon’s Homicide: Life on the Streets, the book that preceded The Wire. In the high-rise projects, there were people living in such abject filth that I thought when I read it, these are people who have given up on, or never even known, what it is that makes us human and separates us from animals. Like the people you see on the hoarders shows, or the men and women who debase themselves in pornography, or morbidly obese people who can’t leave their home.
There is absolutely nothing that public schools can do to fix this problem.
Teachers may be able to help one student out of a hundred, but they’re damn sure not going to get any help from administrators, parents, or the community. At my wife’s school, teachers got in trouble for sending students to the office. If a kid was being disruptive, the administrators said it was the teacher’s fault for not “engaging” them and getting on their level. The whole mindset was that it was the job of the teachers to get down in the muck on the level of these children, rather than trying to elevate these kids to a level where they can be functional members of society. The administrators wouldn’t expel kids because then they would lose money. They would rarely suspend kids for the same reason. They wouldn’t even want to discipline kids or have them referred to the principal because it reflected poorly on their state statistics that determine the school’s rating. My wife was pressured to pass kids who were not even close to a D. And she gave these kids TONS of opportunities to raise their grade. But even doing something as simple as sitting for 40 minutes and trying to work on a worksheet was too much to demand of these functional infants.
If my tone sounds bitter, that’s because I am bitter. My wife is a compassionate, kind, loving woman. And she came home in tears every day for the better part of nine months because of the abuse those kids heaped on her, and complete and utter lack of support from the imbeciles running the asylum. She was accused of being a racist on a daily basis just because she had draconian classroom rules such as “respect other people,” “don’t get up and run around the room yelling and screaming during class,” or “don’t use abusive and profane language.” And the administrators even said in the mandated teacher training that such rules were wrong because they tried to force black students to conform to “white” culture. Because, you know, black people don’t care about respecting others or learning, right?
So, what’s the solution? While my wife was in this hell, my solution was: “F*ck it.” Frankly, I have to fight really hard to keep that impulse down, as I’m still bitter over how my wife was treated. I know that I have a responsibility to love and serve the people in my community, and I know that Christ would be down in the muck with them, tending to the lepers, embracing the social rejects. But I am firmly convinced that the public school system is not the way to go about this type of ministry or service. You can’t turn around the Titanic with a rudder built for a john boat. And it’s not fair to the kids and families in that system who want to get an education to continue to view public schools as our catch-all means of fixing the permanent underclass, of eliminating cyclical poverty. You’ve got to do it one person at a time, one family at a time, through real relationships.
(APN) ATLANTA — An Atlanta activist and Twitter-fanatic, Raynard Johnson, is running for the APS Board of Education District 5 seat currently held by LaChandra Butler-Burks. As previously reported by Atlanta Progressive News, Butler-Burks is not running for reelection.
In 2009, Johnson ran for the Atlanta City Council District 11 seat, currently held by Keisha Lance Bottoms, although he dropped out of the race early on and became the campaign manager for Silas Kevil, who, along with several others, also ran for the District 11 seat.
According to Johnson, another candidate, Steven Lee, is also seeking the District 5 seat this year. Lee has filed a notice of intent to run for a School Board seat with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission. Lee has run twice against State Rep. Sheila Jones (D-Atlanta).
“I am a native of Atlanta, a product of the Atlanta public school system,” Johnson told APN.
“I went to Beecher Hills Elementary and Southwest High School, which is now Jean Childs Young Middle School,” Johnson said.
“I was part of APS when APS was working,” he said.
Johnson said he serves on the Local School Council at Continental Colony Elementary School, has served on the Atlanta Police Department Zone 4 Citizens Advisory Board, has served as a Fulton County District Attorney Citizens Court Watcher, serves on the Board of Directors of the Inception Campaign, and is on the parent-teachers association for “every school in my district, all twenty.”
“As you can see, I’m engaged in my community,” Johnson said.
When asked how he would have voted regarding altering the rules to change the Board Chair, which led to the ousting of LaChandra Butler-Burks, he said he would have voted no.
“I understand why they did it. I don’t think the process of what they did [was right]… Basically they wanted to bring up on the agenda discussion items related to cheating, but the Chair or Superintendent set the agenda,” Johnson said.
“They should’ve went after the process to get items on the agenda, as opposed to go after the person. Then that would be considered governance,” he said.
As for charter schools, Johnson said he wants good schools and does not care how they are structured.
“I’m neither for nor against. I’m charter school friendly. Our traditional school system is broken – there’s something about what charter schools are doing are working, we need to replicate that,” he said.
When asked whether he has a preference for replicating what he says are high-performing models in a public school, versus a charter school, he replied, “I’m for a productive learning environment, whether it’s charter schools or public schools.”
Johnson said he believes one of the biggest problems facing the school system is disruption in the classroom. “We need to get a handle on disruptions in the classroom, discipline in the classroom.”
“I’m not necessarily referring to pushing the child out of a school, there’s usually a multitude of issues with this child – they may be hungry, they may be homeless, their lights might be off, they may have been up early getting their brothers and sisters ready for school because no one is parenting, they might have been up watching TV because no one is parenting or because someone was partying all night,” he said.
“Education was valued when I was a child,” he said.
Johnson advocates for sending state social workers to the homes of misbehaving children.
“If you send a DFACS worker to that house, that will get that parent’s attention,” he said.
He also believes that every school should have a social worker, which he says is currently not the case and that multiple schools share social workers.
He said he was concerned about what he perceives to be inequity on the basis of socioeconomic class in out-of-school suspensions, and that he believes less affluent students receive such suspensions more often than those who are more affluent.
He believes these suspensions are counterproductive, leading to “less class time, you fall further behind, you get discouraged, by sixteen you’re ready to quit.”
Johnson said he wants legislation to provide construction companies receiving APS E-SPLOST funding with a tax break if they hire former APS students for construction jobs.
APN has reached out to other candidates for APS Board seats, and plans to publish more candidate interviews soon.
(END/2013)
“We already look bad,” said board member and former Fairfax teacher Pat Hynes (Hunter Mill). “This business about Fairfax County not paying its teachers, that is not the story that Fairfax County wants to tell.”
During a work session that ended late Thursday, the board members discussed options to fund teacher raises, bus replacements for the school system’s aging 1,600-vehicle fleet, and expanding foreign language instruction in elementary schools.
Among the options for raises board members are considering is a 2 percent market scale adjustment that would take effect in January for the district’s 26,100 employees.
That option would be funded partly by a one-time payment of $6.3 million from the state to raise teacher salaries.
Board member Ted Velkoff (At Large) said he did not approve of using one-time funding to solve a recurrent problem. Instead, Velkoff supported a plan offered by board member Ryan McElveen (At Large) that would provide employees with a salary increase in April and set aside funding for an additional increase in 2015.
Board member Kathy Smith (Sully) said she wanted to draft an amendment “pledging” to employees that the administration would pursue the second part of the salary increase in 2015, when more money may be available.
A delayed, or step, increase has only been funded once in the past five years, said Susan Quinn, the school system’s chief financial officer. For that reason, Velkoff said, he would be voting for McElveen’s option.
“I will credit Mr. McElveen with a stroke of genius,” Velkoff said. “We would be making a commitment that we are going to do [the step]. And that’s more than just words.”
Board members Megan McLaughlin (Braddock) and Patty Reed (Providence) also presented a budget amendment to provide funding for 14 additional school psychologists and social workers. In March, administrators said the school system faced a shortage of mental health professionals that had led to unsustainable workloads for the psychologists and social workers.
Most of the board members agreed to pursue the hiring of the additional mental health professionals, at a cost of $1.35 million for five school psychologists and nine social workers.
Janie Strauss (Dranesville), urging fiscal restraint, said the problem was finding the money to pay for them as well as the other budget line items.
This year, the County Board of Supervisors, dealing with a slow economic recovery in the county, left the School Board with a multimillion-dollar deficit when supervisors cut funding to the school system.
Strauss reiterated that paying for certain programs would cost the school system in the future and that the district must address a $130 million shortfall in its fiscal 2015 budget.
Elizabeth Schultz (Springfield) said that no matter the cost, she strongly supports hiring additional mental health professionals.
“Quite often, I’m a little disturbed because we only talk about what things cost, when we should talk about what they save,” Schultz said.
She said mental health professionals save the school system money through preventive work to keep students’ personal issues from becoming classroom discipline problems or worse.
“Sometimes you have to spend money to save money,” Schulz said. “I see this as saving money, but more importantly, saving lives.”
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This is no longer an issue for environmentalists. Our children’s lives are at stake, and it’s time to act
Rebecca Solnit, TomDispatch.com Wednesday, Dec 26, 2012 2:33 PM UTC
Politics TomDispatch.com, Global Warming
Story on school discipline missed the point
To the Editor;
The article “Schools Apart” was astonishing.
This critical subject was addressed without a hint of the real cause of the problem. There was no mention of the 70 percent out-of-wedlock birth rate, 50 percent divorce rate for those who do marry and the impact of attempting to raise children in single parent households, almost always without the guidance of a father.
It is one of the greatest civil rights violation of this generation to poorly educate these children. However, if the leadership believes that additional counseling, mental health specialists and more funding will solve this problem, they are living in LaLa land.
The problem is a cultural problem and will only be solved with a cultural solution. As Thoreau said “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
Tom Ward
Cazenovia
The majority of city school students ‘are great kids’
To the Editor;
The current debate surrounding the level of behavior problems in Syracuse City School District schools is relevant to improving test scores and graduation rates. As an employee of the SCSD, I would like to add that most of the students I have worked with are great kids who care about achieving academic success.
Many overcome difficult circumstances at home and in the community every day that would cause most us, even as adults, to consider giving up. These are the students that keep me coming to work each day. These are the students you will not hear much about in the current Post Standard reporting of the issues within the SCSD.
I want the readers and posters to know they make up the majority of students in each and every school in the district.
Patrice Davis
East Syracuse
Identify real problems before embarking on solutions
To the Editor;
The Post-Standard is to be commended for writing on May 9 about one of the most serious problems that the city and Syracuse school system is struggling to solve. After reading “Schools apart on classroom discipline,” the Kepner Trego Problem Solving course used by major industries is recommended to the Syracuse Schools policymakers. This training will emphasize the importance of defining problems before attempting the solution process.
Otherwise, with the best of intentions, problems are exacerbated. Until our school leaders and teachers reach consensus on the discipline issue, they will be unable to reach practical solutions.
Louise Hopkins
Syracuse
Parents, it’s your job to discipline your own kids
To the Editor;
Another story about teachers, schools and protocol on discipline on May 9′s front page.
Rights groups pointing fingers at teachers saying too many blacks and Latinos being suspended from school. Any student misbehaving and not following school rules should be suspended from school. If the number of students being suspended from school are from those ethnic groups, then you try to do something about it.
It all stems from the parents. If a child is suspended from school, they cannot be let back in until the parents, teacher and an administrator have a meeting. Find out what’s going on at home. Maybe someone can offer some suggestions on how the parents can improve their parenting skills, which they seem to be lacking. Why should any teacher disrupt her class just to have to deal with an unruly child? It is not fair to those who want to learn. If one disruptive child gets only a slap on the wrist, a teacher will have a whole classroom full of disruptive students.
The line has been drawn somewhere as to who’s responsible for the child: the teacher or the parent?
When I was in school, the actions of being disrespectful or disruptive were non-existent. If we got in trouble in school, we got in 10 times more trouble at home.
Many of these kids come from single-parent homes. We must find a way to reduce these numbers as a child really needs a two parent home.
The article also stated that “38 percent of African-American boys in high school are being suspended.” And that it is “not the fault of the student. The system has to figure out how to adjust to the needs of the kid in a proper way.” Why should “the system” have to spend the time and taxpayer dollars to do this when it is the parent’s job to do so?
Parents, it is up to you to discipline your child. The teacher is there for only one reason: to teach.
R. Paratore
Syracuse
Henry Payne
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We offer lively opinion across the political spectrum from the state’s best writers and opinion personalities. Our writers include Bill Johnson and Kathy Hoekstra on the right; Dawud Walid and Dale Hansen on the left; Lynn Rivers, Maria Servold, Brittany Baldwin and Gary Wolfram in academia; Charlie Owens and Tom Watkins from Lansing’s political frontlines; wordsmiths like Dan Calabrese, Jeff Hadden and James Melton; the humor of ex-Chrysler exec Jason Vines – and many more. See the full list of contributors below.
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Posted on Tuesday, May 7, 2013 at 11:49 am
By Ragan Phillips
Many years ago I had a sixth grade teacher we knew as Mrs. Smith. This lady was small of stature and soft of voice, a kind of sweet grandmother up in the front of the classroom. With some 25 or so 12-13 year-olds in the room, full of energy and hormones, we were a rowdy bunch. And Mrs. Smith was the antithesis of a Marine drill sergeant.
But, this is the critical point, when Mrs. Smith said “Class…” the rowdiness disappeared and the room became quiet. As our teacher, and regardless of her demeanor and personality, she had authority. Not a single student in that classroom wanted to face a parent as a result of not showing respect for Mrs. Smith. This small, quiet teacher–all of our teachers–had the respect and full backing of parents and of the community.
David McCullough, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author, is quoted as having said, “…Teachers are the most important people in our society.”
But today, as a society we are losing respect for our teachers. We think nothing of asking our teachers to mange 25 children, take on a 20 percent greater teaching load, and accept more work year after year without a pay raise. We cut back on the number of teachers in the classroom, allow teacher-pupil ratios to rise, eliminate support staff and provide those teachers who hang in there with technology that is a decade behind the times.
When I was in school, teachers could manage and teach 25 students. But have you ever thought about how different the teaching job today is from 50 years ago?
Teachers can no longer concern themselves with just the “Three R’s.” They are challenged to prepare their student for today’s hyper technology world, to gear up for government-imposed standards testing, and to meet state and federal mandates on a myriad of administrative aspects.
When I was in school it was rare for a child to come from a single-parent home. Today with single mothers, divorces, two full-time working parents, etc. the classroom has a majority of students from non-traditional homes. And with that situation the student brings a different dynamic into the classroom. (I am not saying a non-traditional home is a formula for a problem student; but it does create a different set of teacher-related issues.)
The teacher of today has to be highly sensitive to being sued or fired for some interaction with a self-entitled child. Classroom discipline is maintained not by the teacher but, if maintained at all, by the school’s principal. The consequence of a student infraction of behavior is to be marched off to the principal’s office rather than resolved on the spot by the teacher.
So, In My Opinion, today’s teachers have a much greater burden in their classrooms: a broader scope of classroom work, a different set of student issues brought on by today’s society, and a loss of authority, of the mandate to discipline, and, most unfortunately, of the respect of their community.
But the real problem we face is that today many people who could effect change do not take time to study and understand the situation. There are certainly some parents of school children who are involved and even worried about the school system and the role of teachers. But for the most part we older citizens along with those who own and manage businesses are not paying attention.
We are too busy with our own jobs, our social clubs, our sporting events, or watching our favorite programs on TV to worry about our schools. The competition for our time is so great that involvement in education is now a low priority. We don’t have time to worry about the difficulty of a teacher’s job or even to worry about whether our teachers are properly trained for their work.
We leave the financial aspects of our public schools to the school board, appointed and under the thumb of the county’s Board of Supervisors. Our Hanover County School Board, consisting of mostly competent, well-intentioned people, is unable or unwilling to fight back when the county continues the decade-long disinvestment in our public school system.
The reported success and the avalanche of awards garnered by Hanover County Public Schools over the past decade, along with the well-publicized leadership of Stewart Roberson, has lulled our county into the belief that our public school system, still strong in 2012-2013, is with us forever. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Without a commitment from the community as whole, not only parents and teachers, but from citizens of all ages, from business, from the media, our school system is going to crumble.
But, as I said, I fear that no one cares, no one believes, everyone is in a state of “What? Me Worry?”
We can now say “Good-bye, Mrs. Smith.” That era is over.
But are we preparing our students for the new era of globalization, of world-wide competition for jobs, of critical thinking?
The teaching challenge in the classroom of today is twice as difficult as in the past. We need to understand that and we must face the facts: we need more highly qualified teachers, smaller classrooms, and up-to-the–minute technology. And we need a community that is willing to invest time and resources to assure a better school system in Hanover County.
Why not be the best?
About the Writer:
The writer is a semi-retired business executive who lives in Ashland with his wife, the author Phyllis Theroux. They have three teenaged grandsons who attend Hanover Public Schools. The writer can be contacted at rtphil504@gmail.com.
Retired teachers discuss change
Published 11:00pm Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Betty Wagoner is one of those “unusual” teachers who retires and then goes back to the classroom.supper
Although the new technology is somewhat of a mystery to her, she accepted the challenges of learning new ways of doing things.
Wagoner
Wagoner started teaching in 1968 or 1969, she can’t remember.
“I started teaching art and then went to business, so I’ve seen a lot of changes – new programs and new ways of doing things,” she said. “But, I’m not the kind of person to stay home. I like to keep busy, so when I was offered the opportunity to work part time at Charles Henderson High School and work with the seniors and do the yearbook, I said, ‘yes.’”
Wagoner said change is constant and she has seen a lot of change, but not in the students.
“Children are children,” she said. “There’s not any difference between the children in the 1960s and the ones in 2013. They are still children.”
Wagoner said that working with children gives her the opportunity to continue to learn and to be involved in “good things.”
“I’ve had to learn about things that I never thought I would have to learn about,” she said. “But, these new ways are, in a lot of ways, better ways. It’s much easier to put the yearbook together on the computer than it was to put the names on a picture and stick it on a piece of paper. Now, the students can go to the lab and learn to speak German. They have Smartboards and all kinds of devices that make learning more interesting and entertaining.”
Wagoner said computers take a lot of “by hand” work off teacher loads and the records clerk is a blessing to teachers.
As far as discipline, Wagoner said she doesn’t have one minute of trouble from her 136 seniors.
“I love being at school and working with the children,” she said. “It’s all about the children. I feel blessed to be doing what I’m doing.”
Wagoner took a two-year break from the classroom to participate in a federal project in which she was the art and music coordinator for districts in Alabama, California, Oregon and Ohio. As much as she enjoyed the travel and the opportunities, she missed the daily contact with students. She eagerly returned to the classroom.
And, that’s exactly the way it was, when she “retired.”
“I missed the young’us,” Wagoner said.
Looking back on her teaching career, Wagoner said that, if she had the chance to do things differently, she might.
“I had the opportunity to work with the state arts program and I turned it down because I didn’t want to have drive to Montgomery every day,” she said. “I think I would have enjoyed that.”
But, after a thought, Wagoner added. “No. I probably would do it all over again because I love my young’uns. I have no regrets. I’m doing exactly what I want to do. I get to do graduation, plan programs for class day and awards day and Black History Day, Constitution Day, homecoming. It’s like having the icing on the cake. What’s better than that?”
Betty Hixon came in under the technology and isn’t as quick as Wagoner to embrace it.
She retired from teaching in 2002 and, honestly, Hixon said “I’m glad I’m not there.”
“I’m an old fashioned kind of teacher,” she said, laughing. “I don’t think that I could handle the technology.”
Hixon retired after 43 years in the classroom, 32 of those years at Pike Liberal Arts School.
“My mother was an English teacher and that was part of my motivation to teach,” she said. “And, too, back then there weren’t many choices for women. Not many fields were open to us, not like there are now.”
Hixon said she was always happy and content in the classroom. She never wanted to be an administrator. But odds are that she would have made a good administrator because she was known throughout her career as a strict disciplinarian. There was no doubt as to who was in control in Hixon’s classroom. And, if there just happened to be some doubt, it was quickly laid to rest.
“In the earlier days of teaching, teachers had more control of the students,” Hixon said. “Of course, there can always problems but, back then, teachers could control the students much easier. Most of the time, if a student got a paddling at school, he or she got another one at home.”
Although saying so might not be politically correct, Hixon added, “Back then, we also had prayer in school.”
Hixon said her secret to classroom discipline was keeping the students busy.
“I did a lot of planning,” she said. “And, I planned for the whole period. That way the students couldn’t get bored and start getting into things. My students would sometimes complain that they didn’t get to do this or that in my class.
“Max Ellis said that if there were two minutes left in the class, I would start something new. That was my plan – to keep them busy the whole time.”
Hixon said teaching methods have changed markedly since she first walked in the classroom.
“I’m a little skeptical of all the technology,” she said. “There’s a huge advantage to having interaction with a live teacher. When taking courses on line, you don’t have the opportunity for the experience of a bona fide teacher. Everything is cut and dried.”
Handling the challenges of the new technology would be an obstacle for Hixon.
“I had to worry about students sneaking a phone in the classroom,” she said. “Now, you look around and they all have their heads down, texting or whatever it is they do. I’m glad I’m not there fooling with it.”
With the “ease” of the new technology, there are loses that will probably never be made up, Hixon said.
“Young people can’t spell. They abbreviate everything,” she said. “You might was well throw cursive writing out the window. If they can’t punch, they print. Yes. I’m old fashioned. I don’t want to go with the flow.”
Looking back, Hixon said the rewards of teaching are many. Being a part of so many young lives is an awesome opportunity but also a huge responsibility.
“But knowing that I possibly touched someone’s life and made a positive difference is the greatest reward of all,” she said.
Teachers are leaving the classroom in record numbers. Some cite changes at the state level, from the retirement system to teacher evaluations. But another key factor is discipline, or lack of, in the classroom. The parent of a Paul Breaux Middle School student wrote to us saying, almost every day her gifted child comes home with stories of fights and weapons. So we requested the numbers…
In total, 63 weapons have been found on campuses in Lafayette Parish so far this year. Paul Breaux Middle School ties with L.J. Alleman for the schools with the most reports of weapons on campus, each with six this year. But discipline issues are not just limited to weapons.
From dress code violations, to fights, discipline issues have proven to be a distraction in the classroom, and teachers say their inability to act on problems is forcing them to leave the profession. There have been 2,112 fights reported in Lafayette Parish schools this year. Lafayette Middle has more fights, and more students being willfully disobedient, than any other school. And the school with the most incidents, total, is Carencro High, with more than 5,325 reports of discipline issues. Compare that to the Early College Academy with 26 reports this year, the fewest in the parish.
And those numbers may not be completely accurate because teachers say, until recently, they were encouraged not to write up students. Now, Superintendent Dr. Pat Cooper says things are changing. But for several teachers it’s too little, too late.
All it took was four months at Scott Middle School, and first-time teacher, Heather Darby, had enough.
“I had a student tell me he had a dream that he hit me and there was nothing I can do about it, because it was a dream,” said Darby. “He told me that in front of the class, and I just wasn’t prepared to deal with stuff like that.”
Darby graduated from UL last May, and was eager to begin her career. But after witnessing several fights, and close calls, within her own classroom she knew it was time to get out.
“Discouraging, it was really discouraging. I felt like I really didn’t have much respect as far as the students were concerned,” said Darby.
This year there have been 37,528 reports of discipline infractions in Lafayette Parish schools. At middle schools and high schools throughout the parish, resource officers are placed on the campuses, like Officer Melvin Riddell over at Northside High School.
“Everyday I’m in, and out, of the classrooms talking to them,” said Riddell. “They give me information, I actually give them resources and different directions to take, as far as with individual students. Whether it’s a program with the police department, or the school board, whatever we can do to get the kid on the right path, that’s our main objective.”
Riddell says Northside’s biggest discipline issues are attendance and dress code violations. He says the most important aspect of his job is acting as a mentor, by instilling discipline into students.
“By not always trying to show them what they did wrong, but trying to show them a way that I can help them, hopefully at least we save one. You can’t save them all,” said Riddell.
Nearly two months ago, Lafayette Parish Superintendent Dr. Pat Cooper, sent out a letter telling principals to “take control of their schools.” That’s after several teachers spoke up on KATC and at the school board meetings, saying the students were running the schools. After Cooper’s mandate went out, he says 45 of the top discipline offenders were taken out of their schools.
“Seems like discipline issues have really quieted down. It’s not to say we’re still not having some issues, but I think people know that we’re trying to take responsive action, and trying to take care of things quicker,” said Cooper.
Cooper says the discipline matrix, which has been around since 2008, will be changing to streamline consequences.
“I really think that sends the right message to the kids, and to the teachers, that there is going to be a consequence if you don’t follow the rules,” said Cooper.
But changes in discipline are coming too late for more than 200 teachers leaving Lafayette Parish, and for Darby, her dreams of being a teacher have been put on hold.
“There were some really sweet good kids that I worked with that I really miss,” said Darby. “There was a little feeling of guilt whenever I decided to leave because I knew I was leaving some good kids behind. But I guess the good, it just didn’t outweigh the bad.”
“I think we’re going to handle things much more quickly. Kids are going to get the message up front in the school year, and kids behave. Kids only learn what we teach them. If we teach them that’s our expectations, most of them are going to adhere to that,” said Cooper.
Darby is continuing to work in education, ironically as a substitute teacher in Lafayette Parish, and as a private tutor. She is one of the more than 600 teachers that have left Acadiana schools this year.
Teachers are leaving the classroom in record numbers. Some cite changes at the state level, from the retirement system to teacher evaluations. But another key factor is discipline, or lack of, in the classroom. The parent of a Paul Breaux Middle School student wrote to us saying, almost every day her gifted child comes home with stories of fights and weapons. So we requested the numbers…
In total, 63 weapons have been found on campuses in Lafayette Parish so far this year. Paul Breaux Middle School ties with L.J. Alleman for the schools with the most reports of weapons on campus, each with six this year. But discipline issues are not just limited to weapons.
From dress code violations, to fights, discipline issues have proven to be a distraction in the classroom, and teachers say their inability to act on problems is forcing them to leave the profession. There have been 2,112 fights reported in Lafayette Parish schools this year. Lafayette Middle has more fights, and more students being willfully disobedient, than any other school. And the school with the most incidents, total, is Carencro High, with more than 5,325 reports of discipline issues. Compare that to the Early College Academy with 26 reports this year, the fewest in the parish.
And those numbers may not be completely accurate because teachers say, until recently, they were encouraged not to write up students. Now, Superintendent Dr. Pat Cooper says things are changing. But for several teachers it’s too little, too late.
All it took was four months at Scott Middle School, and first-time teacher, Heather Darby, had enough.
“I had a student tell me he had a dream that he hit me and there was nothing I can do about it, because it was a dream,” said Darby. “He told me that in front of the class, and I just wasn’t prepared to deal with stuff like that.”
Darby graduated from UL last May, and was eager to begin her career. But after witnessing several fights, and close calls, within her own classroom she knew it was time to get out.
“Discouraging, it was really discouraging. I felt like I really didn’t have much respect as far as the students were concerned,” said Darby.
This year there have been 37,528 reports of discipline infractions in Lafayette Parish schools. At middle schools and high schools throughout the parish, resource officers are placed on the campuses, like Officer Melvin Riddell over at Northside High School.
“Everyday I’m in, and out, of the classrooms talking to them,” said Riddell. “They give me information, I actually give them resources and different directions to take, as far as with individual students. Whether it’s a program with the police department, or the school board, whatever we can do to get the kid on the right path, that’s our main objective.”
Riddell says Northside’s biggest discipline issues are attendance and dress code violations. He says the most important aspect of his job is acting as a mentor, by instilling discipline into students.
“By not always trying to show them what they did wrong, but trying to show them a way that I can help them, hopefully at least we save one. You can’t save them all,” said Riddell.
Nearly two months ago, Lafayette Parish Superintendent Dr. Pat Cooper, sent out a letter telling principals to “take control of their schools.” That’s after several teachers spoke up on KATC and at the school board meetings, saying the students were running the schools. After Cooper’s mandate went out, he says 45 of the top discipline offenders were taken out of their schools.
“Seems like discipline issues have really quieted down. It’s not to say we’re still not having some issues, but I think people know that we’re trying to take responsive action, and trying to take care of things quicker,” said Cooper.
Cooper says the discipline matrix, which has been around since 2008, will be changing to streamline consequences.
“I really think that sends the right message to the kids, and to the teachers, that there is going to be a consequence if you don’t follow the rules,” said Cooper.
But changes in discipline are coming too late for more than 200 teachers leaving Lafayette Parish, and for Darby, her dreams of being a teacher have been put on hold.
“There were some really sweet good kids that I worked with that I really miss,” said Darby. “There was a little feeling of guilt whenever I decided to leave because I knew I was leaving some good kids behind. But I guess the good, it just didn’t outweigh the bad.”
“I think we’re going to handle things much more quickly. Kids are going to get the message up front in the school year, and kids behave. Kids only learn what we teach them. If we teach them that’s our expectations, most of them are going to adhere to that,” said Cooper.
Darby is continuing to work in education, ironically as a substitute teacher in Lafayette Parish, and as a private tutor. She is one of the more than 600 teachers that have left Acadiana schools this year.
