PEORIA, IL -- The Peoria District 150 School Board on Jan. 22 revealed what democracy looks like, with all it's flaws. There's a collegial atmosphere, and dissent from board members occurs without recriminations.
The Journal Star's Pam Adams presented a good story, with the public comments adding another flavor.
The board heard a presentation on a high school demonstration project that would eliminate F's for failure and even end required attendance. My take: so all the children now are above average, as in Lake Wobegon?
The plan drew comments from the usual suspects, including it's been tried before and, ironically, failed.
My reaction is skepticism, as the real world of work doesn't do that -- people get fired. And they must show up daily and on time. Students should encounter the same situations in school and learn how to handle failure, which can be motivating. Let's hope this project is evaluated.
The board approved a new 'wacky Wednesday' plan for the high schools, which likely won't destroy learning, but may also be a waste of staff time. It should be evaluated.
And happily a 'safe haven' policy to protect the schools from aggressive immigration agents stalking the undocumented passed on the consent agenda.
The public comments included ideas from a man who questioned the $500,000 contract with Family Core for counseling. "No child should be suspended without talking with parents," he said. Counselors should come to the parents who may not have transportation or time to take off from work to meet a counselor somewhere, he said.
If counselors are afraid of the neighborhood, "I have a group of guys, a street committee," to protect them, he said, adding they would stand in front of gunfire if necessary.
A board member questioned the Family Core effectiveness, but the contract was approved 6 - 1. The superintendent said she has additional information on the work the group does which she will share with board members.
Sharon Crews shared information on failure and attendance with the board. Her valuable comments are included below.
Terry Knapp questioned the 'no failing grades, no required attendance' plans. "Attendance is critical," he said. "The number one thing corporations look for is good attendance."
He discussed TIF districts, which are "killing this district financially." The city of Peoria has almost $6 million in its TIF districts, money that could go to the schools, but instead is being held for city projects. These include purchase of the Detweiller Playground property to replace land in Riverfront Park lost to the proposed apartments. The council has yet to approve that purchase, however.
Knapp also commented on the lack of music students for bands, compared with other schools. "We have got to make an effort to bring fine arts back," he said.
Here is a recording of the public comments:
Download D150 Jan 22 18
-- Elaine Hopkins
Here are the comments of Sharon Crews:
Please do not doubt that my motivation for presenting data to you is always my desire for students to graduate with the self-discipline to survive in the world on their own and with the academic knowledge to reach their next goal.
The world has not always been kind or fair to many of our students or their parents, etc. Sometimes I get the feeling that you want to go easy on them to make up for the past. I understand that motivation, but it is not preparing students for the future.
Because you care about them, you are in a position to make them understand that being tough on them now will get them ready for a world that still is not always kind or fair. I see in yesterday’s paper that you may go in the opposite direction—history should prevail—we already did Glasser’s Schools without Failure—and it failed.
At Peoria High, in the first 71 days of this school year, 2,523 referrals were written for behavior problems and about 1,000 for cutting classes.
With regard to the consequences meted out to students for bad behavior, I was quite happy to find that only 21 detentions were issued. That particular consequence creates nothing but chaos.
Probably the only consequence that created an inconvenience for students was Saturday School. Of the 3,536 students who received referrals, the consequence for 1,052 was Saturday School. I don’t know how many of that number didn’t show up on Saturday or what the punishment for that was. Thirty-seven referrals were issued for behavior at Saturday School.
In-school suspensions were the consequence for 819 student behaviors and out of school consequences were issued for 260. Time out of class is not a punishment unless students realize or care that their grades are affected. I’m not sure that is true.
A consequence I still do not understand—the Referral Rewrite—was issued for 583 referrals. The other consequences probably do little to change behavior. One strong indication that the discipline policies are not changing behaviors is that in the 20 days of September, 627 referrals were written. For the 20 days of October the number went up to 929—a 302 increase. There were only 18 days in November but the number of referrals was 903. These numbers cannot be ignored.
The whole purpose of coming to school is to get a diploma; if students can pass courses and get diplomas without changing their behaviors, the chaos that exists today will continue.
I am sure there are many repeat offenders but the data I didn’t receive the information needed to assess the number of repeaters. Undoubtedly, there are classrooms that have very few offenders and that the most offenders are freshmen and sophomores. Until a better solution is found, repeat offenders must be taken out of regular classrooms (that is true of primary and middle schools, also).
In 71 days, a classroom was disrupted 2,864 times. Considering that each classroom disruption takes a minimum of 15 minutes—that is a loss of 716 hours of teaching and learning time. The real losers are the students who come prepared to learn; they are being cheated every day.
Of the 1000 students who cut classes, 181 were found in hallways, the cafeteria, outside, and in various other locations. The other 800 were just missing. That number should alarm you since that means that you don’t know where they were or what they were doing—and schools are responsible for students when under their jurisdiction
I do believe that only 12 drug offenses and 7 instances of gang activity are the result of difficulty in detecting these activities. These two offenses should be given adequate attention at all schools and at all levels. A warning I read in the PJStar—Remember the discrimination of low expectations. -30-