PEORIA, IL -- The Peoria District 150 School Board heard a very interesting comment on discipline issues at its Jan. 27 meeting. The report was delivered by activist Sharon Crews. It is attached at the end of this post, and worth reading, as it is well researched.
Terry Knapp was the only other person to comment. He questioned liability issues for teachers and others who transport students to events and games, if an accident occurs. "We need to talk about liability," he said.
Here is a recording of the comments:
The report from Sharon Crews:
The district’s discipline problems will not be resolved until the consequences for bad behavior are effective enough to change behaviors. The current consequences are not deterring classroom disruptions; therefore, effective teaching and learning cannot take place.
I’m using Manual’s (High School) data for first semester of 2018-19. One of the most often used consequences is listed as Conference with a Student. Every student sent to the office on a referral first has a conference with an administrator. Therefore, it is quite likely that 126 of 379 students sent on referrals for disrupting class did not receive any consequence at all.
How can even a good talking to be considered a consequence for students who are used to hearing the same old tongue lashing or plea to do better?
A detention was the most often used consequence. In my era, deans issued detentions for a variety of offenses. The first mistake was that the student was allowed the day of their choice to serve the detention. Quite often the students were allowed all manner of excuses for being busy after school. By the time they served the detention, they had racked up more detentions.
One teacher was paid to handle many students who were there for disrupting class, so there was usually chaos. There was rarely a consequence for misbehaving during a detention. Therefore, 143 of 379 Manual students probably did not improve their behavior in class.
An Alternative to Suspension was listed as the consequence for 31 of the 379. That’s evasive enough—we know what the consequence isn’t but we don’t know what it is.
The worst consequence and the one that should not exist at all was the Office Referral Rewrite. Teachers were asked to rewrite 38 of the 379 referrals and, if there were consequences for the student, they aren’t listed. My opinion is that if you feel teachers are being unfair or too harsh, you need to handle those situations in a way that is not apparent to students.
Three students received Parent Conferences. All parents should be consulted—this is not a sufficient high school consequence. Out of School was listed for four disrupters. In-School suspension was listed for 21 disrupters and Intervention for 2. Just being out of class isn’t a meaningful consequence.
Five classroom fighters were punished with an Alternative Suspension, an Out of School, or In-School Suspension. An Alternative to Suspension was given to one student who threatened staff, an In-School Suspension for one who threatened staff, and a Parent Contact for another who threatened staff. The truth is that almost none of the 379 received meaningful consequences, Why would you expect behavior to improve?
Sixteen students received the same range of consequences for fighting in the hallways. One student received an Out of School Suspension for threatening an attack with a firearm—that doesn’t seem to be sufficient and one received only a Detention for threatening staff in the hallway.
Three students received an Out of School suspension for fighting in the cafeteria and one student received an Out of School Suspension for threatening staff on the bus. I believe that behavior on buses, in hallways, and in the cafeteria is under observed by adults and, therefore, not punished. No wonder disruptive behavior carries into the classroom.
Why couldn’t students serving time outside of the classroom be expected to accomplish extra academic tasks or even do some charity work? If you would come up with original consequences, you could possibly make Peoria famous for coming up with the most original discipline plan. I’ll try to come up with some ideas that you can reject. - 30 -