As schools chief Reggie Mayo spoke of new efforts to handle a growing number of students with “serious emotional difficulties,” parents lined up to demand more of a role in crafting policy.
It was part of a candid and, by turns, painful window on the discussion of disciplinary and suspension policy that the BOE is currently undertaking.
The interchange took place as half a dozen members of Teach Our Children (TOC) were on hand Monday night at the BOE’s public meeting. The speakers asked to be included in groups giving input to the BOE as it reformulates it decade-and-half old policy on school suspensions.
Incidents of bullying, sometimes followed by students being suspended, have been climbing in recent years. So have demands from parents to explain why an offense at one school results in, say in-school suspension, while in another it does not.
Mayo told Kelly Moye (in the brown shirt), of the parents’ advocacy group Teach Our Children, that in his 41 years in the school system he has never had to deal with as many kids with serious emotional difficulties in the classroom as in 2008.
“If you want us to deal with these kids in our schools and not kick them out into other programs, the state had better give us behavior experts and psychiatrists, because we don’t have the resources now.”
To make suspension and other disciplinary policy more uniform, said Charles Williams (far right in photo), the director of curriculum for high schools, the BOE engaged consultant Jerry Graniero back in November. Since TOC had been among the parents groups bringing these issues to the BOE’s attention, its members wondered why they had been left off the list, which thus far has included some parents, teachers, principals, and even groups of kids.
Mayo assured them that Williams, who is heading the suspension task force, would apprise them of the next meeting, which is to be in mid-March, although Williams wasn’t sure of the precise date.
In a just-released state report, the New Haven Public School district was urged to fashion “a comprehensive, district-wide behavior support strategy that will help reduce suspensions and expulsions and provide positive behaviors supports, especially for students with significant social and emotional difficulties who don’t necessarily qualify for special education.”
Williams said the report was not the spur to the NHPS’s suspension task force, which has been meeting since November and is addressing all kids, K-12, including those in special education.
Tiffany Moore (shown below with TOC coordinator Gwendolyn Forrest) is a single mom with four kids in the NHPS, two at Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy. According to Mayo, the schools where kids with serious classroom management difficulties are clustered this year are Beecher, Ross/Woodward, and Clemente. “We had about 40 kids that the staff was having a real challenge to deal with,” said Mayo, “but now we’re down to 20, and I’m working with Dr. [Leroy] Williams at Clemente with about what he says are eight kids that are causing a lot of difficulty.
“Mind you,” he added, “there are some kids who no matter what resources we bring just don’t belong in our classroom, and for them we try to refer them to other programs. But these are very complicated issues, with documentation, and appropriate legal safeguards taken each step of the way, or here come the lawsuits.”
Moore, a frequent visitor to Clemente, said she’s there to advocate for and protect her kid. But once there she works with kids in various classrooms in the process. “My son was badly bullied, not long ago,” she said, “but Dr. Williams (at Clemente) refused to let me meet with any of the parents of the kids involved, and none of them were suspended in any way.”
Moore said that in her view Clemente is suffering not just from the actions of eight or so particularly tough kids but from a more systemic problem. She described scenes in which the principal was hard put to control kids in the cafeteria. Teachers regularly are trash-talked and inappropriately challenged by kids.
“There is no psychologist there at the school, except the nurse,” she said, “and when I discussed my problem, she practically confided that there were a lot of kids who had problems at home, and they were acting out in school.”
Which may be true, but then why did Moore’s kid have to suffer?
That was Mayo’s point. “We’re under pressure to deal with these kids in the school setting, so that if we have to suspend, it’s in-school suspension, that’s our preference, so that the kids can at least learn. That’s the mandate from the legislature, to reduce out of school suspension, but I’m going to talk with [State] Sen. [Toni] Harp, because if we’re to do this, they have to provide resources. Otherwise, it’s just another unfunded mandate.”
Regularizing the discipline code so that an offense, for example, at Beecher gets the same punishment as an offense at Clarence Rogers, and that parents know this in advance, is one of the goals of the working group Williams is heading. No systemwide discipline code currently exists beyond what’s in the parent orientation handbook, written in the early 1990s, and everyone agrees that times have changed and an update is necessary.
Moye, who has a child at Conte/West Hills and a high schooler at Cross, was mollified. “I’m grateful they’re including the kids in these discussions,” he said, “because by and large the kids know exactly the tiny group, the one per cent who’s doing the bad stuff, who’s setting off a fire alarm, so they can go on the yard to fight.”
He also said that in his view schools can’t be asked to solve problems that are more rightfully the parents’. But the tete-a-tete with Mayo was a good outcome, even the part where Mayo encouraged them not only to participate in the Williams group but to go to Hartford and testify that new mental health resources are needed in the New Haven schools. Mayo said this effort would be part of his new lobbyist‘s portfolio in Hartford.
Moore and her TOC colleague Natasha Smith were still confused about the specific date in March the group is next to meet. Charles Williams gave them his card; the TOC members were going to be sure keep after the BOE to include them. Stay tuned.
Previous installments in the Independent’s series on parental involvement in local schools:
Son Gets Pills; Suspension Policy Targeted
Dad Goes To The Top, Gets Results
Parents, M&Ms Join In Math Lesson
Brandon Aims For The Blue Shirt
Night-Shift Waitress Hangs Up Apron
Dad Meets The Teachers. All Of ‘Em
Ms. Lopez Moves Brandon’s Seat
Night-Shift Waitress Gets Xena To Class On Time
Fifth-Graders Get “Amistadized”
Board of Ed To Parents: Get Involved!
Task Force Hones Plan for Kids
The New St. Martin DePorres Comes Home
Good-Bye Recess. Hello Take 10.
In the 05-06 school year, 6730 out of school suspensions were served. Only 172 of 6730 cases received homebound education. Only 33 of these cases were decided by an impartial review board. If you think this is a problem, please contact Teach Out Children (203) 786-5499, [email protected]