Board of Education - Common Council Liaison Committee - November 15, 2006

Madison Metropolitan School District Madison, Wisconsin Art Rainwater, Superintendent
BOARD OF EDUCATION Minutes for Board of Education - Common Council Liaison Committee November 15, 2006		Madison Municipal Building 215 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd Madison, Wisconsin Room 303

Common Council/Board of Education Liaison Committee meeting was called to order by Chair Lucy Mathiak at 4:35 p.m.

MEMBERS PRESENT: Alder Isadore Knox, Jr. (arrived at 4:39 p.m.), Alder Cindy Thomas; Board of Education Member Lawrie Kobza, Board of Education Member Lucy Mathiak; Mayoral Assistant George Twigg; School District Superintendent Art Rainwater

MEMBERS ABSENT: None

OTHER BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: None

STAFF PRESENT: Det. Lt. Wayne Strong, Madison Police Department; Ann Wilson (MMSD) -Recording Secretary; Luis Yudice, School District Coordinator for Security

1. Approval of Minutes

It was moved by Cindy Thomas and seconded by Lawrie Kobza to approve the minutes dated October 18, 2006. Motion unanimously carried.

2. Public Appearances

There were no public appearances.

3. Announcements

There were no announcements.

4. School Safety Challenges and Responses - Panel Discussion with MMSD and Madison Police Department Staff

What types of incidents are resulting calls for police assistance to schools?

To what extent are such incidents related to student behavior, and to what extent are the incidents related to parents or other non-students?

To what extent are police calls related or not related to gang activity?

Are there emerging trends in student-related policy calls that the BOE and CC should be aware of?

Are there issues that the BOE and CC should be thinking about to anticipate and develop positive

and proactive responses to issues that will be major concerns in 2-5 years?

(Written materials distributed at the meeting: Madison Police Department Incident Analysis Report for Memorial High School for the period 1/1/06-11/15/06 - attached to the original copy of these minutes.)

Luis Yudice provided as information a sampling of police calls for Memorial High School from January 1 to this date. He noted the most common incidents are fights and disturbances. In the case of fights, de-escalation/conflict resolution strategies are used, but police are called if students continue to be very angry and need to be restrained.

DISCUSSION:

· Police calls about the same number for all high schools. Not huge numbers, about 4-5 per month. Fairly consistent last 3-4 years. Weapons becoming slightly more frequent.

· Weapons calls may be misleading - need research - may have been recorded as initial information to 911 and not corrected. A61 indicates the school ERO handled the call. May also be a response to an address and nothing actually happened in the school (on a weekend, parking lot disturbance).

· Majority of calls are for students. Sometimes a juvenile who does not belong to the school.

· Majority of calls at the high schools, smaller percent at middle schools, very tiny percent at elementary schools. Begin to see a few more incidents at the middle school level. Some cases at elementary level are with students who are mentally ill.

· Nexus in the community between what happens in school and in the community - fights can continue in schools that begin in the community. One of the plusses of having an ERO - can communicate what is happening in the neighborhood. Can exchange information on a regular basis.

· Following national trends, girls are becoming involved in increasing violence to settle disputes; more girls referred into juvenile system; see at all high schools across the board.

· Communication about what is appropriate behavior - Students receive the Code of Conduct and go through it at the beginning of the year. Schools do different things, with different groups to highlight. Concern that there is regular communication and reinforcement with students. Students need to hear, in class. Need to be proactive.

· Initial function/goal of ERO was support. Now find less and less time to do that. Prefer EROs spend more classroom time talking about conduct, laws, becoming productive citizens.

· EROs need opportunity at the beginning of the school year to talk with freshmen about orientation - expectations and consequences (misdemeanor, felony).

· Provide information at the start of every school year. Code of Conduct is explained.

· May need to be explicit in telling students what they cannot do - teach other methods of conflict resolution. There are a range of issues around which students can get in trouble in school. Community issue as well - issues begin in the community and not dealt with come into the school.

· Do not like to hear, because it involves a juvenile, that it is a school issue.

· Are high schools asking for more EROs? Need to start addressing problems in the home. Becomes a community issue, then comes to school.

· Advocacy not happening in the school re: what is appropriate and what is not. Kids get "nailed" because they don't know.

· Happens - maybe not for every student in every case. Trying to intervene and work with kids. It happens, is not always successful.

· Shared responsibility. Schools have children for a large chunk of time. Issues with enforcement and consistency. Need to work on creating a sense of community responsibility and staff responsibility. Reality is that there are kids who don't know. Agencies need to work together (city, county, schools) to take wholistic view of critical gaps. As parent am concerned about gangs, racial profiling, and creating structures for students. Seems the set of rules is different among schools.

· In the middle of a major change to the way the district is approaching behavior. Approach to changing behavior was punishment. Now changing to teaching good behavior. Moving toward restorative justice model so child can get back in good graces in the community. No value in suspension for anyone. Have to narrow suspensions down to cases of safety for student and the school. Behavior system will look the same at all schools.

· Would love to have more EROs.

· Training for teachers about the appropriate reasons for sending children out of the classroom. Certain teachers do not want to deal with bad behavior. Important that teachers have an understanding of how to deal with difficult, defiant students. Interactions with teachers is a major reason students are being suspended. Same students who are not graduating.

· Actually only a small number of teachers who do not deal with student behavior in the classroom. Requires a culture shift. Have students who behave in a certain way to survive in neighborhood; need to behave differently in school - are actually bicultural.

· Some students looking for attention. Many fights are over boy/girl issues. Things that lead to violence are often also a model of how to get an identity in school.

· Need a model that teaches children how to utilize skills to behave appropriately in their current environment. Concerned that situations should be avoided where, instead of working in the best interests of students, we instead cover our liabilities and kids with redeemable values are lost.

· Middle school is the transition time - when students don't seem to have the necessary skills. Perhaps even beginning in elementary school. Sometimes correlates with third grade reading test.

· Would be interesting to see how kids fared in eighth grade compared with their scores in reading at third grade. Reading level of most students in jail school is very low - average second grade. Students doing well in academics generally connect with school and do well.

· If students are not reading and able to function, lower self-esteem with disastrous effects, no sense of belonging; snowball of bad behavior.

· Prevention elements in place in elementary school are generally safety items - messages from the police, fire department. Elementary students have a teacher who knows them to connect with; elementary teachers teach "kids." Middle and high school teachers teach "subjects." Results in more disaffection for unconnected students. Consequences disastrous for students with unmet needs.

· Were many connections when the EROs were in the middle schools. Rotated; were extremely effective. Was an excellent experiment.

· Cultural issue of kids not being able to do well because of adverse peer pressure - it is okay only to excel in sports. Schools have worked on this forever, but it is still a problem.

· Students know when they can't perform. After four years, they begin to believe they will never be able to do that. Changes "who they are," particularly children without home supports. Begin to disassociate. That is why third grade reading is so important. Reading is everything.

· Children who create diversion to avoid reading are not unique. Disrupters are ashamed, embarrassed; other kids "rotten" about it. Need different interventions at different levels. Middle school may be a transition point. Start to hear race peer pressure to not succeed. At high school, take on bigger things (drugs, alcohol). Who intervenes? Who takes care of the mental health aspect?

· Some students are in school who would not have been there in the past. District has been part of a study of middle school students. Many children growing up in poverty suffer from post-traumatic stress. Have some students with mental illnesses. Most mainstream; vast majority learn how to deal with school. Have two positive behavior support teams. Some students make it; some do not.

· Poverty, mental health and depression are very real issues. Children in foster care, social services. Need to work together to address poverty and other issues.

· Have ongoing meetings among police department, Dane County Human Services, juvenile justice system, district attorney's office, NIP. Very good level of cooperation at the leader level and between staff. Hurdle is sharing information. Are able to do more of that now and will continue to improve.

· Policies require money, and don't see any money in the city budget. If there are things the city and schools should be doing together, need to develop a wholistic plan.

· County takes the lead responsibility for human services programs; city just fills the void.

· Problem is a lack of mental health therapy for young children; distance between identifying the problem and the altercation that results in services.

· Need to spend money on prevention, early childhood services. District must provide four-year-old kindergarten to all; cannot pick and choose. Do have programs for children at risk.

· Need to develop systematic programs for all students by level.

· Psychologists and social workers do some of that for students with common issues. Had elementary alternative program for first time last year. Next fall, beginning cooperative outpatient mental health program for middle school students. Would be great to provide that before age five.

· Heard that middle/high students are reluctant to enter alternative programs that include students from all schools because of the presence of gang members. Most problems come from human nature issues (boys, girls, money) rather than gain or profit of a gang. Is a concern for individual students, but overall, are very few gang problems.

· Unfortunate message being relayed that schools are not safe because of a lockdown when, in fact, the school may be safe because of it.

5. Measures of Poverty as Related to School and City Services Planning

(Written materials provided: Census 2000 - The Concentration of Negative Child Outcomes in Low-Income Neighborhoods by Mark Mather and Kerri L. Rivers, Population Reference Bureau, Kids Count - attached to the original copy of these minutes.)

This item was not discussed due to lack of time.

6. Agenda and Place for December Meeting

There will be continued discussion of school safety challenges and measures of poverty/changing neighborhoods as related to planning. A future topic will be sharing some work about the impact of abuse on children. Transportation discussions were postponed until January.

7. Other Business

There was no other business.

8. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned by unanimous consent at 6:02 p.m.

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