Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ron Brown high school forbids almost all suspensions and has a much better approach. Perhaps this is a strategy that should be adopted...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/07/05/dc-all-boys-high-school/102898672/

I'm skeptical of ANY school that says that they don't suspend students. Especially, if they have some "new" better approach. Schools need consistency and follow through. BTW, principals are afraid to perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline so they ignore disruptive students who need discipline and effective socio-emotional supports. How about investing in more school counselors? How about giving students more recess time? How about more field trips?

Good grief- READ THE ARTICLE-- counseling is essentially what they do instead of suspensions.

I guess, I'll through in my two cents, I am a former DCPS school counselor. When an administrator or I suggested counseling, parents often fell into two categories: Absolutely refusing to acknowledging they have issues because it is seen as uncool or a "white people thing" to speak to a counselor about your problems and try to resolve them OR the second issue was that families has inter-generational issues and several layers of issues that could not be resolved by the school. Those families often needed a referral for a professional that had the time and exprience to del with that many layers. People need to realize that counseling professionals are expensive and the families DCPS often serves are poor and its likely their gov't sponsored insurance may not cover counseling services.

I'll make it easier:
"Key to Ron Brown’s success, staffers say, is an unusual approach to discipline and team-building, introduced to students before classes began last August, that all but prohibits out-of-school suspensions. So-called “restorative justice” offers victims the opportunity to confront classroom tormentors face-to-face.

If students get into a fight, for instance, they're not suspended, as in other D.C. schools. They must come together with others in their class, in a circle, and talk openly about how the conflict affected them. Even bystanders are expected to take part. Students name names and don’t hold back.

The school’s psychologist and one of its founders, Dr. Charles Curtis, said last August that the confrontational approach is actually protective: “We want to say their names now, while they are alive.”

He said the circle also allows students to confide in others about family difficulties — at least four students lost parents over the school year, and several lost other family members.

Ten months later, Curtis is more devoted to the technique than ever, saying the identity development of young black men is “marred with expectations of criminality, expectations of pathology, expectations of aggression and hyper-sexuality — and all kinds of other stuff that people impose on them.”

The school’s approach: smother students in affection and, if you ask the students, sometimes overwhelming attention.

Teachers and staff inquire about their families. They talk almost non-stop about the future, about planning and risk-taking and second chances. After school, they offer rides home and walk students to nearby bus and subway stops.

“You can see that they actually do care for you,” said Matthews, “they don’t just leave you out in the wind.” (He recalled that at his middle school, uniformed guards, not teachers, patrolled the bus stop.)

The restorative approach actually requires a bigger commitment to discipline than simply sending misbehaving students home to their parents for a few days, said founding principal Benjamin Williams. For one thing, there may be nobody home.

Most of the students, he said, “have really bought in to the idea that suspension is not a consequence for behavior, that they’re going to have to take ownership at some point.”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ron Brown high school forbids almost all suspensions and has a much better approach. Perhaps this is a strategy that should be adopted...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/07/05/dc-all-boys-high-school/102898672/

In-school-suspension isn't exactly innovative.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for it. Any kind of suspension is a relief for the victims of trouble-making activity: both educators and the rest of the student body wins when problems are eliminated. However, the "at home" variety can easily become rewarding and desirable and negatively-reinforcing for the kids who get it. Suspend them in school, and have the physical capability (rooms, muscle, training, and policy) to try to keep them on track, but segregated from the community they're constantly disrupting. Make them earn their privileges, such as re-joining the class. And if they can't handle that, then at least they can still be in a safe environment and attempt to learn.

Try reading the story. It's not suspension (in or out of school) at all. They have to get together and work through problems and "own them"

TLDR. (Also, I hate automatic videos, those are an abomination). For students who can talk through problems and own their mistakes that's great. Alas, it's a skill FAR beyond even many of the parents at some schools. Ergo, keep in-school-suspension as an option. With effective enforcement.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ron Brown high school forbids almost all suspensions and has a much better approach. Perhaps this is a strategy that should be adopted...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/07/05/dc-all-boys-high-school/102898672/

I'm skeptical of ANY school that says that they don't suspend students. Especially, if they have some "new" better approach. Schools need consistency and follow through. BTW, principals are afraid to perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline so they ignore disruptive students who need discipline and effective socio-emotional supports. How about investing in more school counselors? How about giving students more recess time? How about more field trips?

Good grief- READ THE ARTICLE-- counseling is essentially what they do instead of suspensions.

I guess, I'll through in my two cents, I am a former DCPS school counselor. When an administrator or I suggested counseling, parents often fell into two categories: Absolutely refusing to acknowledging they have issues because it is seen as uncool or a "white people thing" to speak to a counselor about your problems and try to resolve them OR the second issue was that families has inter-generational issues and several layers of issues that could not be resolved by the school. Those families often needed a referral for a professional that had the time and exprience to del with that many layers. People need to realize that counseling professionals are expensive and the families DCPS often serves are poor and its likely their gov't sponsored insurance may not cover counseling services.

Anonymous wrote:Former dcps teacher here, 12 years at an elementary feeder to schools in article. Our admin would request a parent shadow and if parent couldn't do that child had to stay home.

We probably recorded it at an excused absence, but that's a whole separate topic of dysfunctional dcps.

This sounds reasonable but how do you really enforce it? I mean you can't exactly cut benefits by a small margin if parents don't take care of their children, many advocates and ultra-liberal people won't support it. I would absolutely support a bill that fined parents benefits if they don't show up to parent teacher conferences, their children are consistently late to school or absent from school, or in trouble. Unfortunately, the pressure is too misplaced on schools and not enough on the parents who bore these out of control children.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ron Brown high school forbids almost all suspensions and has a much better approach. Perhaps this is a strategy that should be adopted...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/07/05/dc-all-boys-high-school/102898672/

I'm skeptical of ANY school that says that they don't suspend students. Especially, if they have some "new" better approach. Schools need consistency and follow through. BTW, principals are afraid to perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline so they ignore disruptive students who need discipline and effective socio-emotional supports. How about investing in more school counselors? How about giving students more recess time? How about more field trips?

Good grief- READ THE ARTICLE-- counseling is essentially what they do instead of suspensions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ron Brown high school forbids almost all suspensions and has a much better approach. Perhaps this is a strategy that should be adopted...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/07/05/dc-all-boys-high-school/102898672/

In-school-suspension isn't exactly innovative.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for it. Any kind of suspension is a relief for the victims of trouble-making activity: both educators and the rest of the student body wins when problems are eliminated. However, the "at home" variety can easily become rewarding and desirable and negatively-reinforcing for the kids who get it. Suspend them in school, and have the physical capability (rooms, muscle, training, and policy) to try to keep them on track, but segregated from the community they're constantly disrupting. Make them earn their privileges, such as re-joining the class. And if they can't handle that, then at least they can still be in a safe environment and attempt to learn.

Try reading the story. It's not suspension (in or out of school) at all. They have to get together and work through problems and "own them"

Former dcps teacher here, 12 years at an elementary feeder to schools in article. Our admin would request a parent shadow and if parent couldn't do that child had to stay home.

We probably recorded it at an excused absence, but that's a whole separate topic of dysfunctional dcps.

Anonymous wrote:Ron Brown high school forbids almost all suspensions and has a much better approach. Perhaps this is a strategy that should be adopted...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/07/05/dc-all-boys-high-school/102898672/

In-school-suspension isn't exactly innovative.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for it. Any kind of suspension is a relief for the victims of trouble-making activity: both educators and the rest of the student body wins when problems are eliminated. However, the "at home" variety can easily become rewarding and desirable and negatively-reinforcing for the kids who get it. Suspend them in school, and have the physical capability (rooms, muscle, training, and policy) to try to keep them on track, but segregated from the community they're constantly disrupting. Make them earn their privileges, such as re-joining the class. And if they can't handle that, then at least they can still be in a safe environment and attempt to learn.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ron Brown high school forbids almost all suspensions and has a much better approach. Perhaps this is a strategy that should be adopted...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/07/05/dc-all-boys-high-school/102898672/

I'm skeptical of ANY school that says that they don't suspend students. Especially, if they have some "new" better approach. Schools need consistency and follow through. BTW, principals are afraid to perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline so they ignore disruptive students who need discipline and effective socio-emotional supports. How about investing in more school counselors? How about giving students more recess time? How about more field trips?

THIS!!!!!!

Anonymous wrote:Another former DCPS teacher, I taught in Ward 8 for two years. The school system cannot fix cultural and familial and behavioral problems....just accept the suspension rates as they are and focus on fixing communities and families. There is a huge need for family workshops to teach alot of the parents how to parent and how to plan for a family. I have seen parents slap around and curse out children as young as two. Additionally, the school had to shut down the PTA for half the year because the PTA president and another member were sleeping with the same guy. Both women had gotten pregnant and he was arrested at one of the girlfriends home. By the time the news reached the other girlfriend she was furious and decided to confront her boyfriend's baby mama on school premises. All of this drama occurred on school grounds and resulted in the police being called. Obviously, the principal and assistant principal got involved because they were forced to deal with an issue not education related. Unfortunately, DCPS principals deal with too many community related issues that don't have much to do with education. I hear now that DCPS schools have a school position called 'Director of School Operations' in an attempt to lessen the burden for principals. However, DCPS then adds something else to these principals plates and many times the parents in these schools refuse to deal with anyone else other than a principal, resulting in the Director of School operations or anyone else intervening getting cursed out or harassed.

Wow. I can't imagine how you lasted two years in such a dysfunctional and pathological environment. It sounds Kafkaesque.

Anonymous wrote:Ron Brown high school forbids almost all suspensions and has a much better approach. Perhaps this is a strategy that should be adopted...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/07/05/dc-all-boys-high-school/102898672/

I'm skeptical of ANY school that says that they don't suspend students. Especially, if they have some "new" better approach. Schools need consistency and follow through. BTW, principals are afraid to perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline so they ignore disruptive students who need discipline and effective socio-emotional supports. How about investing in more school counselors? How about giving students more recess time? How about more field trips?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think its suspicious that multiple schools were all doing the same exact thing--was this a directive from up above or did they all just spontaneously stumble upon this strategy the same year at the same time?

"D.C. Public Schools reported that suspensions drop­ped 40 percent from 11,078 in 2013-2014 to 6,695 in 2015-2016, but some education advocates are questioning whether DCPS is truly doing a better job keeping students in class."

This is a numbers game. Schools with high suspension numbers look bad. Therefore, principals are doing one of two things -1) not reprimanding students 2) reprimanding, but not recording it. Imagine a school where you do wrong, but aren't reprimanded for it. It chaotic! And you wonder why teachers are quitting and going to work in other schools/districts.

I don't wonder at all. I know first-hand why good educators leave DCPS for suburbs and charters.

Another former DCPS teacher, I taught in Ward 8 for two years. The school system cannot fix cultural and familial and behavioral problems....just accept the suspension rates as they are and focus on fixing communities and families. There is a huge need for family workshops to teach alot of the parents how to parent and how to plan for a family. I have seen parents slap around and curse out children as young as two. Additionally, the school had to shut down the PTA for half the year because the PTA president and another member were sleeping with the same guy. Both women had gotten pregnant and he was arrested at one of the girlfriends home. By the time the news reached the other girlfriend she was furious and decided to confront her boyfriend's baby mama on school premises. All of this drama occurred on school grounds and resulted in the police being called. Obviously, the principal and assistant principal got involved because they were forced to deal with an issue not education related. Unfortunately, DCPS principals deal with too many community related issues that don't have much to do with education. I hear now that DCPS schools have a school position called 'Director of School Operations' in an attempt to lessen the burden for principals. However, DCPS then adds something else to these principals plates and many times the parents in these schools refuse to deal with anyone else other than a principal, resulting in the Director of School operations or anyone else intervening getting cursed out or harassed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So they would be secretly (no paperwork) telling the students they were suspended but then not recording it anywhere? That's crazy.

No, they would be telling the principals explicitly not to document suspensions as "suspensions" and to find other ways to "manage their students" such as the solutions that multiple schools managed to arrive at (do you believe that's independently?) as spelled out in the article.

Yes, it's top down. Obviously. The same way cheating is top down. The same way short-changing SN students is top down. The same way overfilling desirable schools is top down.

There is no bubbling up in DCPS.

+1

Ron Brown high school forbids almost all suspensions and has a much better approach. Perhaps this is a strategy that should be adopted...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/07/05/dc-all-boys-high-school/102898672/