#at my school way back when there was one white boy in the IB higher level English Literature class. ONE. The rest of us were all Asians

[eirianerisdar]

Loud-mouthed British patient at my night clinic today:

YOU HAVE SUCH GOOD ENGLISH!!!

Me, trying to hide my offense: Really.

[liesoflogic]

Finding Peace with Myself and My Body

I’ve recently reached a point in my life where I feel really healthy and happy with where I am.  With all of the progress that I’ve made, I wanted to share a bit about my journey.  I felt alone and insecure and sometimes even selfish about those insecurities throughout my youth.  Anyway, I think reading that someone had gone through the same things would have helped me, so I hope this helps someone else.  And maybe I’ll gain some closure.

My insecurities first took hold around the age of 10.  My half sister died when I was 9, after she struggled with eating disorders for 16 of the 29 years she was alive.  After the initial shock and devastation, I found myself thinking, “She was the most beautiful person I’ve ever known.  If she had to do that to be good enough, how much more will I have to do?”  Just a little over a year later, I can distinctly remember looking up at the mirror in my 6th grade hallway and thinking that I was uglier than all of my friends.  I remember thinking that of course boys would be much more interested in them than me.

I started cutting during 7th grade.  I didn’t want to kill myself - my family had already been through enough pain - so the cuts were shallow.  I thought of it as punishing myself for all the things I did wrong and all the ways I didn’t measure up.  I kept it hidden for a while with make-up and long sleeved shirts - even wearing long sleeved t shirt to a cross country practice in August at one point - but eventually, I wanted someone to stop me.  I started confiding in friends, and most of them would help me to fight the urge.  Eventually, one friend asked me if I was doing it for attention.  I stopped confiding for a while after that.  

At one point, I had emailed a friend that I was feeling the need to start cutting again, but I didn’t want to feel that urge anymore.  Her mother periodically went through her emails and saw what I said.  She told my parents, and we decided that I should go to counseling.  My therapist told me she was moving after about a month.  I decided to cease counseling at that point - I didn’t want to confide in someone else who could leave.  I was in 8th grade at the time and continued to cute on and off for months at a time until my junior year of high school.  The last time that I cut, I started sobbing and threw my razor down.  I asked my mother to throw out my razors.  I’m still not in the habit of shaving regularly, even over 5 years later, but I didn’t trust myself.  Although I haven’t cut since, I scratched my wrists raw 2 times in college.  It made me feel so vulnerable, and I wondered if I’d ever get better.

During high school, it seemed like I was always making a trade off between cutting and restricting my diet.  Whenever I wasn’t cutting, I would only eat very low calorie snacks, pretend to not be hungry to skip meals, drink 5 cups of coffee to fill my stomach, etc.  It was worst my junior year after I quit cutting.  I lost 15 pounds very quickly - 7 Ibs in one week.  I passed it off as working out and eating healthy, but in reality I was skipping meals in the hopes that it would shrink my stomach.  I lied to my parents about being full a lot.  They knew the signs after my sister, so they always made sure I ate something, though.  I knew what eating disorders had cost my sister, so I convinced myself that’s not what I was going through.  I told myself that anorexic girls ate 200 calories a day, not 800.  I was averaging 5 miles a day at that point and told myself that I was just trying to be healthy for track.  People told me how fit and thin I looked.  I reveled in it. 

Half way through senior year, I finally addressed a lot of the concerns I saw with myself.  I talked to many of my friends and family about what I was going through.  I stopped pursuing anything romantic because I knew I was just using it as affirmation.  I put back on my weight.  I felt safe and happy and loved.  I continued to have bad days, but instead of punishing myself for lack of perfection, I began to realize that recovery is a constant and continual process.  I also became much stronger in my faith at this time in my life.  I finally began to see myself as someone that God could love, and it was really inspiring for my health and happiness.

Although I reached a point of being able to handle some of my insecurities and doubts, for the most part, I can now see that I still wasn’t treating myself and my body the way that I should be.  Looking back though, I wouldn’t change this time of my life because I know that it was a necessary part of my journey.  In order to overcome my control problems with food and my weight, I tried not too think too much on what I ate in general.  I tried to make sure I was eating a least a little from all food groups, but I had just started college, and my eating habits were far from healthy.  This resulted in me thinking that my natural healthy weight was about 10-15 Ibs higher than reality.  I was eating more and exercising less.  Let me reiterate that I really feel like this time period was essential to learning how to give up control, but it still was not healthy, and I am glad that is not where my journey ended.

This past August, at the beginning of my senior year of college, several of my housemates made comments that we should start trying to eat the way we actually want to because it will only get harder the longer we put it off.  For me this meant eating less fast food, more fresh food, and more vegetables.  Other than fast food, I tried not to think of it as limiting myself.  However, as I went on, I started to really think about how much I enjoyed food.  Previously, I would eat any sweet treat my friends made, even if it was something I wasn’t a huge fan of, such as sugar cookies and white cake.  I no longer thought about counting my calories but making my calories count.  If I wanted to eat a dessert, I would rather it  be something I really enjoy. . . which is normally chocolate.  

I took health exercise classes for 6 semesters in college to stay in shape, but decided to try working out on my own for my last semester.  While motivating myself at the beginning was really difficult and a little discouraging at first, I started to feel strong and competent and self-sufficient as I kept going.  I also had a group of friends who were starting to go to the gym more, and having that encouragement and comradery was enormously helpful.  I started to notice that my clothes were fitting looser and that my muscles were more defined that I had more energy.  I had no intention of working out to lose weight or look thinner.  My goal was to feel strong and healthy.  I realized that I had starved and punished my body for years, when eating properly and exercising 3-4x a week, while giving me a slightly different body, gave me a body that I now adore.  The love I feel for myself and my body now is something that I have never experienced before.

I know that my journey is not going to be exactly like anyone else’s.  We all have different struggles and different obstacles we must overcome.  I hope that maybe this will be able to help someone.  I know that putting it out in the world has certainly helped me. 

[memorpoetryandprose]

EDUTAINMENT—NOT THE WORD I’D USE

6/11/12

               Through my education, I have experienced a few interesting things. The main one has been prejudice. I also learned life lessons and how to tough it out through the hard times in which life decides it’s okay to throw you under not only a bus, but a whole 10 ton semi-truck as well. My education even showed that sometimes the most unexpected and life-changing experiences can happen when I went to the Governor’s Scholar Program. A lot of what I learned was not in the criteria or the curriculum that we always tried to rush through. In fact, thinking back to grade school, the only things I can remember are basic social rules and the feelings that accompanied them. Perhaps it is best to understand these experiences by starting with a background story, at the beginning of my education.

                Growing up, I lived in a pre-dominantly black community. It was pretty much what people would call “the ghetto,” due to the abundance of government housing and welfare. Schools were the new baby sitters for parents, who were out working two jobs just to keep food on the table and a roof over their children’s heads. I never really had to think about these issues until my fourth grade or so. Until then I spent my time as most children did. I learned to share and count to 25 through rote memorization in kindergarten, and then learned to write in print and cursive. At some point, I remember trying to learn to read through giant flash cards, which I never caught onto, accompanied by sounds I did not understand. They reminded me of grunts and growls that a wild ape would make.

                  Around second grade, I remember my teacher pulling a couple of other students and me out of class. We had to meet with a woman who talked about logic problems with us. My mother later explained to me that I was placed into a program for students labeled as “advanced,” which, to me, meant I got away from flash cards and writing for a while, which was a relief. It was in third grade that I remember learning the basic subjects of math and science. I also realized what “advanced” meant because, in the third grade, I was one of only a handful of students that could do, as I remember the teacher calling it, “math in my head.”

                I remembered having a lot of close friends at my first elementary school, but because I was in the “Pre-International Baccalaureate Program,” or Pre-IB for short, I had to switch schools. This meant that everyone was bused to a better school, which required the students to wear school uniforms. It's funny though, everybody always argues that school uniforms keep everyone looking the same, but I know from experience this isn't true. There is a difference in the quality, and for children this is very visible. Stains can also be seen. This fueled the differences between me and other students in this program. Poorer students like me had clothes that were bought usually second- or third-hand at a thrift store, which led to being picked on and outcasted from the more wealthy and generally better off group.

                 This was also the start of my realization that I was not as socially aware as the rest of the students in my classes. Perhaps it was because my mother was so protective, or perhaps it was because I did not have access to all the resources they had, either way I did not know a lot of the slang they learned from rap songs. Terms like “phat” and “sweet” took me by surprise; I did not understand them in the way they were being used, which led to me being socially outcasted in later years. Other kids could look through a magazine and ask for presents for Christmas or their birthdays and actually expect to receive them, I was lucky if I even got a present. This led to them knowing brands like K*Swiss and Baby Phat. I had no idea about them until I was picked on for not wearing them. To me, these brands were a sign of wealth, a sign of respect. I did not have money, thus I did not deserve respect.

                One very distinct memory I have of my days riding the bus with the other kids is asking the bus driver if he would allow us to change the radio station to something we all wanted to listen to. One boy, the group leader of all the taunting I got growing up, looked at his friends and said, “Oh yeah, she will probably change the station to something country,” as he proceeded to yodel and carry on. I, being socially awkward and desperate for approval, asked for a rap station, Kiss FM. This was because I had observed them asking for it repeatedly in the past and knew it would shut them up and maybe, just maybe, make them realize that I liked what they liked. It cut me to be made fun of because of my country accent; the prejudice they had for me caused me to work on changing my accent entirely until I no longer had one at all. I refused to be belittled due to something so trivial. I refused to let something I could change take away anymore respect from me. I hated my accent because it caused me to be viewed as ignorant and uneducated.

                Despite the social conflicts of my fourth through seventh grade years, I gained some valuable information. My grandmother became very involved in my education at this point, partly because I was struggling in my classes and mostly because my mother did not have the spare time to help me. Looking back she probably also did it because she hates to see her family tarnished in anyway, especially with bad grades. Our family is suppose to be made of champions and successors, not of illiterate and dumb pee-ons. Regardless of her motivation, she helped me learn to read, and after trying to find several books, we stumbled across Harry Potter. I refused at first, but she read to me a chapter of the book. She even had me watch all three of the HP movies. Before I knew it, I wanted to know how to read as well. I needed to know how to so I could know more about this story and the characters.

                I gained other skills as well being in the Pre-IB program. I joined the fourth grade band and learned to play the flute, we had history, French, arts and humanities, and had a computer class that was focused on the Japanese Culture and Language. The world started to open up to me through my studies, and I then realized that I needed to gain knowledge to get out of the lifestyle I was living. I knew that I always loved school, regardless of the bullying from other students, and it was always better than going home to meet my sister's dad and all he had in store for me. I knew then, no matter how bad it got, I needed to keep my head in the books. I had to keep telling myself, just finish this reading or just finish this math homework it's worth it in the end. Of course, I never realized how far it would take me.

                During my last year of middle school, I moved to a school district which had a pre-dominantly white population. Funding cuts at my previous school district meant that I was stuck with no band, arts and humanities, or language classes. My grandmother, now my care-giver under the state's discretion, decided my education would be better in the Kenton Co. Schools, and so I switched. The social dynamic, however, was the complete opposite of what I had experienced in Covington. I often got picked on for being from a poor community. The education systems were on completely different tracks, going from the IB program to the AP program. Granted that my education in Covington was not of the highest quality, it was not nearly as bad as the people in Kenton Co. Schools believed it was. Even though I was in the International Baccalaureate program, I had to fight to be placed into the proper classes and into the “Gifted and Talented” program at my new school. The teachers, the adults that were suppose to be providing for a better future for all, believed that because I was from a poor community, I could not possibly be smarter than they believed I was. They did not believe I knew what I had told them, forced me to take a test to prove it, and after all that, they still did not give me the proper classes. Even though I tested into the geometry class in the high school, they forced me to take pre-algebra. This was something I had already taken, but the prejudice of the people in charge, the ones meant to protect and enforce the "No-Child-Left-Behind Act," limited my education because of where I was from.

                 I stayed with this school district through to my graduation from high school. This was against my wishes, but living with my grandmother forced me to endure these discomforts. It was apparent that the prejudice of the adults in the schools had trickled down into the student body, poisoning their perception of people such as myself before they really had a chance to learn for themselves. Once again, I became a social outcast because of my heritage, rather than being seen for whom I was and the ideals I held.

                  Regardless of these setbacks, I continued to seek an education of the highest standard. No, I needed to seek out the highest standard. I got back into French when I had the chance, but I was told I was taught the wrong dialect by my new teacher. She said it was Canadian French, and it would never do me any good. Though I remember Mademoiselle Campbell being known for all her great accomplishments with not only the IB testing, but the AP testing as well, I did not bother to argue with the new Madame, who I was to learn from. By this point, I had suffered from a very low self-esteem. I saw no point in arguing with the people in charge. I doubted my worth and the worth of my prior education. I wanted to be something more than the background I came from, but I kept feeling like a failure. I thought I would never make it through college, let alone high school. Even though I kept trying to remind myself that I needed to push through, I needed to get a higher education, the harsh course work, as well as drowning in papers and books of AP and Honors classes, did not help my inner-turmoil.

                 Then it happened, my application had been accepted. Everyone was surprised that I managed to make it into the Governor’s Scholar Program. I say everyone in the literal sense; even I was surprised I made it. To me, this was my ticket to college, and later became my way to a respectable level of self-esteem. I learned my self-worth and made a lot of great friends with varied backgrounds. Being on a college campus for 5 weeks made a world of difference to my confidence level and joy in life. I saw and met people who did not care about your heritage; they did not have prejudice from hearing the name of your hometown. They saw past that and saw you for who you are.

                    Once I went back to high school in Kenton County, senior year was just too long to handle. I knew that my life was going to get better, that through college I would find much more. I had to graduate to make that goal happen. I had to suffer through the bullying. I took the prejudice of my background with a bit more ease. I actually allowed other outcasts to see me for who I was, and gained a group of amazing friends at home. I became the Swim Captain of the Girls Swim Team because I felt unstoppable. I learned how to be a leader and to stand up for what I believed in. Though the system and the way it fostered prejudice and social dynamics had nearly broken me, I had found something to look forward to that my teachers failed to mention in classes.

                   Although I did learn the basics in school, I learned so much more. I experienced life while in high school. I learned human cruelty and what a prejudiced society is capable of. I also found out that beyond those prejudices, people can be truly wonderful. Life can be wonderful. People do not need to be broken by the school system because they are poor. Sometimes they are the ones that need the support of the schools the most. Education leads to liberation. Liberation leads to happy and successful citizens. Is that not what the school system was created for in the first place?

[ixvyupdates]

Educators Take Center Stage at Betsy DeVos’ Summit on School Discipline

Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education, hosted a summit yesterday on school safety and climate so that she could hear from people—including educators—who have been vocal about the issue of school discipline.

Each side—essentially those who want DeVos to preserve what is commonly known in edu-world as the Obama-era guidance and those who want her to rescind it—had 90 minutes to meet with the secretary and make their case.

DeVos has recently come under renewed pressure to rescind the guidance by lawmakers and conservative education folks, some of whom believe that it is—or could be—partly to blame for Nikolas Cruz seemingly falling through the cracks prior to his deadly attack on his former high school in Parkland, Florida.

In the wake of the Parkland shooting, already existing debates over school discipline and the role of law enforcement in schools have gotten louder. And uglier.

While edu-world has been knee deep in this conversation since the Obama administration took a stand on the issue in 2014, the tragedy at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School has been like catnip for TV commentators and even elected leaders looking to shift the narrative away from guns. The problem is that their level of expertise on the issue of school discipline policy is basically zero.

The good news is that there are folks in the education space who actually know a great deal about the issue of school discipline policy and while their opinions may differ, they are well versed in the main issue at hand at the summit: the Obama-era guidance.

This guidance was borne out of concern over the disproportionate suspension rates of Black and Latino students as well as special education students and it included a “Dear Colleague” letter that put school districts on notice that evidence of excessive and disparate discipline could subject them to an investigation by the Office of Civil Rights.

Predictably, as with any action taken by a presidential administration, there are passionate supporters and detractors and the Obama-era guidance—especially the “Dear Colleague” letter—are no exception. Mike Petrilli of the Fordham institute encapsulated it well when he wrote, “For progressives, it taps into deeply held beliefs about fairness and justice. And for conservatives, it taps into deeply held beliefs about order and safety.”

But the voices that are far too often missing from the heated Twitter battles and op-ed pages are those for whom school discipline policies are an everyday reality: teachers.

What Teachers Are Saying

According to one teacher who attended the summit yesterday, DeVos seemed particularly interested in what educators had to say. Unsurprisingly, especially at such a polarized time in America as this, these professionals on the front lines of dealing with student behavior are far from being of one mind when it comes to how schools should address the very complex issue of student discipline. While some are fervent supporters of the Obama-era guidance, others have seen their schools collapse into chaos and believe that the decline is directly related to that 2014 guidance out of Washington. Both views were front and center during the roundtable discussion with DeVos on Wednesday.

Olinka Crusoe is an elementary school teacher in New York City who supports the Obama-era guidance. She readily admits that early in her teaching career she relied on what she knew and and that was removing disruptive students from her classroom. They’d come back. She’d respond by removing them again.

Nothing improved and it was impossible to build relationships with the students because no trust had been established. But after working hard to get to know the students—their strengths and their needs—and receiving training on how to be proactive in supporting their ability to navigate challenging situations, she now believes that removing a student from the classroom has to be a last resort.

“I want my students in school,” Crusoe said. “I want them to learn the skills they need to manage their emotions and behavior during challenging situations. They need to be in schools to learn that.”

Annette Albright, a former behavior modification technician at Harding High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, does not support the Obama-era guidance.

She was physically assaulted by three students and while the video of the violent attack is hard to watch, her school administration accused her of “provoking” the attack. And then they fired her.

She and others believe that the students were not held to account because the district was already under investigation by the Office For Civil Rights and was at risk of losing federal dollars. Albright, who is Black, does not support lowering behavioral expectations for children of color but she believes that is precisely what has happened in the district where she used to work.

Nicole Stewart of San Diego agrees with Albright.

She resigned as vice principal at Lincoln High School in San Diego, California, precisely because of what she saw as the fallout of the Obama-era guidance. She believes that it had reached the point where teachers at the school were being kept in the dark when it came to discipline. The way she sees it, they were left with no other option but to ignore classroom behaviors and incidents.

Tynisha Jointer, a behavioral health specialist for Chicago Public Schools, welcomes the guidance and wants it to remain in place.

She is convinced that, at least in Chicago, schools that are experiencing chaos have a building-leader problem and that to lay the blame at the feet of a “Dear Colleague” letter from the Obama administration is misguided. She does believe that all educators need to take a look at themselves and reflect on the biases that they may be bringing into their buildings.

But she did say, “If we’re going to scrap it, let’s replace it with something that puts relationships at the forefront of how we respond to undesirable behavior. Whether it’s the teacher, the school resource officer or the principal, the relationships make all the difference and are vital to building trust and improving student behavior.”

And Nina Leuzzi, a pre-K teacher in Boston, says that the Obama-era guidance has helped her take into account the whole child in front of her—their experience, their trauma and their needs—and react more appropriately. As far as she is concerned, “suspensions are not tools for teachers because they do not educate. Training is a tool for teachers.”

There’s a Reason The Guidance Was Written

The Obama administration’s concern over disparate discipline rates was well-founded and based on the the information gleaned from the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC).

In a strange twist of timing, their concerns were confirmed in a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that was released yesterday—literally during the roundtable with DeVos—that could ultimately overshadow that event.

In its analysis of the 2013-14 school year, the most recent year for which there is data, the GAO found that Black students, boys and students with disabilities are disciplined at higher rates than their White peers without disabilities. The disparities were greatest for Black students and persisted regardless of socioeconomic class.

The Department of Education began the CRDC in 1968 and as of February of 2014, every public school and district in America is required to provide data. The data included goes far beyond discipline rates and has cast an important light on glaring inequities in our schools to include access to AP courses and IB programs, access to school counselors, and the availability of high-level math and science courses. Teacher and student absenteeism data is also collected.

But a central tenet of the Obama-era guidance, in addition to disparities around race, was that special education students have the right to equal treatment in school. And a story, also out of Lincoln High School in San Diego, may be evidence that the road to hell really is paved with good intentions.

When a non-verbal child with cerebral palsy is raped in the bathroom at school by another student and the confession of the perpetrator as well as eyewitness testimony are kept secret from the mother of the victim, something has gone very wrong.

Add to that a change to how an offense is officially documented in the books to avoid expulsion, and one has to wonder what is driving the actions of the district. According to a story by Mario Koran in Voice of San Diego, “sexual misconduct—defined by the district as ‘attempting to commit or committing a sexual assault or battery’—is one of five offenses for which school principals must recommend students be expelled. Nearly a month later, however, the school’s vice principal documented the incident differently. She labeled the offense an ‘obscene act.’ The school does not expel students for that.”

But it seems like a stretch to directly blame the guidance for the egregious mishandling of serious offenses—and crimes—by administrators and district officials in cases of violence.

While it’s true they may feel pressure to keep their suspension and expulsion numbers down as a result of the “Dear Colleague” letter, the guidance does include specific language about the need to “train personnel to distinguish between disciplinary infractions appropriately handled by school officials versus major threats to school safety or serious school-based criminal conduct…and how to contact law enforcement when warranted.”

The truth is, all of the educators who testified at the school safety and climate summit yesterday likely agree far more than they disagree but their conclusions about the Obama-era guidance are informed by their very different experiences.

Not Speaking the Same Language

While some are focused on disproportionate suspensions for defiance, profanity and dress code violations, others have witnessed and/or experienced assault, rape and students showing up at school with weapons. This wide range of behavioral infractions and in some cases, crimes, is indicative of the likely fact that teachers—and others who feel strongly about the Obama-era guidance—may not even be speaking the same language.

A message from Washington can become pretty garbled as it makes its way down to the school district level and administrators have certainly been known to change course and even cook the books when they feel pressure—real or perceived—to keep those numbers down. On the other hand, the relationships that adults build with students can be the best defense against undesirable student behavior and can be the perfect antidote to the toxic power struggles that ensue far too often between teachers and students and often result in outsized punitive responses.

Regardless of where Betsy DeVos lands on the Obama-era guidance, it’s clear that she’d be wise to keep her communication going with those on the front lines—teachers—if she wants to make smart decisions that will actually have a positive impact and make America’s schools more equitable and just places for all students.

Photo by Gage Skidmore, CC-licensed.

Educators Take Center Stage at Betsy DeVos’ Summit on School Discipline syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com

[ixvyupdates]

Educators Take Center Stage at Betsy DeVos’ Summit on School Discipline

Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education, hosted a summit yesterday on school safety and climate so that she could hear from people—including educators—who have been vocal about the issue of school discipline.

Each side—essentially those who want DeVos to preserve what is commonly known in edu-world as the Obama-era guidance and those who want her to rescind it—had 90 minutes to meet with the secretary and make their case.

DeVos has recently come under renewed pressure to rescind the guidance by lawmakers and conservative education folks, some of whom believe that it is—or could be—partly to blame for Nikolas Cruz seemingly falling through the cracks prior to his deadly attack on his former high school in Parkland, Florida.

In the wake of the Parkland shooting, already existing debates over school discipline and the role of law enforcement in schools have gotten louder. And uglier.

While edu-world has been knee deep in this conversation since the Obama administration took a stand on the issue in 2014, the tragedy at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School has been like catnip for TV commentators and even elected leaders looking to shift the narrative away from guns. The problem is that their level of expertise on the issue of school discipline policy is basically zero.

The good news is that there are folks in the education space who actually know a great deal about the issue of school discipline policy and while their opinions may differ, they are well versed in the main issue at hand at the summit: the Obama-era guidance.

This guidance was borne out of concern over the disproportionate suspension rates of Black and Latino students as well as special education students and it included a “Dear Colleague” letter that put school districts on notice that evidence of excessive and disparate discipline could subject them to an investigation by the Office of Civil Rights.

Predictably, as with any action taken by a presidential administration, there are passionate supporters and detractors and the Obama-era guidance—especially the “Dear Colleague” letter—are no exception. Mike Petrilli of the Fordham institute encapsulated it well when he wrote, “For progressives, it taps into deeply held beliefs about fairness and justice. And for conservatives, it taps into deeply held beliefs about order and safety.”

But the voices that are far too often missing from the heated Twitter battles and op-ed pages are those for whom school discipline policies are an everyday reality: teachers.

What Teachers Are Saying

According to one teacher who attended the summit yesterday, DeVos seemed particularly interested in what educators had to say. Unsurprisingly, especially at such a polarized time in America as this, these professionals on the front lines of dealing with student behavior are far from being of one mind when it comes to how schools should address the very complex issue of student discipline. While some are fervent supporters of the Obama-era guidance, others have seen their schools collapse into chaos and believe that the decline is directly related to that 2014 guidance out of Washington. Both views were front and center during the roundtable discussion with DeVos on Wednesday.

Olinka Crusoe is an elementary school teacher in New York City who supports the Obama-era guidance. She readily admits that early in her teaching career she relied on what she knew and and that was removing disruptive students from her classroom. They’d come back. She’d respond by removing them again.

Nothing improved and it was impossible to build relationships with the students because no trust had been established. But after working hard to get to know the students—their strengths and their needs—and receiving training on how to be proactive in supporting their ability to navigate challenging situations, she now believes that removing a student from the classroom has to be a last resort.

“I want my students in school,” Crusoe said. “I want them to learn the skills they need to manage their emotions and behavior during challenging situations. They need to be in schools to learn that.”

Annette Albright, a former behavior modification technician at Harding High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, does not support the Obama-era guidance.

She was physically assaulted by three students and while the video of the violent attack is hard to watch, her school administration accused her of “provoking” the attack. And then they fired her.

She and others believe that the students were not held to account because the district was already under investigation by the Office For Civil Rights and was at risk of losing federal dollars. Albright, who is Black, does not support lowering behavioral expectations for children of color but she believes that is precisely what has happened in the district where she used to work.

Nicole Stewart of San Diego agrees with Albright.

She resigned as vice principal at Lincoln High School in San Diego, California, precisely because of what she saw as the fallout of the Obama-era guidance. She believes that it had reached the point where teachers at the school were being kept in the dark when it came to discipline. The way she sees it, they were left with no other option but to ignore classroom behaviors and incidents.

Tynisha Jointer, a behavioral health specialist for Chicago Public Schools, welcomes the guidance and wants it to remain in place.

She is convinced that, at least in Chicago, schools that are experiencing chaos have a building-leader problem and that to lay the blame at the feet of a “Dear Colleague” letter from the Obama administration is misguided. She does believe that all educators need to take a look at themselves and reflect on the biases that they may be bringing into their buildings.

But she did say, “If we’re going to scrap it, let’s replace it with something that puts relationships at the forefront of how we respond to undesirable behavior. Whether it’s the teacher, the school resource officer or the principal, the relationships make all the difference and are vital to building trust and improving student behavior.”

And Nina Leuzzi, a pre-K teacher in Boston, says that the Obama-era guidance has helped her take into account the whole child in front of her—their experience, their trauma and their needs—and react more appropriately. As far as she is concerned, “suspensions are not tools for teachers because they do not educate. Training is a tool for teachers.”

There’s a Reason The Guidance Was Written

The Obama administration’s concern over disparate discipline rates was well-founded and based on the the information gleaned from the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC).

In a strange twist of timing, their concerns were confirmed in a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that was released yesterday—literally during the roundtable with DeVos—that could ultimately overshadow that event.

In its analysis of the 2013-14 school year, the most recent year for which there is data, the GAO found that Black students, boys and students with disabilities are disciplined at higher rates than their White peers without disabilities. The disparities were greatest for Black students and persisted regardless of socioeconomic class.

The Department of Education began the CRDC in 1968 and as of February of 2014, every public school and district in America is required to provide data. The data included goes far beyond discipline rates and has cast an important light on glaring inequities in our schools to include access to AP courses and IB programs, access to school counselors, and the availability of high-level math and science courses. Teacher and student absenteeism data is also collected.

But a central tenet of the Obama-era guidance, in addition to disparities around race, was that special education students have the right to equal treatment in school. And a story, also out of Lincoln High School in San Diego, may be evidence that the road to hell really is paved with good intentions.

When a non-verbal child with cerebral palsy is raped in the bathroom at school by another student and the confession of the perpetrator as well as eyewitness testimony are kept secret from the mother of the victim, something has gone very wrong.

Add to that a change to how an offense is officially documented in the books to avoid expulsion, and one has to wonder what is driving the actions of the district. According to a story by Mario Koran in Voice of San Diego, “sexual misconduct—defined by the district as ‘attempting to commit or committing a sexual assault or battery’—is one of five offenses for which school principals must recommend students be expelled. Nearly a month later, however, the school’s vice principal documented the incident differently. She labeled the offense an ‘obscene act.’ The school does not expel students for that.”

But it seems like a stretch to directly blame the guidance for the egregious mishandling of serious offenses—and crimes—by administrators and district officials in cases of violence.

While it’s true they may feel pressure to keep their suspension and expulsion numbers down as a result of the “Dear Colleague” letter, the guidance does include specific language about the need to “train personnel to distinguish between disciplinary infractions appropriately handled by school officials versus major threats to school safety or serious school-based criminal conduct…and how to contact law enforcement when warranted.”

The truth is, all of the educators who testified at the school safety and climate summit yesterday likely agree far more than they disagree but their conclusions about the Obama-era guidance are informed by their very different experiences.

Not Speaking the Same Language

While some are focused on disproportionate suspensions for defiance, profanity and dress code violations, others have witnessed and/or experienced assault, rape and students showing up at school with weapons. This wide range of behavioral infractions and in some cases, crimes, is indicative of the likely fact that teachers—and others who feel strongly about the Obama-era guidance—may not even be speaking the same language.

A message from Washington can become pretty garbled as it makes its way down to the school district level and administrators have certainly been known to change course and even cook the books when they feel pressure—real or perceived—to keep those numbers down. On the other hand, the relationships that adults build with students can be the best defense against undesirable student behavior and can be the perfect antidote to the toxic power struggles that ensue far too often between teachers and students and often result in outsized punitive responses.

Regardless of where Betsy DeVos lands on the Obama-era guidance, it’s clear that she’d be wise to keep her communication going with those on the front lines—teachers—if she wants to make smart decisions that will actually have a positive impact and make America’s schools more equitable and just places for all students.

Photo by Gage Skidmore, CC-licensed.

Educators Take Center Stage at Betsy DeVos’ Summit on School Discipline syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com

[ixvyupdates]

Educators Take Center Stage at Betsy DeVos’ Summit on School Discipline

Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education, hosted a summit yesterday on school safety and climate so that she could hear from people—including educators—who have been vocal about the issue of school discipline.

Each side—essentially those who want DeVos to preserve what is commonly known in edu-world as the Obama-era guidance and those who want her to rescind it—had 90 minutes to meet with the secretary and make their case.

DeVos has recently come under renewed pressure to rescind the guidance by lawmakers and conservative education folks, some of whom believe that it is—or could be—partly to blame for Nikolas Cruz seemingly falling through the cracks prior to his deadly attack on his former high school in Parkland, Florida.

In the wake of the Parkland shooting, already existing debates over school discipline and the role of law enforcement in schools have gotten louder. And uglier.

While edu-world has been knee deep in this conversation since the Obama administration took a stand on the issue in 2014, the tragedy at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School has been like catnip for TV commentators and even elected leaders looking to shift the narrative away from guns. The problem is that their level of expertise on the issue of school discipline policy is basically zero.

The good news is that there are folks in the education space who actually know a great deal about the issue of school discipline policy and while their opinions may differ, they are well versed in the main issue at hand at the summit: the Obama-era guidance.

This guidance was borne out of concern over the disproportionate suspension rates of Black and Latino students as well as special education students and it included a “Dear colleague” letter that put school districts on notice that evidence of excessive and disparate discipline could subject them to an investigation by the Office of Civil Rights.

Predictably, as with any action taken by a presidential administration, there are passionate supporters and detractors and the Obama-era guidance—especially the “Dear Colleague” letter—are no exception. Mike Petrilli of the Fordham institute encapsulated it well when he wrote, “For progressives, it taps into deeply held beliefs about fairness and justice. And for conservatives, it taps into deeply held beliefs about order and safety.”

But the voices that are far too often missing from the heated Twitter battles and op-ed pages are those for whom school discipline policies are an everyday reality: teachers.

What Teachers Are Saying

According to one teacher who attended the summit yesterday, DeVos seemed particularly interested in what educators had to say. Unsurprisingly, especially at such a polarized time in America as this, these professionals on the front lines of dealing with student behavior are far from being of one mind when it comes to how schools should address the very complex issue of student discipline. While some are fervent supporters of the Obama-era guidance, others have seen their schools collapse into chaos and believe that the decline is directly related to that 2014 guidance out of Washington. Both views were front and center during the round-table discussion with DeVos on Wednesday.

Olinka Crusoe is an elementary school teacher in New York City who supports the Obama-era guidance. She readily admits that early in her teaching career she relied on what she knew and and that was removing disruptive students from her classroom. They’d come back. She’d respond by removing them again.

Nothing improved and it was impossible to build relationships with the students because no trust had been established. But after working hard to get to know the students—their strengths and their needs—and receiving training on how be proactive in supporting their ability to navigate challenging situations, she now believes that removing a student from the classroom has to be a last resort.

“I want my students in school,” Crusoe said. “I want them to learn the skills they need to manage their emotions and behavior during challenging situations. They need to be in schools to learn that.”

Annette Albright, a former behavior modification technician at Harding High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, does not support the Obama-era guidance.

She was physically assaulted by three students and while the video of the violent attack is hard to watch, her school administration accused her of “provoking” the attack. And then they fired her.

She and others believe that the students were not held to account because the district was already under investigation by the Office of Civil Rights and was at risk of losing federal dollars. Albright, who is Black, does not support lowering behavioral expectations for children of color but she believes that is precisely what has happened in the district where she used to work.

Nicole Stewart of San Diego agrees with Albright.

She resigned as vice principal at Lincoln High School in San Diego, California, precisely because of what she saw as the fallout of the Obama-era guidance. She believes that it had reached the point where teachers at the school were being kept in the dark when it came to discipline. The way she sees it, they were left with no other option but to ignore classroom behaviors and incidents.

Tynisha Jointer, a behavioral Health Specialist for K-4 in Chicago, welcomes the guidance and wants it to remain in place.

She is convinced that, at least in Chicago, schools that are experiencing chaos have a building-leader problem and that to lay the blame at the feet of a “Dear Colleague” letter from the Obama administration is misguided. She does believe that all educators need to take a look at themselves and reflect on the biases that they may be bringing in to their buildings.

But she did say, “If we’re going to scrap it, let’s replace it with something that puts relationships at the forefront of how we respond to undesirable behavior. Whether it’s the teacher, the school resource officer, or the principal, the relationships make all the difference and are vital to building trust and improving student behavior.”

And Nina Leuzzi, a pre-K teacher in Boston, says that the Obama-era guidance has helped her take into account the whole child in front of her—their experience, their trauma and their needs—and react more appropriately. As far as she is concerned, “suspensions are not tools for teachers because they do not educate. Training is a tool for teachers.”

There’s a Reason The Guidance Was Written

The Obama administration’s concern over disparate discipline rates was well-founded and based on the the information gleaned from the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC).

In a strange twist of timing, their concerns were confirmed in a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that was released yesterday—literally during the roundtable with DeVos—that could ultimately overshadow that event.

In its analysis of the 2013-14 school year, the most recent year for which there is data, the GAO found that Black students, boys and students with disabilities are disciplined at higher rates than their White peers without disabilities. The disparities were greatest for Black students and persisted regardless of socioeconomic class.

The Department of Education began the CRDC in 1968 and as of February of 2014, every public school and district in America is required to provide data. The data included goes far beyond discipline rates and has cast an important light on glaring inequities in our schools to include access to AP courses and IB programs, access to school counselors, and the availability of high-level math and science courses. Teacher and student absenteeism data is also collected.

But a central tenet of the Obama-era guidance, in addition to disparities around race, was that special education students have the right to equal treatment in school. And a story, also out of Lincoln High School in San Diego, may be evidence that the road to hell really is paved with good intentions.

When a non-verbal child with cerebral palsy is raped in the bathroom at school by another student and the confession of the perpetrator as well as eyewitness testimony are kept secret from the mother of the victim, something has gone very wrong.

Add to that a change to how an offense is officially documented in the books to avoid expulsion, and one has to wonder what is driving the actions of the district. According to a story by Mario Koran in Voice of San Diego, “sexual misconduct—defined by the district as ‘attempting to commit or committing a sexual assault or battery’—is one of five offenses for which school principals must recommend students be expelled. Nearly a month later, however, the school’s vice principal documented the incident differently. She labeled the offense an “obscene act.” The school does not expel students for that.”

But it seems like a stretch to directly blame the guidance for the egregious mishandling of serious offenses—and crimes—by administrators and district officials in cases of violence.

While it’s true they may feel pressure to keep their suspension and expulsion numbers down as a result of the “Dear Colleague” letter, the guidance does include specific language about the need to “train personnel to distinguish between disciplinary infractions appropriately handled by school officials versus major threats to school safety or serious school-based criminal conduct…and how to contact law enforcement when warranted.”

The truth is, all of the educators who testified at the school safety and climate summit yesterday likely agree far more than they disagree but their conclusions about the Obama-era guidance are informed by their very different experiences.

Not Speaking the Same Language

While some are focused on disproportionate suspensions for defiance, profanity and dress code violations, others have witnessed and/or experienced assault, rape and students showing up at school with weapons. This wide range of behavioral infractions and in some cases, crimes, is indicative of the likely fact that teachers—and others who feel strongly about the Obama-era guidance—may not even be speaking the same language.

A message from Washington can become pretty garbled as it makes its way down to the school district level and administrators have certainly been known to change course and even cook the books when they feel pressure—real or perceived—to keep those numbers down. On the other hand, the relationships that adults build with students can be the best defense against undesirable student behavior and can be the perfect antidote to the toxic power struggles that ensue far too often between teachers and students and often result in outsized punitive responses.

Regardless of where Betsy DeVos lands on the Obama-era guidance, it’s clear that she’d be wise to keep her communication going with those on the front lines—teachers—if she wants to make smart decisions that will actually have a positive impact and make America’s schools more equitable and just places for all students.

Photo by Gage Skidmore, CC-licensed.

Educators Take Center Stage at Betsy DeVos’ Summit on School Discipline syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com