Guv’s reform plan leaves out school security issues

All too often school security and school success are seen as somehow unconnected. Unfortunately, no mention of the need for secure learning environments was made on May 19 when Governor Martinez announced a New Mexico Effective Teaching Task Force “to provide the best possible education for New Mexico children.”

If they don’t address this school safety issue, any other reform is doomed.

Ask any of the many Española Valley parents who send their children out of district, and you’ll hear that the safety and security of their children is in the forefront of their decision to do so. Many families locate to Rio Rancho or Los Lunas specifically because they believe the schools in those communities are safer. Any realtor in those communities is sure to confirm that school safety and quality play a huge role in their business.

Parents know that where there is a sense of safety, and the learning environment is secure, there are better opportunities for successful learning, personal growth and advancement for their children. When misbehaving students interrupt classroom instruction, both the teachers’ and the students’ time and energy are diverted from the lesson at hand to the experience overwhelming them.

In Española, highlight the link between the elusive goals of school “reform” efforts and school security concerns. These include the jailing of Española-NEA President and high school science teacher John Reese; a lawsuit initiated by local parents joined now by the ACLU; and the enormous expenses and controversy with the privately-owned security company “ProSec,” whose price tag keeps going up and up while security issues continue to plague the district.

Española is not unique in confronting this problem of unsafe schools. President Obama convened a national summit on the issue this March. The president says we need “to dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up. It’s not. Bullying can have destructive consequences for our young people. And it’s not something we have to accept…”

“A school where children don’t feel safe is a school where children struggle to learn. It is a school where kids drop out, tune out, and get depressed,” added U.S. Education Secretary Duncan at the conference.

Freeing up teachers to teach

Success in “turning around” struggling schools rests, first of all, on strong student discipline practices, allowing teachers to teach and administrators to administrate. In inner-city Chicago’s Phillips Academy, teachers simply send students who break the rules to the dean. It frees up teachers to just teach. They are achieving huge achievement gains as students adjust to their new regimen.

Constant battles with administration over micromanagement and the lack of autonomy is a major reason teachers leave the profession, and many of these conflicts arise over student discipline concerns. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that “the five most commonly reported sources of dissatisfaction were a lack of planning time (60 percent), too heavy a workload (51 percent), too many students in a classroom (50 percent), too low a salary (48 percent), and problematic student behavior (44 percent).”

Of course, these concerns overlap with student behavior in the classroom: Time spent correcting behaviors reduces planning time, increases workload, and becomes more problematic with growing class sizes due to budget cuts.

Student-on-student disciplinary incidents constitute the bulk of security issues. Too often administrators insist that classroom teachers’ lack of “classroom management skills” result in frequent referrals rather than the underlying student behaviors. Consequently, too many “referrals” by teachers are sent back to the classroom without administrative action. The teachers’ role in the classroom is undermined when they cannot say with certainty: “See, if you break the rules, there will be consequences for you.”

When troublemakers believe they can get away with anything, it is the well-behaving students whose academic lives are put at risk, while their emotional well-being takes a hit from the bullying that pervades their existence.

Referrals of students who do not respond to classroom discipline are made to school administrators. What happens when students are referred? Administrators are to keep logs of incidents and referrals. Where are those logs? Most of the time, teachers don’t know what happens to their referrals. Too often students are sent back to the class without action by the administrator. Some referral slips have been found crumpled in administrator’s trash cans. Parents, therefore, don’t hear about their children’s behaviors, so they can’t support discipline efforts at school with follow up at home.

Teachers should not be the final line

Are well-behaving students being sent the message that their right to an education free of harassment, bullying and just plain ordinary disruptions is worth less than the time it takes to properly deal with their troublesome fellow students? Teachers, who are on the front line along with other school employees, should not also be the final line when it comes to discipline.

In every district, student discipline issues are guided by school board policy, and in most the actions of administrators and education employees are also guided by collective bargaining agreement language. Española –NEA and the district have an article on student discipline in the collective bargaining agreement. Fortunately, this article provides clarity lacking in the school board policy which it supersedes for members of the bargaining unit: “Employees shall use appropriate techniques which may include as a last resort reasonable restraint as permitted by law in order to maintain a safe environment for students and staff.”

It is unacceptable that teachers and other employees who do their best to maintain discipline are themselves subject to employment disciplinary measures for doing so. When administrators fail to create the right climate and do not support educators properly, the academic education of the well-behaving students is diminished.

New Mexico needs administrators and school boards to take leadership and work collaboratively with their education employee unions to create better ways to address the impact of student disciplinary concerns. Whether the Española District should renew its contract with ProSec or hire “in-house” is not the central issue for providing greater security and an achievement-focused learning environment for that community.

Schools can provide safe-havens for academic achievement and positive personal growth, and in successful schools all adults have a part, but it is administrators who play the most crucial role in setting the school climate. Any statewide “reform” effort needs to address security concerns head-on because they directly impact all others including student and employee performance.

Charles Goodmacher resides in Rio Rancho and works for the National Education Association – New Mexico. He formerly served as a legislative analyst during five sessions in the N.M. House of Representatives. The opinions expressed here are personal, and do not represent those of his employer.