A local teacher's perspective on discipline.

By Greg Sampson

In my first post about discipline, I wrote of the steps Nikolai Vitti has taken to improve discipline in the schools. In my second post, I offered my perspective on how poverty affects our students and their behavior presenting a unique challenge that many do not understand. In this third post, I would like to look at the issue from the teacher’s side.

1.       Teachers get frustrated when they have given many warnings, adjusted seat assignments many times, have sent the student to time-out, and made several phone calls to the parent, yet the referral comes back to them with suggestions that they haven’t done enough and the administrator will not accept the referral.

2.       Teachers get frustrated when they have tried many of these interventions and have sent the student to the office with a referral, and the student comes back 15 minutes later because the consequence was a conference and a promise to be better.

3.       Teachers get frustrated when these students arrive back at the room laughing about it and pass the written referral around to their friends to brag about how they got away with their misbehavior.

4.       Teachers get frustrated when students insult them loudly and directly or cuss them out, and the consequence is not so much as after-school detention.

5.       Teachers get frustrated when consequences are inconsistent or different for the same infraction depending upon who the student is.

6.       Teachers get frustrated when administrators try to be school psychologists and counsel students rather than enforcing consequences.

7.       Teachers get frustrated when Class 1 referrals are not entered into the system to keep the numbers down. Another “keep the numbers down” technique is to call the parent and have them keep their child home for several days to avoid having an infraction placed upon their record.

8.       Teachers get frustrated when administrators threaten them with unsatisfactory ratings rather than working with them so solve the problems.

9.       Teachers get frustrated when they enforce the rules but see several of their colleagues negligent in performing their duties and directing students properly, and yet the administration does not call these negligent people to account.

10.   Teachers get frustrated when administrators change expectations and procedures, but do not tell them. For example, when students are supposed to use the restroom during class change, but the administrators decide there are too many problems and lock the bathrooms. Yet teachers deny hall passes from class because they are still operating under the old understanding that students should go during class change and be kept in class.

11.   Teachers get frustrated when asked to enforce unenforceable rules, or rules that the administrators let slide by.

12.   Teachers get frustrated when they ask questions to clarify what the policies are and get told that the policies have already been explained to them. Reread the email (that many times was not sent).

13.   Teachers get frustrated when they are told that there is not time to attend to minor infractions because too many serious things are going on. Didn’t a New York City mayor show twenty years ago that if authorities pay attention to minor things, like jumping the turnstile and not paying, serious crime like robbery goes down?

Discipline in our schools is a serious and ongoing issue. I hope this series of contributions has helped to illuminate the issue from different perspectives. In closing, my advice is to let go of the past. Whatever was or was not taking place under previous superintendents is done. We cannot hold the new superintendent and his team responsible for that. Let’s give them the chance to bring the improvements that our schools need and to end the counterproductive measures that went on in response to the pressure to lower the number of referrals. But I would also caution that teacher input is a vital and necessary part of these efforts.

Union-speak translated. You teachers!!!

Union-speak translated. 

You teachers should be grateful for anything we were able to work out for you. After all, you “already” received the final payment from that three-year settlement, even though you had to wait years for a measly $500 step increase that is nowhere commensurate to your increased workload. So what if it had nothing to do with the Governor’s allocation and occurred well before it was a glimmer in his eye? We are going to throw it in your faces first line, first paragraph because we can.

You teachers should be grateful that we were able to get you $2090, not as the raise touted by all of the media and politicians, but as a one-time “supplement.” This supplement is so much  better than a raise because DCPS just cannot afford to increase teacher’s salary schedule and we must do everything we can to be sure they can use that money for all of those new administrative jobs being added daily for twice the amount of one teacher’s salary. Although we cannot explain this, believe us when we say that your raise, now supplement, is better because now you can pay in more money to the FRS system that even Jeb Bush could not destroy with his first job post-Governor as the investment manager for an unnamed investment firm that recommended FRS system invest in bundled mortgages. We all know how lucrative those investments were, at least to Bush and the investment houses. So what if one consequence was that we all have to contribute 3%. Bush and his buddies needed that money to pay for their kids elite private school educations.

You teachers need to be team players and share that raise/supplement with all of those Psychologists, Academic Coaches, Instructional Specialists, and other personnel who already make more money than you do while having to manage maybe one student for a few minutes a day, while you are juggling 30+ per class for three ninety-minute periods a day. Plus, those coaches and specialists are there to make your job easier. 

They deserve a cut from your raise. It takes great effort to sit in the back of your last period class, yawning and sipping from a coffee mug, messaging on a cell phone that we aren’t allowed to have near our bodies, and simultaneously  taking notes chastising you for not arousing and engaging those thirty plus exhausted students. So what if those students spent their day in fun” Intensive Math and Intensive Reading electives, followed by a core class in the same subject and now are your core class? A highly effective teacher would know how to work this magic. One of these days, if you give them even more of your raise, they might show you how to do it.

By the way, as an aside that we hope you will overlook, you need to share your “supplement” with those Charter schools in our District that are trying to take over by pretending they are public institutions rather than for-profit entities because the State says so. We can’t have their salaries increased so that the owners/shareholders get less profit, now can we?  Our fingers are crossed, hoping that you won’t even think to inquire whether the amount allocated to Duval included a head count for those teachers, which we know is most unlikely, as you are there to share with all.

You teachers need to be mindful of the future. How do you expect to get another measly $500 step some year in the future  if the salary schedule includes the $2500 raise you were supposed to get?  And you wonder why our students Math FCAT scores are below average?  Do not forget the amazing deal you get on that basic health insurance policy, even if it is mandatory and you have no choice to use a spouse’s or look for a different policy. If you do not ratify this great deal, you are going to jeopardize that great mandatory benefit for a raise.

Good thing we are around to protect you. 

Even Moody's Investors Service says Charter Schools are bad for communities.

From the Diane Ravitch blog:

Back in the olden times, advocates claimed that charters would provide healthy competition and beneficial innovation. This would benefit the public schools and urban districts as well.

But it turned out to be a false promise.

By skimming off the best students in poor neighborhoods, charter schools leave the public schools in worse condition, overburdened with the neediest students that the charters don’t want and lacking the resources to educate them appropriately. Where the public school system is struggling to improve, charter schools may actually hasten their collapse.

Now Moody’s Investors’ Service has issued a bulletin warning that the proliferation of charters in economically weak cities damages those cities’ economic viability.

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/11/04/moodys-charters-pose-serious-risk-to-struggling-cities/

Charter school says threatening kids was a big misunderstanding.

In case you missed it an Orlando Charter school threatened to kick out students who did not get FCAT prep, they however say it was just a big misunderstanding.

From the Miami Herald:  The Orange County school system is investigating a charter school that wrongly threatened to dismiss students for failing the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests, or FCAT.

The school, Cornerstone Charter Academy, retracted the threat Thursday, blaming a “poorly written letter” from the principal to parents.

Still, the move was enough to spark a new round of allegations that charter schools, which are privately managed but receive taxpayer funding, inflate their state-issued school grades by “cherry picking” students.

“If a child does not pass FCAT and the school discontinues that child’s enrollment because of it, then they are rigging their own school achievement scores by dismissing students who may bring down the school’s grade,” said Sandy Stenoff, who withdrew her child from Cornerstone last year.

Cornerstone Charter Academy is run by the Miami-based school management firm Academica, which manages more than three dozen charter schools in South Florida, and has ties to top state lawmakers.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/31/3723517/charter-school-retracts-letter.html#storylink=cpy

What?!? A charter school with ties to elected officials, how unbelievably common in Florida! What is also common is charter schools counseling out poor performers and discipline problems after FTE (money time) and before the FCAT. This steals money from public schools and jacks up charter school scores which are still no better despite numerous advantages.

It’s time Florida got a clue and put the brakes on the charter school expansion unless you like a system where kids get substandard educations while politicians with close ties to charter schools benefit.

Discipline did not improve in Jacksonville’s schools, ignoring discipline did.

In a previous blog Greg Sampson outlined all the steps that Superintendent Vitti has made to improve discipline, which begs the question why did he need to do them all if discipline was so great. The answer is it wasn’t.  

The Times Union reported that discipline had improved greatly over the last six years, well friends that’s because the old superintendent used accounting tricks and the threat of reprisals to principals that trickled down to teachers if it didn’t. Discipline did not improve, teachers, many of who have left the system, instead were forced to ignore bad behavior which would have led to consequences in bygone eras.

We had to know we were in trouble when principals started to be evaluated on how many referrals were written and suspensions given at their schools, something Vitti has stopped doing.

Assistant principals became experts at losing and not processing referrals, discipline became a joke as children acted without fear of consequences in many of schools.

I know he is gone but why does the Times Union continue to cover for Ed Pratt Dannals, he and the last board dug a very deep hole for Vitti and the city.

Why do people vote for politicians that hate teachers?

Jeb Bush would be one example, Chris Christie would be another.



To read more click the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/03/gov-chris-christie-yells-at-a-teacher-again/

Here he the teacher's response.

How to address discipline in Duval County Schools

By Greg Sampson

Having passed beyond the morning coffee, I continue to muse over the judge’s reaction to discipline in Duval schools …

The Urban Subculture of Poverty

I am amused by those who come from a culture of upper middle class values, and expect that all children in our Westside, Northwest-side, and North-side schools share those values.

Why do boys wear their pants low? It is not media influence. They will be quick to tell you that it is Jail. They want to identify with males who have been to jail. This is more than normal adolescent rebellion.

In our urban neighborhoods of poverty, most everyone they know has been through the justice system. It is not a matter of shame; it is a rite of passage.

That’s what we deal with in our schools. Don’t blame the students, don’t blame the teachers, it’s the way it is.

Rather than getting mad, rather than pointing fingers, let’s try to help kids.

1.       Many of our discipline problems do not arise in our schools. They come in from the neighborhood. Sometimes students will fight as proxy for their parents. We have days where problems arrive on the bus and the administrators and school resource officer spend the entire day dealing with it: calling parents, working with the students, dissipating the conflict.

2.       Children from poverty have the attitude that they must defend what belongs to them. It may seem silly to us, but when a child has decided that a certain seat in the room belongs to them and someone else sits in it, it is a major issue that they will fight over. They cannot allow someone to take something away from them, or they are announcing to the world that they are easy pickings—a cow carcass tossed into a piranha-choked stream.

3.       Parents also teach their children from birth that no one has the right to put their hands on them. If someone touches them, they have permission to fight. Even if you own nothing else, your body belongs to you. Allow no one to violate that idea in the slightest way.

4.       Family is strong, very strong. Older children are told to protect their younger brothers and sisters.

5.       The worst thing to do is back away from a fight. Once one is challenged, that person has to go through with it.

6.       However, with all this being said, kids are strategic. It’s not a matter of losing control; they have decided for reasons that make sense to them that they want to have a fight. They look for the right opportunity. We can head off many conflicts by maintaining a visible presence during times of student transition and being alert in our classrooms for erupting conflict.

7.       Children from poverty lack the background knowledge of their peers. They haven’t been exposed to much and they lack the ability to understand what is going on in a situation. For example, they do not understand math problems about revenue, cost, and profit because nothing in their family’s, neighbors’, or relatives’ lives expose them to small business people—entrepreneurs. School is therefore harder for them.

8.       My background is in math, but over the past few years I have been exposed to the reading side, and the key to FCAT success is background knowledge. No child can write about a camel if they have never seen one.

9.       When they enter adolescence, and social standing is everything to them, and they cannot keep up, the way some choose to handle it is to act out and take a classroom down. If no one is learning, they won’t be embarrassed in front of their friends.

10.   We have a student in our middle school that was in second grade last year. Thanks to a hurry-up program under the former superintendent, he is now in 6^th grade. He admitted to one of his teachers that he deliberately acts up in class because he doesn’t have a clue what’s going on academically.

      I am not an expert, but I am sharing what I have learned and how it impacts discipline in our schools. My hope is that this post will stimulate the thinking of others about the challenges in our schools that children from poverty present in ways that do not condemn them.

Common Core’s controversy should be enough to doom it.

Tea Party activists and liberal union teachers have come together all be it though for vastly different reasons to oppose common core. Today a group of catholic scholars joined their ranks:

From the Washington Post: The letter, which calls the Core  ”a recipe for standardized workforce preparation,” cites criticism of the standards by academics including James Milgram, professor emeritus of mathematics at Stanford University, and Sandra Stotsky, professor emerita of education at the University of Arkansas. They have both testified before various state legislatures against the Core, saying the standards aren’t strong enough to prepare students for college.  Supporters of the Core argue otherwise.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/02/catholic-scholars-blast-common-core-in-letter-to-u-s-bishops/

Common Core has literally torn the nation to the point that if it is implemented its legitimacy will be questioned for a generation, or until we find the next miracle cure and go with it. I get it though nothing is going to be perfect for everybody but since so many varied groups are against common core wouldn’t it benefit the nation to go back to the drawing board and try again?

Superintendent Vitti has made an effort to improve discipline

By Greg Sampson

Sunday morning, cup of coffee in hand, I am reading the latest controversy to erupt in the media about Duval County Public Schools. In a whimsical mood, before I get serious in the following paragraphs, I find I am grateful to the judge who for a moment has drawn our attention away from the raging arguments about Common Core standards.

For the purpose of balance, let’s list the steps Nikolai Vitti has taken to improve discipline in our schools:

1.       He has added additional security personnel in secondary schools. My school received an extra person and it has helped.

2.       He created the position of Dean of Discipline at schools. This person is not an administrator loaded with many additional duties; this person is focused on maintaining discipline. Who hasn’t had, or known of teachers who had, a formal observation scheduled but the administrator was called away to handle a problem, their hard work to prepare was wasted, and they had to start over? In theory, having a D of D frees administrators to concentrate on their other responsibilities.

3.       He is changing the philosophy of discipline. It is less about punishment, although that remains a factor, and more about getting kids to understand their behavior and make changes. To that end, D of Ds do more than handle referrals, they initiate positive behavior intervention programs. We did one last week at my school. Was it perfect? No. Some might say it was a disaster—putting the top 20 kids in number of referrals into a room together, all day, to work on behavior issues. Naturally, there were behavior issues. Nevertheless, if a punishment only philosophy worked, we wouldn’t have any more crime, would we? Except Britain found out in the 18^th century that hanging pickpockets didn’t stop thievery. We need better ideas. If something doesn’t work, we analyze why, and keep working to help kids change their motivation for acting out.

4.       He has said that we need to think beyond suspension because, when kids are suspended, they are not in their classrooms learning.

5.       He changed ISSP (in school suspension). No longer run by a paraprofessional riding herd on kids all day, ISSP is run by a certified teacher who actually teaches. Part of the day’s agenda is character building/behavior modification.

6.       He has noticed inconsistency in discipline, and that is one of his impetuses toward change. He has demoted and fired administrators who are weak on discipline.

7.       His region chiefs are monitoring school behavior. My region chief paid us a visit Thursday because our referrals and feedback being received by the region office indicated a problem. They are paying attention.

8.       I have heard from the superintendent’s mouth directly that he is not concerned if the number of referrals go up this year if it means we are improving discipline in our schools.

It will take time for these changes to take effect. We complain how “they” want us to change years of neglect and failure in a few short months. We shouldn’t return that attitude toward others. And frankly, let’s admit it, colleagues, a lot of the disruption problems we experience is because kids are bored. Before we blame them and their parents, we need to examine how well we are teaching. Good instruction is at least half the battle in classroom management.

In a follow-up post, I will look at the other side.

Violence in Duval schools is nothing new

You know what gets me? It’s not the local judge who is complaining about violence in schools it’s now that the city wants to listen.

I have been writing about violence and a lack of discipline in Duval County’s schools for over 7 years now.  

I have even had pieces published in the Folio, Times Union and Victims advocate and they were all met with a collective shrug or worse a rebuff by the last superintendent and school board who waved a silver watch in the face of Jacksonville and said all is well.

Then again the city and the powers-that-be have always felt they can ignore teachers.

Vitti despite his all is well message in the Times Union knows all too well that there were discipline problems in our schools because if not why does every school now have additional security, a dean and an ISSP teacher?

Vitti should be honest with the people of Jacksonville, he should say, yeah we had a problem a big problem but we are taking steps to fix it. All is not well and to propagate that lie is to ensure we have more of the same.