fights at Columbia

Interesting article just this week in a St Paul, MN alternative newspaper about similar difficulties regarding efforts to balance justice, equity, and discipline in that city's public schools. Has the "Pacific Educational Group" mentioned in the City Pages article or a similar organization been consulted regarding SOMA schools?

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2015/05/a_racial_equity_policy_summons_chaos_in_the_st_paul_schools.php

[While the article is balanced, be warned that the comments section gets pretty disgusting.]

I think it is becoming harder and harder for public school administrations to strike that balance. They are "damned if they do and damned if they don't."

I don't understand why someone defending themself gets suspended, though. Perhaps required to participate in a conversation about alternative responses, but they should not be out of school.

We had a separate high school for troubled teens, including the more violent ones, who obviously need to be kept more in a lockdown kind of situation.Didn't we used to have one at Montrose? That is now on the CHS campus.

Speaking of all this savage behavior and talk of suspensions and any lack thereof, how's the complaint from Mr. Fields & Co. coming along? Been quiet for a while, and if any of the reports of miscreants immediately returning to school can be believed, one wonders whether the district's response to the various instances of unacceptable behavior and its approach to suspensions is in any way reflective of its status.

I just was send a multiple choice questionaire the other day from the consulting company hired as a result of the ACLU investigation. I filled it out but there was no option to explain myself in any other way. In that regard, I don't know how much authentic information they can be getting since the multiple choice questions were very general.

Fail to see the relevance of this last comment

Sorry. Last two comments.

beppolina said:
Interesting article just this week in a St Paul, MN alternative newspaper about similar difficulties regarding efforts to balance justice, equity, and discipline in that city's public schools. Has the "Pacific Educational Group" mentioned in the City Pages article or a similar organization been consulted regarding SOMA schools?
http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2015/05/a_racial_equity_policy_summons_chaos_in_the_st_paul_schools.php
[While the article is balanced, be warned that the comments section gets pretty disgusting.]

The "Pacific Educational Group" is an extremely evil organization. A true horror story that has no place anywhere except being kicked to the gutter.

The relevance is that some might speculate that fewer children of color are being suspended because the district is accused of suspending them at a greater rate than other children. So now one might worry that no one is getting suspended at all even when deserved.

callista said:
We had a separate high school for troubled teens, including the more violent ones, who obviously need to be kept more in a lockdown kind of situation.Didn't we used to have one at Montrose? That is now on the CHS campus.

Yes, callista, quite a while back - since it no longer exists, I assume it was either not a successful endeavor, or the cost was too high to maintain it.

The over suspension of children of color, especially boys, is a national issue. Calling out whoever as if there is a lone voice on this issue is silly. Are all the young people who get into fights or who are disruptive children of color? If not, then why is this even brought up? That's what I mean by relevance. A better approach would be to find alternatives to suspension, which doesn't seem to be effective

Code Red at MMS today. Weapon involved and student apprehended.

soorlady said:

callista said:
We had a separate high school for troubled teens, including the more violent ones, who obviously need to be kept more in a lockdown kind of situation.Didn't we used to have one at Montrose? That is now on the CHS campus.

Yes, callista, quite a while back - since it no longer exists, I assume it was either not a successful endeavor, or the cost was too high to maintain it.

It was repeatedly a target of budget cuts, and with a change in leadership it lost its protector. Dr. Osborne closed it and repurposed the space for Special Education Pre-K and daycare.

In theory the program was absorbed into Columbia, but I've never gotten a clear sense of how it works there. Clearly we lost the ability for at-risk students to be in a small-school setting in-District, but I don't know if/whether this is a part of the current issues regarding higher suspension levels of minority and Special Education youth or other Columbia issues.

I've never seen any outcomes data presented for either the Montrose school or the program that replaced it (but I may have missed something).

There are scary, aggressive kids everywhere, regardless of color. At my school, the majority were white. Unfortunately, you can spot these children really early in elementary school. There is probably some sort of intervention that might make a difference then, which we should investigate, even with our non existent funds. As they progress and the behavior escalates, they just really should not be in the regular school system. They damage other students and the atmosphere, and they damage themselves because the school staff and teachers have no time or expertise in dealing with them. It is lose lose. With all of the brains and degrees around here, there have to be some brainstorming of possibilities to get our schools a little safer and more hospitable to learning.

Since 'they don't live in our towns' is the great white whale that keeps peeking up, and is unsubstantiated in terms of who the victimizers are,I am leaving that alone. I would assume that as these children are actually dealt with by the district, whomever does not belong legally, will be removed.

The district doesn't always know who is a non resident, often a teacher or parent will tip off the registrar and the district will perform a "residency" check. As I noted above, if a parent knows that a student doesn't live in the district they should call the registrar at the BOE, and make a report, I am pretty sure the person reporting can remain anonymous.

The problem at CHS seems to a new one. My son said there were four fights today. He's been there for three years and said he's never seen anything like this.

I have always felt that if a parent could figure out how to sneak their kid into a better school district that indicates a greater level of parental involvement and therefore one would assume the kids perform fine. At least that is how it was with me when my parents snuck me into a better school.

What is the real percentage of kids sneaking in? My kid had a friend thrown out - she was a good kid, just too poor to live in Maplewood. Is ti 10%, 5%, 20%?

cleg said:
What is the real percentage of kids sneaking in? My kid had a friend thrown out - she was a good kid, just too poor to live in Maplewood. Is ti 10%, 5%, 20%?

An indicator might be the number of non-domiciled students (district-wide) enumerated at each regular BOE meeting:

May 2015 - 15 students

April 2015 - 12 students

March 2015 - 21 students

Feb. 2015 - 3 students

Dec. 2014 - 10 students

annielou said:
The over suspension of children of color, especially boys, is a national issue. Calling out whoever as if there is a lone voice on this issue is silly. Are all the young people who get into fights or who are disruptive children of color? If not, then why is this even brought up? That's what I mean by relevance. A better approach would be to find alternatives to suspension, which doesn't seem to be effective

I don't recall saying anything about race. I also don't recall anything revealed about the race of the students involved at MMS or in the episodes cited here. Not sure why you're going off on a tangent about it, but seems pretty presumptuous of you to assume that the offenders in this and other situations cited were children of color, or that someone else would assume that

joanauer said:
The problem at CHS seems to a new one. My son said there were four fights today. He's been there for three years and said he's never seen anything like this.

I'd expect an emergency meeting of the BOE any day now, then. Yes?

I expect a continuing lack of communication to the parents on this topic.

ctrzaska said:

joanauer said:
The problem at CHS seems to a new one. My son said there were four fights today. He's been there for three years and said he's never seen anything like this.

I'd expect an emergency meeting of the BOE any day now, then. Yes?

callista said:
We had a separate high school for troubled teens, including the more violent ones, who obviously need to be kept more in a lockdown kind of situation.Didn't we used to have one at Montrose? That is now on the CHS campus.

Callista: When I went to CHS, there was an alternative program in the school. This housed all the "bad kids" that had emotional, behavioral, or excessive absenteeism. Since I have graduated apparently it was housed in the Montrose school which has since been moved back to CHS. I can't fathom what these kids are thinking with this abusive nature that they are demonstrating.

I have seen videos that were sent to my daughters of several fights and they are very disturbing. I have filed charges against the girls who jumped my daughter on Monday and sent the videos that I told my daughters to forward to me.

At the rate that these fights are happening, it is scary not just for children but also for the teachers.

annielou said:
The over suspension of children of color, especially boys, is a national issue. Calling out whoever as if there is a lone voice on this issue is silly. Are all the young people who get into fights or who are disruptive children of color? If not, then why is this even brought up? That's what I mean by relevance. A better approach would be to find alternatives to suspension, which doesn't seem to be effective

Considering that two of the girls that jumped my daughter, the boys that were fighting yesterday, and the girls that fought yesterday were all of color, I don't know how I should answer that. However, I do not think it matters. Disruptive children will come in all colors. It is just a shame and I wonder where the hell the parents are!

ctrzaska said:

joanauer said:
The problem at CHS seems to a new one. My son said there were four fights today. He's been there for three years and said he's never seen anything like this.

I'd expect an emergency meeting of the BOE any day now, then. Yes?

I agree an emergency meeting of the BOE should be called!

I thought we would have heard from Elizabeth Aarons by now...

kmk said:
I thought we would have heard from Elizabeth Aarons by now...

I've been waiting for her to call me since Monday. Probably not happening either just like the rest of the administrators in the district. Communication lacks at SOMSD if you haven't noticed.

@Butterflylover, Did you call her?

kmk said:
@Butterflylover, Did you call her?

yes...

So, genuine question: is there anything we can do about the violence in the schools? Has this been a long-term problem or is it a more recentissue? Because none of this is ok.