School Safety & Expulsions

Hannah Wolfe says "we made some good strides" with the recent hire of Valdimir Talley, DPS's new safety officer, and that it will "take a bit of time" to show results. She says violence is a problem not just in schools, but in workplaces in other industries too. She says "I don't think we've done everything we can, but I think there's a lot more research we need to do on what else we can do."

Hannah says "Expelling kids from schools is probably going to be one of the hardest parts of this job. Noone wants to put kids out on the street, and kids deserve second chances because they're kids, but we can't have disrupters in our schools that are keeping other children from learning." She says a coalition needs to be built to create a plan for & provide a packet of resources to students who are expelled, so they and their parents know their next steps.

Will Wetzel says "there are so many steps" before "the first punch is thrown," and we need to "focus on making sure that we are intervening early" by putting together volunteer programs with parents & community members, increasing extracurricular & after-school activities, as well as peace-making programs and restorative justice programs "that have been shown to work in places [with] high violence."

Will says "these are children, [and] they might make bad decisions" because their brains aren't fully developed. He says some kids can't function in a regular ed program, and they should get "consequences for their actions", but "no child should be thrown out on the street." He says they should instead go to alternative education programs, such as Futures, Milligan, or one of many "other wonderful programs that we have," but that "no child should be expelled out on the street."

Mark Reynolds said he just learned the high schools have metal detectors at the doors & he talked to someone at Stephen Decatur who wants them too. He wants to give the new security administrator some time to work on the violence and safety issues, but says that school safety is a "high priority as far as I'm concerned", a change from his stance 3 weeks earlier (see Notes at the bottom).

Mark believes it is a "sad fact" that "truthfully, there are some children that aren't going to be teachable." From past experience subbing at Futures, he says Futures is a good option for kids who want to learn but don't fit into the high school setting.

Mark says he doesn't have an answer for kids who don't want to be in school and don't want an education. He says "I feel bad for them" but "as a board member" he has to "look at the big picture" and he is "more worried about the 90% that want to learn."

Jacob Jenkins says the Board needs to acknowledge its past "bad decisions" to close down schools and put kids together, saying that putting Thomas Jefferson kids together with Stephen Decatur is what created the situation that led to police being called over 120 times in one year due to fighting and violence.

He says school violence is addressed by putting more people in the classroom and schools that "look like the population you're trying to address the issue with." He wants to work with community partners & faith baised organizations to have adults come in before school, during lunch hour, and at games to help quell violence and ensure safety.

He thanked Will for bringing up "restorative justice & peace building initiatives," saying these have "worked very well in other places." He says he's trained in WAIT - Watched Agression Interruption Training, has worked with the "second chance grant," and "many of the youth in this community that were a part of the criminal justice system."

Jacob says we need more restorative justice programs and that the youth needs to be able to buy into it.

Misty Fronk says there "will be signs" before any "real violent scene", and agrees with Jacob, saying those signs can be recognized if we get more people into the schools. Then she wants pull those children aside to get to the root cause of their feelings & why they're acting out, whether it's struggling with school or "maybe something at home".

Misty thinks kids get violent because they feel it's the only way to get attention. She says "our numbers and everything will go up" if the violence stops, because the children will "feel like they're safe because they have somebody they can talk to."

Bill Clevenger agrees with Hannah that "one of the hardest decisions a school board member will make" is to "expel a young person from our school system." He says it's a difficult question, "not a 2 minute question." He says we have two schools, Garfield and Milligan, that provide alternatives for kids who receive an "expulsion with a stay".

Bill said Futures is not a good fit for that alternative placement, suggesting there will be problems "if you put the young people who were in a fight in the same environment." He says there are a lot of factors that go into that decision making process in determining whether to do an expulsion with a stay vs no stay.

He asked the audience who saw the "viral video" of a fight at MacArthur a couple weeks ago, and several folks raised their hands (not captured in the video). Bill asks who would condone that violence in their schools and no hands were raised. He said "that's what I thought," then said "there's gotta be prevention, and there has to be consequences on the other end as well."

Bill says there are "several different avenues, not one size fits all," and that in life "there are consequences," and that both students and teachers need to feel safe at school.

Jalynn Walker withdrew from the School Board Race.

Datrice Weathers withdrew from the School Board Race.