Update: Cone asks if a student's race is relevant to the problem, GCS and I think so.
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"Let's do something..." Parents at Kiser Middle School echo the sentiments of many Guilford County school system parents in a well-researched N&R article this morning by Jennifer Fernandez entitled "Rebuilding Kiser".
Kiser Middle, once Greensboro's most highly regarded middle school, is experiencing many of the same problems as we are having at Aycock Middle: frequent and repeated disruptions by some students, high rates of repeat suspensions, more frequent fighting, higher arrest rates, decreasing test scores. The good news is that Kiser's parents, like Aycock's, have decided to dig in and solve the problems instead of run from it. "Those of us that are in the trenches will not give up,... We believe in this school." said PTA parent Valerie Stern. The challenge is getting more parents like Stern involved.
As alluded to in the article, Kiser, like Aycock, has a parental involvement gap which has widened in recent years due to redistricting. These changes placed more poor black and other minority children at Kiser whose parents/guardians have, as a group, been demonstrating more and more of a "disconnect" between school and home in recent years. As parental involvement has decreased, problems at school have increased. But the Kiser PTA is not wringing their hands, they are becoming pro-active through an outreach program they call "Lets Talk" which will be a series of meetings at Hampton Homes public housing where many of the more disruptive students live. Designed to bring poor parents back into the school, these meetings will also "deal with racial issues". Good for them, I hope the discussions are open and honest and start with this...
The danced-around truth is that the vast majority of discipline problems are caused by a relatively few poor black students at both Aycock and Kiser. Everyone knows it, but we don't say it clearly enough. We are not doing any of our students any favors with our current unwritten "mainstreaming" policy that is keeping habitually disruptive children in the classroom. We must acknowledge and address the cultural differences that contibute to the disparities in how school discipline is meted out to these students.
Teacher Association president Loretta Jennings' says"...teachers feel they're not being supported because when they refer these children they're not being suspended". This statement typifies what I have heard continuously this year from teachers at Aycock and other schools.
The practice of hoping that any student's specialized needs will disappear by simply blending them in with the rest of the student body is a failed policy. The practice will negatively affect not not just a student who might lack the discipline skills to learn in a regular classroom but, just as tragically, the practice is stunting the education of the vast majority of students who are actually in school to learn. We must discover and meet the needs of ALL students or we will not be deemed successful.
I can already hear the cries of "institutional racism" for suggesting that a continuously disruptive - typically poor, black - child should not be sharing a classroom with any child who follows all of the rules but who simply can't learn in a disruptive environment. If an institution is failing to properly educate any child out of fear that some people might label it racist for acknowledging that some children require academic segregation in order for all students to be successful, I'll provide another label... it is a failed institution.
7:38:50 AM 
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