The System is Broken

About 4 months ago all sorts of crazy happened at my school.  I won't go into details about what exactly happened but lets say it was serious enough to expel several students and suspend many more.  It took a severe physical, emotional, and psychological strain on most of the staff.  

We started asking ourselves how did we get here and what can we do so things like that don't happen again.  

We had several meetings with not only our administration but the cabinet of our district office.  They listened to our concerns as well as our frustrations.  We expressed how we felt we were not being supported as teachers and how we are losing our hope that things can and will change. 

It was at this time period I dove deeper into the California Education Code then I have ever done before. I was surprised by how little power a school has over student behavior.  As far as expelling students (8th grade and below) there are only a handful of situations such as explosives, gun, brandishing a knife (you can still bring a knife you just cant threaten somebody with it), dealing drugs, sexual assault and a few other.  Those seem obvious but when you really dive into student behavior you realize that a school is powerless against students who verbally assault staff, who skip school, who openly defy the rules and walk around campus all day.  The teachers are powerless against students who intentionally bring chaos to a classroom, who have no regard for others or property, and students who thrive off of creating drama.  If you are a teacher I am sure you know exactly what I am talking about and I am sure you can relate to every one of the situations. 

In addition there are other limits placed upon administration which basically ties the hands of our principal and vice principal when dealing with student behavior. 

For me the bottom line is I see how much effort, love, time, resources are pored into our students who have behavior issues and it frustrates me because I see how it effects the other 85% of the students.  It is not fair that their education and emotional well being is being compromised because of a lack of discipline.  

One of my favorite new quotes is this, "A culture of a school is created by what we celebrate as well as by what we tolerate".  

I believe we are forced to tolerate to much in our schools and it is hurting the large majority of our students. 

Confession time.  For the past 13 years I have been content in my classroom.  As far as students go I always have a handful that stir the pot but I am either able to deal with them or I send them to the office and let them deal with them.  Things have not been perfect but overall it has been very manageable and even enjoyable.  But once I stuck my head out the door and took a bigger look at what was happening on the campus, I felt led to try to bring order to what often seems like chaos.  

I worked hand in hand with my administration and I help create a lunch detention system in which we have a total of 10 teachers working together to be able to provide support for 60 lunch detentions.  In addition I have been meeting with students who's behavior is unacceptable with the hope that if they know they are being held accountable for their actions that behavior may change.  

Now I don't know how effective our detention program is but my hope is that in conjunction with all of the other support students receive we can start changing the culture of the school.  

I got the go ahead to continue the detention program next year so if all goes as planned we will hit the ground running and work on creating a supportive, disciplined, and productive culture.  

I will keep you posted.  

Gabriel Vigil

AKA Professor Zest