01-09-02
Charleston (SC) Post-Courier
Complete restaffing proposed for beleaguered Rivers Middle School
Teachers would have to reapply for jobs
By: ALLISON L. BRUCE
To combat chronic failure, the Charleston County School District is proposing
restaffing Rivers Middle School.
After about five months at Rivers, the school's principal quit before the
holidays. As the district searches for a new principal, it is considering
declaring all positions vacant for 2002-03.
Basically, teachers would reapply for their jobs. In the next few months,
the district will evaluate the staff.
While not as drastic as closing down a school to reopen with new staff and
a new direction - a possibility Superintendent Ron McWhirt has mentioned
in the past - the restaffing of Rivers is still a dramatic move.
"The situation at Rivers has developed over a period of time and has
obviously not responded to various interventions tried over the years,"
he said. "It is going to take some drastic steps to reverse the process."
Rivers has discipline problems and a large over-age population. Last year,
71 percent of students scored below basic on the math portion of the PACT
and 58 percent scored below basic in English/language arts. Rivers earned
an unsatisfactory overall score on state report cards. Officials also cite
a lack of parental involvement as a problem.
Problems started long before Rivers combined with Courtenay Middle School
and were exacerbated by that merger, said Jon Butzon, executive director
of the Charleston Education Network.
McWhirt recognizes that the district, which has struggled with teacher shortages
in past years, will have to push hard to fill positions at Rivers. Changes
are needed, he said, to make the school somewhere teachers want to work.
District 20 Constituent Board Chairman Marvin Stewart will recommend that
his board approve the faculty overhaul at its meeting tonight.
"This is an effort to try to make sure we are on the right track with
Rivers Middle School," he said. Still, Rivers needs more than that."Just
by merely changing staff or having turnover in staff next school year is
not going to do anything for Rivers until the community and parents decide
they want to be more involved in what's going on at Rivers," he said.
Principal James Lee Jr. came to the school at the beginning of this year.
He resigned just before winter break.
The district has appointed Doris Coaxum as interim principal. Most recently,
she was interim principal at Toole Military Magnet Middle School.
"We often find ourselves in circumstances where we have to pick up
the pieces and move on," Coaxum said. She mentioned she has support
from the district, staff, students and parents. "Together we are committed
to make the year 2002 a year of renewed hope for this school."
Her goals include creating a positive academic environment while trying
to narrow the achievement gap between minority and nonminority students,
improve teacher quality and increase parental involvement.
Associate Superintendent Gerry Middleton said the district and school will
work together to strengthen curriculum instruction and give teachers the
training they need. She said there also will be a close examination of the
school's needs.
Judie Edwards with the S.C. Education Association said she hopes the district
puts money and personnel into Rivers, including instructional specialists.
"I think the district has ignored Rivers," she said. "They
have not received the resources, support or anything they've needed for
the last five years or more."
Butzon said the district should move trained specialists out of the central
office to help the school.
"Those kids are worth having absolutely the brightest, most talented
people in this school district working with them to get them out of this
huge hole we've put them in," he said.
One thing those involved agree on is that the district needs to give Rivers
more than it has in the past. McWhirt said the school cannot improve with
its existing funding, staff and training.
"We'll do whatever we need to do to address the situation," he
said. "We can't go any further with it like it is."
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01-29-02
Charleston (SC) Post-Courier
Teachers say district won't meet with them
Rivers Middle teachers need to go through channels, officials say
By: Allison Bruce
Several teachers at Rivers Middle School have developed a plan they hope
could save their school, but Charleston County district officials have refused
to meet to discuss it.
Judie Edwards with the S.C. Education Association and local association
president Jewell Brown protested to the county school board Monday.
Three weeks ago, the school district announced that it might not renew any
of the contracts at Rivers for next year and make teachers reapply for their
jobs. The announcement came on the heels of the state report cards, which
labeled Rivers an "unsatisfactory" school.
Brown described the district's response as "bullying" and said
the district has placed the sole responsibility for the problems at Rivers
on the teachers.
Teachers responded to the calls for improvement by developing a plan that
focuses on improved instruction, student discipline and the need for more
materials, such as books and computers.
Edwards said she called two weeks ago about a meeting to review the plan,
but was refused. The teachers were told they should take their proposal
to the school's interim principal.
Associate Superintendent Gerry Middleton said the district already has given
the school a plan for_improvement and that the teachers need to work with
the prin-cipal if they want to add suggestions.
"When we put the leadership there, they need to respect that that person
needs to be involved in the plans for that school," Middleton said.
If the teachers go through the proper channels, Middleton said, their suggestions
will be heard.Edwards said the district's plan for improvement has a lot
of directives for teachers but not enough guidance for instructional improvement.
Teachers need to be involved, she said.
"If Rivers students are to succeed, their teachers must also succeed,"
Edwards said.
The teachers' proposal asks for peer coaches from other schools as well
as retired teachers, a course in teaching styles and student learning styles,
at least three days that teachers can use to plan and align their teaching
with the curriculum, a language arts specialist for the school and the return
of an after-school tutoring program.
The teachers also call for a rigidly enforced student conduct code, immediate
administrative action on student discipline problems and the right to lock
their classroom doors to keep students in the hallways from disrupting their
classes.
The teachers who created the proposal said there has been some improvement
in recent weeks in the number of students roaming the halls. Also, there
is a new method of taking students to lunch and a review of the benchmark
tests given to students. But they say more is needed.
"These teachers are trying, but they're not getting anything,"
Edwards said. "They're trying desperately to get what they need for
these kids, but they just don't get the support."
The teachers note that the district has been aware of the problems at Rivers
for years and continued to neglect it.
"We do not believe that the CCSD administration was unaware of the
problems at Rivers Middle School," the teachers wrote. "We will
not accept a plea of ignorance of the situation nor will we allow the administration
to make us scapegoats."
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02-12-02
Charleston (SC) Post-Courier
Network helps with transfers
Drive aids parents who want children in better schools
By: Allison Bruce
The Charleston Education Network has started its drive to collect student
transfers out of the county's failing schools.
The organization, a citizens' watchdog group that formed in April 2000 to
drive improvement in public education, collected about 75 transfer requests
in the first week of the drive.
The network announced its plans to help parents transfer their children
out of 26 below-average and unsatisfactory Charleston County schools in
December, when the state released its first set of school report cards rating
schools based on test scores.
The organization plans to take the transfer requests to the Charleston County
School Board at the beginning of March.
The Rev. Bishop Sanco Rembert is heading the drive, called "A Chance
for Every Child."
"This is not an initiative we are going to start and let die,"
Rembert said.
"We're going to follow through with this and take action."
So far, the drive has centered on communities and churches located on the
peninsula and in North Charleston.
The goal, Rembert said, is to reach 5,000 to 10,000 parents around the county.
He said the community response has been positive.
People have had enough of promises and want to see something done to help
their children, Rembert said.
"They are happy to have a voice now, and they feel we are this voice,"
he said.
At a press conference that was held across the street from Rivers Middle
School on Monday, the network's executive director, Jon Butzon, talked about
the need for immediate transfers out of failing schools.
"They don't seem to be much interested or much able to catch kids up
when they get behind," Butzon said. "There doesn't seem to be
much urgency to get things straight for the kids trapped in that school."
He said the network is doing the legwork for parents who want to transfer
their children.
The network also has asked the district to provide transportation for those
students who transfer out of struggling schools.
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02-21-02
Charleston (SC) Post-Courier
Network helps parents fight for school transfers
Family faces dilemma common in districts with failing schools
By: ALLISON L. BRUCE
Chris and Donna Stone worry that their youngest daughter isn't getting the
education she needs at Brentwood Middle School.
They are taking a rather drastic step to get her out of that school and
into a middle school with a better reputation - the Stones are renovating
their North Charleston home so they can sell it and move.
"We've been in a mad search to find some way to get out of this school
district," said Chris Stone, referring to the North Charleston Constituent
District 4. So to hedge their bets, the Stones sought the help of a local
group that is assisting parents who want to transfer their children.
The Stones find themselves in the middle of a national trend and a local
controversy. Recent passage of the "No Child Left Behind" Act
that allows student transfers out of failing schools has offered a solution
to parents in Charleston and around the nation who are looking to move their
children into better schools.
Whether through school vouchers, magnet programs, transfers or - like the
Stones - picking up and moving, parents want a way out of struggling schools
even as school districts are urging parents to stay the course and help
improve their children's schools.
But there's another player in the local mix now - the Charleston Education
Network. With the new federal legislation as leverage, the network is pushing
the envelope on transfer policies, trying to pressurelocal districts to
step up school improvements or face dwindling student rolls.
Brentwood earned an "unsatisfactory" rating - the lowest rating
possible on the state report cards issued on schools in December. On the
Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test, 75 percent of students scored "below
basic" in math last year, and 59 percent scored "below basic"
in English/language arts.
Chris Stone said he doesn't believe the curriculum at Brentwood challenges
students. "Our daughter doesn't want to go to school now," he
said.
The family is in a bit of a bind because, while their sixth-grade daughter
is languishing at Brentwood Middle, her eighth-grade sister has found a
niche at Charleston County School of the Arts. Their attempts to get their
sixth-grader into the North Charleston magnet school so far have been unsuccessful.
All they want, the Stones say, is to be somewhere that both of their daughters
can get a good education.
"It's every parent's right to have their child have a good education,"
Chris Stone said. "I don't want my child to pay the price for not having
a good education."
While the family is trying to move, there is a possibility that they will
still be in the same house next school year. That's why the Stones contacted
the Charleston Education Network, a community group that is spearheading
a drive to get families to transfer their children out of the district's
struggling schools.
The Charleston Education Network formed in April 2000 to push for public
school reform. In the past two weeks alone, the network has collected transfer
requests for more than 200 students in the county.
A team from the network met with the Stones and helped them fill out the
transfer request form as well as an appeal form in case the transfer is
turned down. Before reading about the network, the Stones didn't realize
they could apply for a transfer.
"We're discovering lots of parents that didn't know they had an option,"
network Executive Director Jon Butzon said. "We're not guaranteeing
success, but we are guaranteeing the effort and guaranteeing the fight."
Rather than parents having to go through the extensive process, the network
is handling the legwork.
"It's a sad situation where you have to uproot your family when the
school system has let you down," said network member Lila Robinson,
who helped the Stones with their transfer request.
The Charleston County School District is not involved in the network's efforts
to transfer students.
"The initiatives in District 4 are to improve our schools, not take
children out," said Associate Superintendent Owen Bush.
Bush said the constituent board reviews each transfer request to see if
it meets the district's requirements, such as student transfers to a school
near a parent's work or to a school offering a program not available at
the child's home school.
The network's leaders say their long-term goal isn't necessarily to shift
around hundreds of students, but to bring pressure for meaningful changes
in problem schools. In the meantime, the network may be willing to go to
court to fight for students' rights to transfer.
As for the network's push for the district to transfer students, Bush said
its success or failure could hinge on how the state interprets new federal
legislation allowing student transfers out of failing schools. He said he
would not recommend transfers until the state has set the rules for transfers
under that law.
The District 4 constituent school board's secretary said the district does
not keep track of transfer requests and how many transfers are approved
each year for individual schools.
"We have taken some initiatives to improve all schools," Bush
said. The area had extensive principal changes this year, including hiring
a new principal for Brentwood.
Rivers Middle School downtown is facing a possible overhaul next year, including
requiring all employees to reapply for their jobs, but Bush said similar
discussions have not taken place in North Charleston.
"We're taking the initiative because we don't want it to come to that,"
he said. "We want to deal with it now. We don't want it to develop
into a situation like Rivers."
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02-27-02
Charleston (SC) Post-Courier
Review confirms fears about Rivers Middle
By: Allison Bruce
An external review of Rivers Middle School shows a need for more teacher
and parent input, more money and some academic assistance for students.
Those observations may not come as a surprise, but they confirm concerns
about the struggling school, which received an "unsatisfactory"
rating on the state report cards and received a visit from a three-member
review team as required by state law.
Similar reports are going out to 11 other schools in Charleston County and
one Berkeley County school with recommendations for improvement and offers
of assistance. The reports will go before the state Board of Education on
March 12.
Although the reports are not official until they go before the state Board
of Education, the S.C. Education Association obtained a copy of the Rivers
Middle report. That report became a hot commodity after the district indicated
it might not renew teacher contracts at Rivers after the school year, forcing
current teachers to reapply for their jobs.
According to the unofficial Rivers report:
-- Neither parents nor the community were involved in the school's planning
and curriculum offerings.
--Teachers were not involved in selecting instructional materials or in
planning and designing professional development.
-- The school lacks the resources it needs to strengthen teaching and student
performance.
-- There is no academic assistance program for students, such as an extended-day
program or tutoring, nor is there an after-school homework center for students.
-- Class instruction is often disrupted.
-- A majority of teachers do not understand state and local curricula.
Judie Edwards, a local representative for the education association, has
given a copy of the report to the teachers at Rivers. She said it shows
the district needs to look at how the school is run before faulting teachers
for its problems.
"The problems at the school identified by the state department fix
the responsibility on the school leadership," Edwards said. "The
teachers have been systematically excluded from the things they are supposed
to be included in by law."
The external review team's report looks at a school's leadership and governance,
curriculum and instruction, professional development and performance.
Deputy Superintendent Barbara Dilligard said the review team report for
Rivers was unofficial because it does not reflect any of the district's
responses or possible corrections.
Principals, assistant principals and teachers are looking at ways to address
the recommendations, she said, and they are up-dating their school renewal
plans.
While the report can be used to inspire some improvement at a school, preparing
for the actual visit causes school personnel to look closely at how they
do things, said Berkeley County Deputy Superintendent Mike Turner. A review
team visited Berkeley County's Cross High School.
A lot, Turner said, depends on attitude.
"The presence of and interest of the state in sending review teams
in can spur some positive things. It can also present other problems,"
he said. "It is the school itself that will determine how that works."
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03-10-02
Charleston (SC) Post-Courier
Education group to ask for 500 student transfers
By: ALLISON L. BRUCE
Sometimes, it takes an outside push to create change.
The Charleston Education Network is pushing for change in Charleston County
schools with a tool provided by district policy - the transfer request.
On Monday, the network will take about 500 of them before the Charleston
County School Board.
These transfers, which would move students out of schools rated below-average
and unsatisfactory on the state report cards, are meant to get the district
to do something about its failing schools and bring some momentum to reforming
those schools, according to network leaders.
"The real goal is for them to get those schools up to speed yesterday,"
said network Executive Director Jon Butzon. That the district has not set
a target date for reforming those schools means it is not serious about
improving them, he said.
Under the network's estimates, some of the district's failing schools will
never reach an "average" rating on the report cards at the current
rate of improvement.
Hence the flood of transfer requests and the pressure they put on the district.The
county school board is not directly involved in student transfers. That's
left up to the constituent school boards around the county that decide whether
a student can leave one school and move into another. The county board becomes
involved only when a transfer is denied and a parent appeals the decision.
But the network wants the county board to know exactly what to expect.
"We think the school district is legally required to provide schools
that give children a chance to be successful," Butzon said.
The network also is pushing for the district to bus those students out of
failing schools. For many of the parents who have signed transfer requests,
that is the only way. If the district buses its magnet school students around
the county, Butzon said the network will ask why it cannot do the same thing
for students trapped in struggling schools.
School board reaction is mixed.
"I don't think the transfers are a feasible or rational way to look
at the situation," said board member the Rev. Ted Lewis. "To tell
a parent that you need to transfer your child out of this school is really
disruptive to the entire system."
But board member Gregg Meyers said that from a parent's point of view, the
transfers make sense. Parents want their children to get a good education
and aren't willing to wait, he said.
For that reason, Meyers is recommending a change to the district's policy
to allow parents to apply for a transfer out of an unsatisfactory or below-average
school to a school rated average or above.
"I don't see that we need to be giving people a hard time about this,"
he said.
Meyers acknowledged that the district's existing transfer policy is biased
toward families that can provide their children with transportation to another
school, but he said he doubts there will be strong board support for the
district providing transportation. For that reason, it is still important
to try to improve all schools in the district, he said.
"Everybody needs to get a good education, wherever they are,"
he said. "But I think it strengthens the system by opening up and allowing
some choice."
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03-29-02
Charleston (SC) Post-Courier
Requests to Shift Students Delayed
District 20 Constituent School Board wants parents to submit letters
for review
By: ALLISON BRUCE
The Charleston Education Network's efforts to move kids out of the district's
struggling schools and put pressure on the district for school improvement
appeared to hit a wall this week.
The first set of student transfer requests to go before a constituent board
was put on hold, indicating that the grassroots effort to improve education
by shifting children out of the county's most troubled schools might not
achieve what its organizers had hoped.
The District 20 Constituent School Board, which covers downtown schools,
reviewed about 45 transfer requests from the network at its meeting Tuesday
night. The network has gathered approximately 550 such requests. About 20
percent of those requests were from downtown, 77 percent were from North
Charleston and the remaining 3 percent were from elsewhere in the county.
The requests were all on transfer forms provided by the network, but the
constituent board voted to require each parent to submit a letter to the
district office for review. "We're not asking them to do anything we
don't require other parents to do," constituent board Chairman Marvin
Stewart said.
He said parents have always attached a letter explaining why they want a
transfer. The letter request was a way of ensuring that the transfers actually
coincide with parents' desires, said Associate Superintendent Gerry Middleton.
District leaders said they have detected problems with many of the network's
transfer requests.
Deputy Superintendent Barbara Dilligard said some requests ask to move a
child from an elementary school to a high school and others request transfers
to magnet schools where students have to apply for admission. Some of the
requests would move students between schools with the same rating, canceling
the purpose of the transfers.
"It looked like a hurry-up menagerie of 'Fill out these forms and let's
present them,' rather than a thinking through of 'What am I asking for my
child,' " she said.
How other constituent school boards will deal with the transfer requests
remains to be seen, but network Executive Director Jon Butzon sees the letter
requirement as a delay tactic when the district should be looking at improving
its worst schools or letting students move. "Explain to me why these
children have to go to schools you know don't work," he said.
On the back of each transfer request form collected by the network, there
is a section titled "Reason for Requesting Transfer." It reads,
"I am requesting that my child be transferred ... to remove them (from)
a low-performing school and to place them in an AVERAGE or better school.
The School District has an obligation to ensure that my child receives an
education that meets the state standard."
Butzon said that statement should suffice. An earlier move by the county
school board to send a policy proposal for legal review is another delay
tactic, he said.
The policy would have added moving a child out of a school rated "unsatisfactory"
or "below average" on the state report cards as one of the acceptable
reasons for transfer. Such a policy would speed up transfer requests.
Board member Gregg Meyers recommended the policy change as a way of expanding
choice for parents. A board committee asked that it be reviewed to make
sure it doesn't violate the Act of Consolidation, which created the school
district and gave transfer power to the constituent school boards.
Existing board policy allows transfers to attend a school with courses not
offered in the home district; to attend a magnet school or vocational program;
or to go to a school closer to where a parent works. Transfers also are
allowed based on where a parent can find before or after-school childcare.
The network contends students should be allowed to transfer to a better
school. "If that reason creates a problem with the Act of Consolidation,
they all do," Butzon said. "That looks like a way to stall."
While the county board has not taken an official position on the matter,
several board members have expressed concerns about the network's agenda.
Board Chairman Oliver Addison wrote a letter to the network earlier this
month on behalf of the school board that berated the network for its oppositional
stance.
"We believe your organization ... has not come to the table to work
for positive change," he wrote. "Instead of joining with us in
our task to improve education in Charleston County, the Network's position
is consistently in opposition to what we do and how we do it."
He goes on to say that the network exploits students and parents by promising
things that cannot be supported legally or financially - a direct reference
to the student transfer requests.
The network is pushing for the district to provide transportation for transferred
students, something that district leaders say would be expensive and taxing
on the system. They have not estimated a cost.
Dilligard said the district doesn't have the space in some schools to handle
transfers and doesn't have enough teachers in those schools. She said the
transfers are simply a bad move if the actual goal is to improve district
schools and student learning.
"We understand parents' needs and understand their concerns,"
she said. "We're trying to address those concerns (by) improving schools
students are now in and take the action we need to ensure kids are getting
what they need to be successful in those schools."
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03-30-02
Charleston (SC) Post-Courier
Rivers Middle School Teachers Await Decision
Some criticize district's handling of reviews at troubled middle
school
BY ALLISON L. BRUCE
The future of Rivers Middle School teachers remains in limbo, and some close
to the school are criticizing how the district is handling teacher evaluations
and contracts.
At issue is to what extent Rivers teachers are responsible for the students'
poor academic performance and discipline problems.
Rather than renewing Rivers teachers' contracts this week along with other
teacher contracts, the district put off the review and renewal until April
10, when the District 20 Constituent School Board is set to meet.
Associate Superintendent Gerry Middleton said the delay is for the benefit
of the teachers and falls within the state requirement of issuing contracts
before April 15.
"We have some things going on where staff were involved in improvement
plans and felt like they needed the extra time to get along the way to what
they were working towards," she said.
Still, some teachers and the local education association wonder if the evaluations
are being driven by a district decision to push teachers out of the school.
When there is a contract decision, teachers are entitled to a formal evaluation.
In Charleston County, that evaluation is a yearlong process that involves
long-range plans, interviews between the teachers and their evaluators,
conferences and classroom observations, said Judie Edwards with the S.C.
Education Association.
"That's their own policy, their own procedure, and they're not following
it," she said.
She recounted stories of teachers evaluated when they were absent from school
or when there were no students in the classroom. Rivers' in-school suspension
monitor Thomas Ross said his evaluation involved someone standing outside
his closed door and listening in on the classroom.
"I was evaluated on classroom management," he said. "How's
she going to know how I manage my classroom if she was not inside?"
Edwards said teachers are entitled to a fair process.
"If there are teachers who need to improve, there is a process and
procedure to do that," she said. "Provide them with appropriate
notice, evaluate them properly next year and make the decision a year from
now."
Deputy Superintendent Barbara Dilligard said the district has followed proper
procedures to evaluate teachers and give them time to demonstrate both their
desire to remain at the school and their willingness to teach there.
"We're well aware of the process, and our position is that we are in
compliance where that is applicable," she said. "We have not shortened
or compromised the evaluation process."
The district announced earlier in the year that teachers at Rivers may need
to reapply for their jobs next year. In January, teachers were told they
would undergo evaluations and were given guidelines to correct the problems
at the school. Rivers was rated unsatisfactory on the state report cards.
The school has had problems with student discipline. While the district
is holding teachers accountable for getting student behavior under control,
what the school needs is a strong administrator, Ross said.
"We need someone who understands the curriculum and discipline, someone
that values parent participation in the school," he said.
Ross said a large problem at Rivers is that the school lacks the parent
participation needed to turn things around and be successful. He said he's
tired of seeing kids at the school not being held accountable for their
behavior and parents being left out.
"They could make everybody reapply for their jobs, but they're still
going to have the same students (and) have the same parents," he said.
Because of the strain of the evaluations and the problems at the school,
many teachers are watching their own backs and the staff is divided, he
said. Ross said the school needs "a good administrator in here with
good people skills who can bring the staff together."
Without a strong leader, more resources and more support from the district,
the school will continue to languish, he said. "I feel more could be
done by the school district than what they've been doing to correct the
problem," he said.
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04-01-02
Hartford Courant
Gaining Power Over Bullies
Parents, Lawmakers Urging Action
Associated Press
News reports of a 12-year-old boy who hanged himself in a closet this January
left Wallingford mother Lisa Toomey feeling shaken.
According to the boy's mother, J. Daniel Scruggs had been a longtime target
for torment and teasing at his Meriden middle school.
Like Scruggs, Toomey's son had been bullied in middle school, to the point
where he broke down and a teacher notified Toomey of what had been going
on in school.
"I said, `It could have been my son,'" Toomey said. "My son
could have been dead. I've got to do something."
After another boy began picking on her son, Toomey began researching the
effects of bullying and ways to prevent it. After Scruggs' death, Toomey
and a friend formed a group to get that information to parents and educators.
The March meeting of Parents of Children Affected by Bullying drew dozens
of parents with horror stories of what had been done to their children and
how they felt powerless to stop it. Some brought photographs documenting
injuries their children had received at school.
Also at the meeting was state Rep. Mary Mushinsky, D-Wallingford, who had
also been moved by the suicide of 12-year-old Scruggs. Mushinsky, one of
the heads of the legislature's select committee on children, had crafted
a bill intended to force schools to face the bullying going on in their
districts.
Under the bill, school principals would be required to develop a system
for anonymous reports about bullying. Each board of education would be required
to keep records of the reports and the action taken. That information would
be given each year to the State Board of Education.
Since the school shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado and elsewhere,
lawmakers around the country have moved to find ways to combat bullying.
Washington, Colorado and Oregon require their schools to have anti-bullying
programs. The state Board of Education in California is required to create
model policies to combat the behavior, and Oklahoma's state board must distribute
lists of anti-bullying programs.
In Connecticut, the legislature last year gave $500,000 to the State Board
of Education to fund anti-bullying grants for schools. A New Canaan-based
foundation kicked in another $500,000.
Giving money to schools may not be enough to solve the problem, some lawmakers
say. Districts decide whether to apply for the grants, and those that don't
may be choosing to look the other way when bullying occurs.
"It's dawning on me that it's not enough," Mushinsky said. "We
also have to prod some towns into pursuing the grant."
This year's bill, which has cleared two committees and is headed to the
House, is intended to show which districts have high reports of bullying
and what they are doing to stop it.
Parents of bullied children hope the bill will spotlight a problem they
say is often ignored.
Laurie Gibbons, a mother of four from Branford, said she repeatedly spoke
with educators at her 13-year-old son's middle school about the emotional
and physical abuse of her son but received little help.
Administrators finally took her son out of school and set up a private tutor
for him at the local public library.
"It's been horrible. My son lost a year of his life," Gibbons
said.
She wants schools to be required to show their records. "We need to
make these schools and these administrations held accountable for what goes
on in their schools," she said.
Parents who have spoken to Mushinsky about the bill have offered suggestions,
including a hot line that could provide information more rapidly than the
annual reporting required by her bill.
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The Oregonian
04/02/02
Hanging on to funding by a spider's thread
MELISSA L. JONES
Jared Utterson doesn't usually pretend he's water.
He's usually in math on Monday mornings.
Christine Nguyen isn't usually fishing mayflies out of a pond, and Terrell
Taylor wouldn't be sitting on the forest floor passing around antlers at
-- what time is it? At 11 a.m., he's got P.E.
For hundreds of Multnomah County sixth-graders, their week at Outdoor School
means a break from the regular fray of fractions and spelling, a bag lunch
and a bus ride home.
At five Outdoor School camps in the woods stretching from Gresham to Welches,
the start of spring sessions this week gives students from private and
public schools an opportunity to eat, breathe and sleep in the forest, learning
about plants, soil, animals and water in carefully crafted lessons delivered
in the rain, on trails and next to rivers.
Next year, that will change. Four school districts in the county have plans
to cut Outdoor School from their budgets -- Gresham-Barlow, Parkrose, David
Douglas and Centennial, affecting nearly 2,000 of the 6,500 students who
attend each year.
More than half of Outdoor School participants come from middle schools in
the Portland school district, which had proposed to end the Outdoor School
experience as part of budget cuts next fall. An outpouring of support for
the program prompted the school board to move two weeks ago to save the
program and cut elsewhere.
With the school costing about $220 per student, most of the districts that
have sent students to Outdoor School since the 1960s say they can't afford
to anymore.
School districts are making cuts to programs and personnel because of a
state budget shortfall. The Multnomah Education Service District, which
runs Outdoor School and other programs for the Multnomah districts, also
faces budget cuts from the Legislature.
Even in Portland, no one thinks the threat of the budget ax is gone.
Funding will be tight again next year for the districts that plan to keep
it -- Reynolds, Portland and Corbett.
"I feel really weird because I feel like I'm glad that Portland decided
to fund Outdoor School, but I would hate for it to come across that anyone
promoted other areas to cut," said Linn Goldsby, an Outdoor School
supervisor at Camp Collins along the Sandy River just east of Gresham.
The stories that students will go home with Friday keep parents and teachers
fighting for the program.
Sixth graders don't usually see deer in the driveway of their school, or
a stinky dead fish during class on a river bank, or a woodpecker's holes
in giant trees, or food spit up by a bird.
Without Outdoor School, science teachers say, their curriculum will suffer.
Taylor, a Portsmouth student, is spending his first night in the forest,
but he knew what to expect from the stories of older siblings.
"They said it was the best time of their life," said Taylor.
No one argues the program's worth. Staff, students, teachers and high school
volunteers swear by it.
Gresham-Barlow School District supporters are having a fund-raising meeting
next week at the Gresham Regional Library -- the night before the district
starts its budget meetings.
"It's one of the most memorable things about middle school," said
Elisa "Puddle" Townsend, 18, a Sam Barlow High School volunteer
leader at Collins. "You learn more because it's a different style.
You don't realize how much you're learning, and you don't realize it's
science until years later."
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