Student behavior was again a topic of discussion at an RE-1 Valley School Board business meeting Monday.
At a previous meeting concern was raised about troubling student behavior that teachers are dealing with this year, coming from students as young as elementary age, including punching and kicking, pulling a teacher’s hair out and screaming profanities at teachers. Monday, Paige Dulaney, a teacher at Merino Elementary, spoke out as an advocate for RE-1 students and staff
“The situations that are happening within the school walls, as you know, aren’t acceptable; teachers and other students are being physically injured and emotionally traumatized on the school district’s watch,” Dulaney said.
She shared that as a bystander and friend of teachers in RE-1, watching what has been happening unfold has her questioning where the accountability and connection is from the top down.
“Do you all know the extent of these situations as board members? Does (Superintendent Dr. Jan DeLay) update you on the true status of what’s happening? Dr. DeLay, do you follow up on each of these incidents with the administrators, teachers and parents of these students?” Dulaney asked
She challenged the board members to become substitute teachers in the district, “first responders to the teachers in the trenches dealing with these traumatic situations.” Dulaney said should a situation occur, stepping in to give the teacher who had to handle the situation a mental health day for the rest of the day or the next day would show immense support and understanding for what they’re dealing with.
“Additionally, I believe you would gain insight on what is truly happening in the culture and climate that has been fostered in these schools,” she told the board.
She went on to state that as a teacher she believes the districts efforts to solve the problem by providing training to help teachers address the root cause of the child’s behavior won’t really fix the root issues.
“In order to fix root issues and have restorative justice, the supports need to be in place to do so; training for paraprofessionals, paraprofessionals that are treated as professionals with healthcare and full-time hours; a counseling staff; psychiatric help in proportionate amounts; and the ability and power to remove students from the classroom for a period of time when necessary,” Dulaney said.
Last year she worked for a teaching advocacy group, Teach Plus Colorado (TPC), in the area of social emotional learning policy advocacy. The group suggested that districts follow the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommendation of one counselor to 250 students and advocated that there be a community based approach to supporting students, teachers and families to be successful.
Dulaney said according to data collected by TPC, in 2017-18 RE-1’s student to counselor ratio was the worst in the state at one full-time counselor to 2,291 students; the recommendation is nine to 10 counselors. However, later in the meeting DeLay disputed the claim, pointing out that RE-1 has five mental health professionals.
“Every time I talk about this with educators and in the policy advocacy world I get questions about how you pay for these counselors,” Dulaney said, telling the superintendent “No offense, Dr. DeLay, but until your teachers and students are cared for adequately, I feel like the superintendent should have a pay cut to help fund at least a little bit of that support staff. Lead by example.”
She pointed out there are grants available through the Colorado Department of Education to fund such efforts, including the School Counselor Corps Grant and the SAFER Program, which funds school resource officers.
“Those may not solve the entire funding issue for having in place the recommended student to counselor ratios, but it would at least be a start,” Dulaney said.
DeLay shared the district’s Student Support Services Team is going after a grant that will open in December to get more counselors at the kindergarten through fifth grade level; they will seek funding for one more counselor at Campbell Elementary and one at Ayres Elementary. RE-1 will also be seeking another grant in February that is an extension of a three-year grant the district received that is now coming to an end, which provided funding for counselors.
“These issues weren’t created overnight and they won’t be solved overnight either, but as an advocate for kids and my own colleagues we cannot continue to sit by and feel powerless to change the situation. If your teachers get to the point where they are going to need mental health care, think about the damage being done to the students in that classroom as well,” Dulaney said. “It’s time to take a 90-degree turn and re-evaluate how to keep everyone safe in order to problem solve and be ready to implement supports in the future.”
During her superintendent’s report, DeLay shared the district is in the process of rolling out the Trauma Informed Online Academy at Ayres and Campbell Elementary, as well as Hagen Early Education Center, though other schools will be able to access the online curriculum as well, to help teachers and staff learn about trauma-informed interventions. TIOA is a researched based training program that allows teachers and staff to access courses and materials at their own pace, based on the needs of students in their classroom.
Staff also took part in a training that had them learning how to change their language, when a student is struggling giving them positive comments about not giving up; how to build a base of openness, so that students know the teacher or staff member is available to talk to them; and to be aware there are students that have a lot of things going on at home, including not enough food and/or no place to sleep.
“Principals are hearing about students who are really responding to teachers who are making a real effort to get to know kids at an individual level and they’re seeing a real difference with that,” DeLay said.
Student behavior is also something being discussed by RE-1’s District Accountability Advisory Committee, who attended Monday’s meeting.
“I think we’ve got a good start on some things, but we have a ways to go,” said committee member Joe Skerjanec, principal at Ayres Elementary, explaining there is a “growing concern for our safety just in the classroom from day to day.”
When Riste Capps asked for some ideas for what can be done for student behavior issues, Skerjanec said “we need to know how to address these behaviors. A teacher prep program, it’s already not great in meeting classroom management, a lot of classroom management is hands-on, you learn as you go, you work with your principals, your administrators, your coaches, your mentors, but then to add to that a trauma in a child’s life, that is something beyond that training.” He noted that someone wanting to go into teaching has a mindset of what it means to teach and to help children grow, and that is a different mindset than someone who wants to help the mental wellbeing of an individual.
“A person who teaches and a person who counsels, they come from two different backgrounds with two different aspirations, so to ask a teacher to take that role, is asking them to change their mindset and their roles of what they think teaching should be,” Skerjanec said.
While the training the district is providing is a good start, he also pointed out “we really need to be able to address those behaviors from the start” and that means thinking about how to help parents and how to develop a partnership between the school and the parents.
“I think teachers knowing that this has your attention, letting administrators know that this has your attention and this is part of your priorities, your goals as a board and as a district moving forward, that it will be past from board member to board member as we move forward, I think that’s important. I think that is your role,” Skerjanec told the board.
