By Anonymous
Filed Tuesday, November 8 at 10:58 PM
by Susan Turk
November 5, 2005 -- In front of a standing room only crowd at a revival-meeting-cum-pep-rally at Vashon High School last Thursday, St. Louis Public Schools Superintendent Creg Williams introduced his plan to respond to violent incidents and discipline problems in the schools.
Resembling another plan to combat violence in schools launched only 10 months ago, the Reclamation Project begun by George Cotton in conjunction with district officials and school principals, the new plan involves the creation of four teams:
1. A Response team to be headed by Executive Director of Community Education John Windom and Floyd Irons, which will be made up of 40-50 SLPS staff and community members who will be deployed to the schools to help defuse potential conflicts.
2. A Crisis Team headed by Chief of Staff Beverly LaCoste, which will consist of nurses, social workers, psychologists, clergy and others who will develop and implement a district-wide crisis response plan.
3. A Parent Patrol which will be headed by Executive Director for Safety and Security Charles McCrary, which will organize parents to serve as volunteer patrol members providing support to the schools during student arrival, lunch and dismissal. They will wear specially designed jackets to make them easily identifiable.
4. Parent Teacher Organizations. Headed by External Engagement Officer Charlene Jones, who Williams also identified as the head of his new "Parent University." This team will consist of parents and school staff who will work together to improve communications between students‚ homes and school at the individual schools.
The Reclamation Project involved parent security teams to help patrol schools; a community team to improve communication and cooperation between students' families, schools, and school neighbors; and mentors to work directly with individual students.
School district employees handed forms to everyone in attendance Thursday with the expectation that everyone would choose to participate on one team. Initial meetings were set for the following week: the Response Team was to meet Monday, November 7 at 6 p.m. at Vashon. The Parent Patrol would meet Wednesday, November 9 at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. at Metro High School, and the Crisis Team would meet Monday, November 7 at 6 p.m. at 801 N. 11th Street on the 3rd floor.
Williams began the meeting with a 30 minute "State of Our Children" speech in which he cast himself as a victim who has been "beat on" for seven months and who therefore shared the pain of the community which has been beat on as well. He lashed out at unnamed "people who use our children for their own personal agendas," who "call our children animals, bad and uncontrollable." He asked for comments on his plan, but left little time for comment, and said there would be a subsequent meeting for more feedback that would impact and reform the plan.
"Our problems are real but we can fix them," Williams said. "We can't depend on the state to bail us out, we must take control."
Williams said that "all over the country high school students are acting out in rage." He gave several reasons for this behavior, among them are a lack of opportunities and "not being challenged, wanting attention, and wanting to be loved."
Williams also spoke about "areas that affect learning," such as poverty, asthma, obesity, drugs, and lead, but added: "you all were educated in these same buildings with the same lead, we need to stop this nonsense."
A third grade teacher, who attended the meeting, said after it ended: "It just seemed as if once again he was blowing off the seriousness of the issue and everybody applauds because he has a way of saying things that sounds like he's really doing something."
Regardless of all those problems, Williams said that first we have to look at education itself and stop pretending that everyone is reading. He added, however, that "You can't convince me that 20% of our students need special education."
Regarding the violence in St. Louis high schools, Williams said that last year there were 674 Type I infractions. These involve weapons and drugs. There were 1061 Type III infractions – "just fights." He said the 8 girls who were suspended from Vashon for the fight last week would be dealt. "If they need to go, they need to go," he said to applause. Williams said he wants to provide alternative placement for them, added that he doesn't want to get ahead of the Board of Education because he hasn't talked to them about it yet.
He did not mention his previous promise, still unfulfilled, to start up an in-school suspension program in most of schools.
Thursday, Williams said he plans to reorganize the work schedules of district administrators. "We can't support the schools all day everyday at 801," he said. He said he plans for non-teaching district staff to start their day helping students arrive at the schools and then come to work and later to return to the schools to assist with dismissal. He said he also intends to redeploy security officers, and he intends to talk to the teachers' union about non-performing teachers, who may need to be replaced.
He said he wants all the men who work in his office to be on call for incidents in the schools. He said he will expect them to respond to an incident within 10 minutes of getting a call.
A half hour was provided for public comment. Most of the comments were laudatory but there were many more people who wanted to comment than there was time provided to hear them. The microphones were turned off promptly and the meeting declared over at 7:45 p.m.
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