Out of the Frying Pan?

From the Inquirer. Something to think about when the farming plan is presented.

Editorial: Safer Schools Posted on Sat, Oct. 18, 2008
By the book

The Philadelphia School District finally gets it. Persistently violent and unruly students must be removed from school to restore order and create a positive learning environment.

School District chief Arlene Ackerman on Wednesday announced a disciplinary crackdown to expel the most violent students and tighten codes for others. "We mean business," she promised.

Plagued by escalating violence, the school district should have taken a harder line years ago by removing serious troublemakers as quickly as possible.

Although it has a zero-tolerance policy that would allow it to do so, the district has not expelled a single student in four years. Instead, offenders were transferred to alternative schools - or worse, left in the very classroom where offenses occurred.

By refusing to expel students who brought weapons to school, the district violated state and federal laws, according to Jack Stollsteimer, the state's safe-schools advocate. In the 2006-07 school year, only 34 percent of the nearly 1,000 students caught with weapons were sent to alternative classrooms.

With 20 city schools deemed "persistently dangerous" last year - and more than 5,000 criminal offenses in schools across the district - that must change.

Strict discipline would help curb violence and give control of classrooms back to teachers and students who want to learn. An expulsion can last for up to a year.

Discipline also must be meted out swiftly and fairly to send a strong message to students that disruptive behavior will no longer be tolerated.

In another step in the right direction, principals can now suspend students for up to 10 days, the maximum allowed by state law. Previously, no student was removed from Philadelphia schools for more than five days.

Of course, the school district cannot focus solely on punishment. Officials also must try to intervene before discipline problems occur by providing services to help students with chronic behavioral problems.

Ackerman's announced crackdown was applauded by the School Reform Commission and Mayor Nutter, who has charged her with improving the school system by drastically cutting the dropout rate and boosting the graduation rate.

The stronger punishments were recommended by a committee of school-safety experts as part of a plan to revamp the discipline system. Before Ackerman, the district had dismissed the committee's findings. But Ackerman, in a hopeful sign of progress, embraced the recommendations.

The district should move quickly to implement the new policies, which include creating a safety cabinet within Ackerman's office and assigning an administrator at every school to oversee safety issues

By enforcing discipline and holding students accountable, the school district can more effectively change the culture and climate in schools. A few bad apples should not be allowed to wreak havoc for the majority of students. They want to learn.