Chico teacher speaks about state disciplinary pressures

Sue Campbell, teacher at Marsh Junior High School in Chico.

Sometimes teachers feel powerless when it comes to helping children while also following state or administrative rules. 

Sue Campbell, who has been a teacher for 35 years, would know.

Campbell works at Chico Unified School District's Marsh Junior High School, which houses programs for severely handicapped and emotionally disturbed children and the special education Resource Specialist Program. She teaches elective classes in food, textiles and architecture, which are often a melting pot of students of different abilities and disabilities, being electives. 

Schools are constantly getting compared to each other and their districts. And when the state tells the schools, for example, that suspension and expulsion numbers need to drop and apply those same requirements to every school in the district, it can be frustrating for teachers, Campbell said. 

“I think it's hard to say, 'Oh, you have to keep it to this number,' because it's really not realistic. It depends on what you're dealing with that year and how many special needs programs you have at that school," she said. "If you compare one school that has five special needs programs and one that only has one, that wouldn't be an accurate comparison.”

And it is frustrating for teachers, who have the closest and most frequent interactions with the children they teach, when they are forced to follow guidelines that don't make sense to them, she said. These guidelines about suspension, discipline or other programs are just a series of boxes that need to be checked off for school administrative and state approval.  

"I think district offices and administrators get handed these boxes from the state, and their job is to make sure we handle these boxes," she said. "And our job is human beings, children. They're not little boxes."

Campbell suggested that states get more involved with teachers, not just administrators, via teacher organizations. Teachers have a lot of input about these guidelines and issues that isn't being heard at the federal level. 

CUSD employee, parent offers guidance through personal experience with expulsion

Sharyn Fields, Office Manager for the Office of Suspension and Expulsion Review in CUSD

When Sharyn Fields' daughter was expelled years ago, she had no idea what to do. 

"I felt really scared and alone when it happened with us," she said, "because I didn't know how to help my daughter." 

Fields scoured the Chico area for programs that could help her daughter cope with the pain, like counseling and rehabilitation. The whole process was difficult, she said, because Chico doesn't offer many of those programs. 

"That was really hard, but it turned out great," Fields said, "and I have a lot of experience finding resources for teens."

Later, that experience helped Fields help other parents and their children. Fields is now the office manager for Chico Unified School District's Office of Suspension and Expulsion Review, a district-wide disciplinary reporting office housed at Academy For Change. 

Sometimes she has parents ask her about what they can do to help their child that has been expelled or suspended, she said. That's when she's able to provide them with those resources and let them know they are not alone: she's been where they are now.  

"I tell parents, 'Hey, I've been sitting where you are.' And I think it makes them feel better," she said. "I think parents feel like its their fault when things happen with their child." 

Not every district has a place like Fair View High School or Academy for Change, Fields said. In some districts when kids get expelled it's "you're gone, good luck." 

"(Our schools are) really good at using suspension and expulsion for getting kids back on track," she said. "We're really trying to help these kids." 

Inside look at in-school suspension classroom isn't what many might suspect

There is a small room with a bright yellow door labeled "ISS" at the campus for Chico Unified School District's continuation schools.

The in-school suspension room at Academy For Change, Nov. 20

If you walk inside, you'll be surprised at just how quiet it is: students from different school districts are leafing through books, snoozing on desks or just sitting quietly. The hum of a heater is the loudest thing you'll hear on a late fall day.

It definitely isn't what most people would expect for an in-school suspension classroom.

Dave Shockley, former police officer and CUSD's in-school suspension teacher for junior high and high schools, said that people will be surprised when they come in because they have heard all of these horror stories. But those stories are few and far between.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time, we just get kids that are angry," he said. "Angry at life in general. And they come in here and they have a quiet place to be."

That isn't to say that those intense moments don't happen. Shockley often takes the brunt students' anger, which often emerges as a stream of curses directed at him. Other times, students or groups of students will come in, upset and cursing, and storm out before they can calm down.

"(Most) of the time they're angry at their home life and they take it out on the first adult they see," he said. "And I'm here."

The students in ISS, who can be from any junior high or high school, are not required to do anything while in the room but finish their time in ISS, which varies depending on the incident that got them sent there in the first place. It can be anywhere from two to five days.

Shockley has plenty for the students to do, evident in the bookshelves filled with classroom textbooks in the ISS room, and does offer the students work to do. But "if they turn it down, that's on them," he said.

He doesn't enforce any student in ISS do work, especially if they refuse to do it.

Similarly, students will sometimes leave the ISS room, and Shockley has no way to make them stay if they really want to leave. When they come back, he'll let them know they need to stay in the room, and he calls parents to let them know if their child left that day.

"If they're going to leave, they're going to leave," he said. "But they'll be back."

How many students are in the ISS room at any given time just depends on what is happening at schools in the district. Sometimes it's full and sometimes there are only a few students in there.

David McKay, principal of continuation schools in CUSD, said that the classroom is like a time-out room. Students who are not able to work in class without being disruptive or who have violated school rules dictated by Education Code will be sent to ISS from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. until their time is up.

“The idea is for them to complete work in a struct environment," McKay said, "where they could get help if they need to get help or get their stuff done instead of being at home unsupervised.”

Local administrators explain expulsion

"I've expelled kids, and every single time we leave with a handshake."

Mike Allen, Chico High School associate principal, said his attitude when disciplining kids is not a personal one. It's about the student learning from his or her actions.

Mike Allen, Chico High School associate principal.
Photo by Chico High School/Chico Unified School District

"I guess I understand that kids make mistakes," he said. "I work with teenagers. If they didn't make mistakes, I wouldn't have a job."

Though the schools in Chico Unified School District have their own subtle differences in disciplinary practice, many operate under similar guidelines. And all follow California's Education Code, which outlines certain instances when suspensions and expulsions are allowed or required to take place.

Students have to be recommended for expulsion and attend an expulsion hearing before they can be expelled, Allen said. The school board has to approve this expulsion, as well.

If a student is expelled, there are a lot of terms and conditions they have to follow to come back to their original school.

Allen said he generally looks at two things when deciding if a student can come back to Chico High School after an expulsion: "If the student will be a danger on campus or if the student cannot be trusted to not engage in that behavior again."

Laurie DeBock,assistant principal of Bidwell Junior High School, said that certain issues call for certain disciplinary actions. Some leeway in disciplinary actions is allowed for minor instances, but major ones have guidelines specified by Education Code.

Laurie DeBock, assistant principal of Bidwell Jr. High School.

For example, if a student repeatedly yells, is defiant or won't work in class, that usually calls for detention.

If a student is caught possessing illegal substances, like marijuana, the student would be suspended and sent to Academy For Change, DeBock said.

"Many of our kids that get suspended over to AFC, it's for repeated defiance," she said.

Expulsion is immediately recommended in cases in which students bring a firearm to campus, among other serious offenses.

Education Code calls for administrative expulsion hearing panels made up of school administrators in the district.

David McKay, principal of Academy for Change, Center for Alternative Learning, Oakdale Secondary and Fair View High School, is also the district's chair of expulsion panels.

David McKay, principal of continuation schools and chair of expulsions.

"I do about 75 to 90 hearings a year," he said. "So for me, it's like expulsion Tuesday."

The goal of the hearing is to make families understand that the expulsion, if approved, is like a rehabilitation plan, McKay said.

But the hearing is also there to make sure the kid understands there will be consequences for their behavior. Sometimes, a scary expulsion hearing is what is needed to get that across.

"There's a lot of legalize going on," he said, "but that's all we've got."

New school board officials elected in Chico

Gary Loustale will join incumbents Eileen Robinson and Kathleen Kaiser on the school board for Chico Unified School District.

Butte County voters elected three members this year on Nov. 4. Though four were officially listed on the ballot, Cynthia Van Auken decided not to run and did not participate at the CUSD Candidate Forum Sept. 25 at City Hall.

Kathleen Kaiser. Photo by CUSD.

Loustale's background includes experience as a businessman in information technology, chairman of the Measure E committee and a career technology education and advising for the Butte County Office of Education.

Kaiser, who is serving her third term on school board, is also a faculty member and academic statewide senator at Chico State.

“As a board member, I feel like it’s my job to try to see that Chico lives up to its very best," Kaiser said at the candidate forum. "That’s going to take the best from all of us, because we don’t have the money we need. But I think we have the inspiration and the dedication.” 

Eileen Robinson. Photo by CUSD.

Robinson has been a board member the past four years and been involved with the district for 42 years in various roles as a volunteer, employee and committee member. She continues to advocate increasing student physical and emotional health and has also worked on coordinating special education programs with general education classes.

"Providing the best educational opportunity for all students is the number one goal of Chico Unified," she said at the candidate forum. "And I support that goal."

All three newly elected, or re-elected, board members bring different perspectives from their professional backgrounds to their position on the board, which will be valuable for Chico and its schools.

Every candidate mentioned a focus on implementing common core and moving forward with the renovation plan the district started drafting in 2012 and for which recently approved design plans at its middle schools.

“We know we have to change for the common core, for our student body,” Kaiser said at the candidate forum. “We’re moving to middle schools, we’re building new facilities and we’re restoring our current facilities.”

Loustale added his perspective on the Local Control Accountability Plan, for which he had a chance to attend a few community meetings.

"I think it's new-chartered territory. So that means we have to go forward on something we haven't done before," he said at the candidate forum. "And so we need to look and see and review each year, which is what LCAP wants us to do; they want us to review, make sure that we're on the right track."

The board also includes members Elizabeth Griffin and Linda Hovey, both elected in 2012.

In-school suspension report indicates improved quality of discipline in Chico Unified School District

The number of in-school suspensions for Chico Unified School District are much higher than its number of out-of-school suspensions, according to data compiled by the district.



But why do these numbers make a difference? It turns out that in-school suspensions are allowing children to remain not only in school, but in classrooms, supervised, with a credentialed teacher and access to counseling services.

David McKay, principal of Academy for Change, Center for Alternative Learning, Oakdale Secondary and Fair View High School, said that in-school suspensions are somewhat like study hall: students are in there working on stuff quietly for most of the day, and the teacher often discusses life-skills issues with them individually.

David McKay, principal of continuation schools in CUSD.

"The idea is for them to complete work in a structured environment where they could get help if they need to get help or get their stuff done instead of being at home unsupervised," he said. 

This is a stark contrast to out-of-school suspensions, where the punishment for disruptive behavior in school is sending students home where they can misbehave, self-medicate or be unsupervised, which is not actually a punishment, McKay said. 

"It's an alternative to traditional suspension, which we've found doesn't work. It's not much different than the logic of suspending a kid for not coming to school. ‘Hey you're truant, so we're going to suspend you from school, because your truant,'" he said. "They're already struggling in school; now we're taking them out of school more."

Students who are sent home also don't necessarily have access to counseling services or a way to help deal with any trauma they are experiencing that is most-likely the underlying cause of their misbehavior, McKay said. 

The elementary schools have a different in-school suspension site, which is at McManus Elementary School. But every other campus sends kids to Fair View High School for its in-school suspension program. The truth of the matter is that not all schools can afford in-school suspension classrooms or the teacher(s) to supervise students. 

"Any school can adopt its own in-school suspension program. It's just challenging to allocate your (monetary) resources accordingly," McKay said. "So it's more effective in our situation to do it one classroom for the district."

And the in-school suspension program has made strides recently to combat out-of-school suspension numbers. 

The program used to require that any students sent to in-school suspension had to be there for five days. If the offense was minor and didn't warrant five days of in-school suspension, the child would be sent home instead. 

Now the program accommodates two and three day suspension instances. And that means there are less children being suspended out-of-school.

The program also has two counselors available to students, who occupy a counseling center that was designed and built by the students of Fair View High School. 

McKay said the schools' biggest challenge is the overall approach they take concerning students. This has a lot to do with how students who are suspended are perceived. 

“I think if people were honest and they weren't trying to be politically correct that the average person on the street would associate a kid in an in-school suspension classroom as being a ‘bad kid,’” he said. “But what we're finding out is that more and more of our students are behaving the way they are because they’re traumatized; that their brain is telling them they’re in danger. … It’s not necessarily because they’re a bad kid, it could be that what they were doing is a coping mechanism to deal with their trauma.”

The trauma-informed approach is something that McKay has backed wholeheartedly, and cites it for being one of the biggest positive changes at the school. This includes changes within its in-school suspension program and training of that program's teacher and counselors. 

Discipline discrimination exists in Chico Unified School District

It has already been documented that school districts across the United States are disciplining a disproportionate number of children in specific racial groups. Chico Unified School District is not excluded from this practice.

Mike Allen, Chico High School associate principal.
Photo by Chico High School/Chico Unified School District

"That's something we're very aware of and that we look at," said Mike Allen, associate principal of Chico High School. "We want to make sure that we're applying discipline fairly."

David McKay, principal of Academy for Change, Center for Alternative Learning, Oakdale Secondary and Fair View High School, said that the percentage of African American and Native American students expelled in CUSD is higher than the percentage of African American and Native American children actually attending the district's schools.

And the data from the California Department of Education Data Reporting Office aligns with this statement (see pie charts below).

In the 2011-2012 school year, Native American children made up 2 percent and African American children made up 3 percent of the students enrolled in the District. However, Native American students are 4 percent of students suspended and 8 percent of students expelled, while African American students are 10 percent of students suspended and 12 percent of students expelled.

This is in comparison to White students, who make up 64 percent of the students enrolled in the District, but only 60 percent of students suspended and 50 percent of students expelled.

The CRDC report published by the U.S. Department of Education reports similar findings related to its sample.

Given the data, it's apparent that districts across the nation, CUSD included, will have to take steps to understand how these practices are arising in order to combat them and make school discipline fair and unbiased.

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Local administrators speak out about discipline

California Education Code dictates certain inarguable consequences that administrators must provide when a student has committed severe actions, such as robbery, assault upon a school employee or possession of a knife. However, that does not mean that certain consequences cannot be dictated by individual schools and administrators: every school operates under its own discipline policy.

Here's what local administrators in public education had to say about their discipline philosophies and the state's most recent report of suspension and expulsion rates (see this post for details):

Laurie DeBock, assistant principal of Bidwell Jr. High School.

Laurie DeBock, assistant principal of Bidwell Jr. High School, said every child's situation has to be looked at individually to see what is going on and what consequence applies. The school operates from a progressive discipline model, implementing increasingly severe consequences only after a student has been given a chance to correct behavior and fails.

"I like to try to put in place the least amount of consequence that is going to solve the problem or prevent the problem from happening again," she said. "Most kids don't want to hurt someone else; they don't want to be hurt." 

Ted Sullivan, principal of Chapman Elementary School, said that one of the best ways to prevent discipline issues is to communicate clear expectations to students. For example, every class practices lining up and walking into its classroom and the cafeteria at the beginning of every school year. 

"When kids are not doing things the way we like, a lot of times they aren't clear on what we want them doing," he said. "We don't assume that kids know what we're saying at all."

David McKay, principal of continuation schools in CUSD. 

David McKay, principal of Academy for Change, Center for Alternative Learning, Oakdale Secondary and Fair View High School, said that state statistics unfairly examine all forms of suspension in the same report, discounting the striking difference between in-school suspensions, which provide access to counseling, a safe environment and help with school work, and out-of-school suspensions.

"We had nine kids last year out of all four (continuation) schools that were suspended in home. Nine out of 600. It's like a 2.9 percent suspension rate compared to 35 percent (reported by the state)," he said. "(In school suspensions), in the state's eyes, count the same as 'Go home, Johnny. Go smoke weed.'"

Mike Allen, an associate principal of Chico High School, said that suspension is one of the things the school doesn't like to do and is reserved for major offenses. The government will push for lower rates, but there has to be a balance.

"Suspension rates are tricky...because you're trying to maintain order in a school, and if you don't have consequences effective for behavior, then behavior will ramp up and even get out of control," he said. "The states will mandate lower rates, but do (they) not want us to suspend students for these offenses?"

Chico teacher addresses discipline at public middle school

Sue Campbell, teacher of architecture, food and textiles at Marsh Jr. High School in Chico, has worked with students with a variety of disabilities for 35 years, which has helped shape her personal discipline policy. 

In the 35 years that Sue Campbell has been a teacher, she’s worked with students with a range of disabilities, from physical, such as hearing or vision impairment, to emotional and social, such as autism.

"(Teachers are) always trying to have success with each kid," she said. "You’re always trying to find a way to reach that child."

Marsh Jr. High School, where Campbell teaches, houses programs for severely handicapped and emotionally disturbed students, along with the special education Resource Specialist Program. Campbell’s food, clothing and textiles and architecture classes are offered as electives, so she works with a broad range of students, in seventh and eighth grades, in any given class period.

The guidance policy published by the U.S. Department of Education in January included research from the Civil Rights Data Collection in the Office for Civil Rights. This research revealed that students covered under the IDEA Act are over twice as likely to receive one or more out-of-school suspensions.

Data from the California Department of Education for the 2012-2013 school year shows that Marsh Jr. High School has one of the highest suspension rates in the Chico Unified School District, with higher suspension and expulsion rates than the rates of the district, county and state. 

It is important to note however, that just because the rates at Marsh Jr. High are higher, doesn't mean that the suspensions are more frequent among disabled students. The school also has the lowest suspension rate out of the three middle schools in the district. 

Campbell said that it is not necessarily a campus or district discrimination issue when students of certain disabilities are getting expelled or suspended more than students who do not have learning disabilities.

"If you visit an Emotionally Disturbed classroom, (students are) emotionally disturbed. They can’t function the way an average kid is doing," Campbell said. "So there’s going to be a higher number of expulsions in that classroom just because of the kids you’re dealing with."

The best way that teachers can handle discipline when it comes to any student, especially students with learning disabilities, is to remain calm and express clear expectations, boundaries and consequences, Campbell said. 

“I have to be extremely clear, extremely structured and extremely organized,” she said. “That’s the way I have found to deal with special needs kids.”

Campbell said she doesn't see any child’s needs of greater importance than another's and tries to be fair in the way she disciplines children in her classroom. Discipline issues normally start at a smaller level first, such as talking to a student or meeting with a student's parents, before they escalate to a suspension or expulsion. 

"I see discipline as I really don’t want anyone to keep anyone from learning," she said. "What I try to accomplish is respect for all." 

Suspension and expulsion rates plague public education locally and nationally

Data from the California Department of Education indicates that Butte County has higher suspension and expulsion rates than the state average.

The following bar graphs include information from the California Department of Education's Suspension and Expulsion Report for 2012-2013. 

Butte County ranks 14 out of 58 counties in California for highest suspension rate.

It ranks seven out of 58 counties in California for highest expulsion rate. 

These rates are indicative of the issues facing discipline in public education not just in California but in the nation. 

Research from the U.S. Department of Education indicates an increase in suspensions and expulsions since the '70s and that these exclusionary practices are unfairly targeting students of certain races and students with disabilities. 

During the 2011 school year alone, more than 3 million public school students received out-of-school suspensions and over 100,000 students were expelled. And African-American students are over three times more likely than their White peers to be suspended or expelled. 

The Department of Education issued a guidance policy in January of this year to help schools combat these issues and improve school climate and engagement. 

With this new policy in place and the pressure from the federal government to crack down on the number of suspensions and expulsions, teachers and administrators will have to implement different disciplinary methods. 

It is a national issue that too many students are being dismissed from classes, whether it be through expulsions or suspensions, and missing out on the thing that they are supposed to be getting from school: an education. Another issue of concern is that students are being unfairly disciplined based upon race and disability.