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A 1st-grader punches a teacher. The kid gets a talking-to at the principal’s office — then returns to class the next day to cause more trouble.
Versions of that scenario are playing out all too often in city schools, said teachers union President Dave Cicarella (pictured).
Frustrated with what he called a lack of action on the part of the school district, Cicarella broke his silence on a long-running private dispute about school discipline.
Cicarella’s public remarks at a school board meeting last week represented a rare public disagreement between him and the school district administration. Tthe two sides have gained national recognition for a labor-management collaboration and have been at pains to work out disagreements behind closed doors. His remarks took place in a new political landscape, where various groups are testing Garth Harries’ new role as top schools chief.
Cicarella said he broke his silence because he has been privately sparring with Harries over the discipline issue for the past year and he feels nothing is being done.
Too often, he said, kids disrupt class — throwing chairs, punching, biting or hitting teachers — without effective discipline from school administration.
“Why isn’t the student discipline issue more front and center?” he asked. “It impacts everything that we say and do.”
Cicarella said teachers are not being supported, and kids are suffering, too. Families are “home trusting us to make sure that everything is safe,” and “that the classroom is safe and conducive to learning,” but it’s not, he said.
Principals tell teachers “their hands are tied,” and they cannot issue any more suspensions, Cicarella reported. He suggested there is an unofficial quota on suspensions.
The school district’s central office sends the message to principals that “you’ve suspended too many students,” Cicarella charged. So students get sent back to class.
Cicarella said he’s not in favor of simply suspending more kids. But he said the current system isn’t working because students are simply repeating the bad behavior.
Cicarella said the situation stands to threaten the city’s nationally watched effort to improve its schools.
“Nothing’s going to happen if the classroom is not well-managed, well-disciplined,” he said.
“This is a place where Dave and I have a difference of opinion,” Harries replied at the meeting. He doesn’t want to see more kids suspended.
Harries said the district is working to train more teachers and staff in how to better handle the social and emotional issues kids face that cause them to act out in school. He called the discipline issue “complex,” one requiring a range of responses.
Board member Che Dawson asked Cicarella about the magnitude of the problem.
Cicarella didn’t offer citywide numbers. But he said very often, in a class of 25 kids, “you’re going to have four to five causing disruptions.”
When they return to class, other students see that that student was not disciplined, so they come to understand that there are no consequences for acting out, Cicarella said.
JoAnne Wilcox, a parent activist who recently formed a task force that will advise district policy on school discipline, rose to redirect the conversation. Wilcox strongly opposes suspending and expelling kids. That pushes away the kids who need the most help, she argued.
She called for the school system to implement “restorative justice” programs, which are emerging as an alternative to suspending kids and kicking them out. The programs focus on helping kids develop empathy and make reparations for the harm they have done instead of simply receiving punishment. In some programs, schools bring in babies to help students develop empathy, Wilcox offered.
“We do not want kids put out of school,” Cicarella later agreed. “It’s not good to send kids home on a regular basis.”
He suggested schools employ full-time social-workers and guidance counselors — staff who are trained specialists in helping kids with trauma and emotional needs — to help with disruptive kids. Some schools have used money from United Way’s BOOST! program to hire “drama therapists” to run groups and counsel kids; however, those therapists have disappeared from schools when the BOOST! startup money dries up.
Cicarella said administrators are often too “busy with a million other things” to give disruptive kids the attention and support they need.
“We need people who are trained to talk to these kids,” he said.
Cicarella said teachers are seeing more severe behavior problems in the schools. Kids as young as grades K to 2 are punching, hitting teachers and tipping over chairs, he said.
“Teachers are to the point where it’s like, I can’t teach.”
Cicarella led New Haven to become one of the first school districts in the nation to grade teachers based on how their students perform.
Teachers “need to be accountable for student learning,” he said. “But we have to put them in a position where they can be successful. And we don’t.” The lack of support from central office, he said “unfairly targets the teacher and reflects on their evaluation.”
Harries: Address “At All Levels’
Harris Sunday argued that “our leaders and teachers generally do a good job” dealing with classroom misbehavior, but “challenges persist and there is no easy solution.”
“When a child has acted out in school, it’s our job both to protect the learning environment by minimizing classroom disruption and to support the mis-behaving child and find ways to engage him or her in his own education. We have never limited suspensions in schools – but whenever a suspension happens, we do want to be sure it’s an appropriate and learning-based response for the student concerned. I would certainly like the district to move away from zero-tolerance discipline strategies, which don’t contemplate the learning that students do in a situation and which research shows do not actually reduce behavioral problems.”
Harries described a range of responses: “Teachers should get more training and take more responsibility for the personal development issues that underlie many behavior challenges; more specialists like social workers and therapists in schools should help students address the trauma and other root causes of bad behavior; and students who have been removed from the classroom should have stronger and more educational settings in which they can refocus their behavior. We have been working on all these issues, but have much further to go – and every action will take resources of time, money, and partnership to do well.”