Teachers want 'bad apples' (problem students) out of classrooms

April 22, 2004

By CARMEN MUSICK

BLOUNTVILLE - Teachers say Sullivan County will need to spend at least $1.17 million in new money on salaries next year - and they want habitually disruptive students out of the classroom.

Negotiating teams for the Sullivan County Education Association (SCEA) and Sullivan County Department of Education agreed Wednesday to ask Superintendent John O'Dell to appoint a task force to formulate a plan to establish a separate school for consistent offenders in grades K-12.

"Because of the pressure being put on (teachers) now for the test scores, it's very important to be able to have control of your class at all times," said SCEA representative Mark Wedel.

"It just takes one, day in and day out, to ruin a class. You have to spend time taking care of that situation, and it's taking you away from what you need to be doing in your classroom."

Current disciplinary measures do little - if anything - to change the behavior of these "consistent offenders," SCEA representatives said. Sullivan County Schools currently have behavior modification programs for special education students at the elementary school level and alternative schools for dealing with disciplinary problems at the middle and high school levels. But teachers say it's not enough.

"I think there is a faction of students that are always going to be that way, and they need a place where they can be separated from the population,'' said Wedel, who has taught for 25 years.

Jim Jordan, a Tennessee Education Association (TEA) adviser to the SCEA negotiating team, said the problems cited in Sullivan County are echoed by teachers throughout the state.

"Teachers are feeling a lot more pressure to have time to teach. The consistent offender is one of the major problems in many of our classrooms and limits severely the time to teach not only that child but every child in that classroom," Jordan said.

Jack Barnes, chief negotiator for the school system, said O'Dell and the central office staff share the teachers' concerns and have explored various options.

"It has been looked at, and we have discussed it. We've just not come up with a way we could afford it and feasibly do it," Barnes said. Creating a separate school in the Gunnings building for "alternate placement" of consistent offenders is one option the negotiating teams suggested the task force consider.

"There is such a program in Sevier County, and several of us went there to look at that for the purpose of seeing what we could do,'' school board attorney Pat Hull told the negotiating teams.

The K-12 program in a separate facility is one way of removing disruptive students from the classroom and addressing the needs of those students in a smaller classroom setting. It also prevents consistent offenders from returning to the classroom without having addressed the behavior issue.

"If you look at the model of the separate school in Sevier County, they stay there until they are able to go back," Hull said. "If you go to alternative school, you go for two weeks. You're back - whether you're ready to go back or not - because of limited space. That's a huge difference," he explained.

Recognizing that funding could be an issue, the two sides agreed to recommend that the task force utilize current resources and move other resources as necessary to a central location when formulating the plan for a separate school.

They suggested the task force include curriculum supervisors, a special education supervisor, a vocational/technical supervisor, a school board member, an administrator and a teacher appointed by the SCEA.

The memorandum of understanding drafted Wednesday asks that O'Dell present the recommendation to the Board of Education at its May 10 meeting. Teachers would like to see the task force in place by the end of the school year.

During the bargaining session, SCEA member Steve Thompson told the two negotiating teams that, based on SCEA and TEA research, the $1.17 million in new money is the minimum amount needed to meet the new state salary schedule and local maintenance of effort requirements.

How the two sides use the information, Thompson said, will be up to the negotiating teams when they resume contract talks in May. In addition to salary and benefits, the two teams will continue negotiations over layoff and recall procedures outlined in the contract. In initial discussions about it, SCEA representatives said job security is a major concern for teachers due to the county's financial situation and talk about closing schools or cutting programs.

Sullivan needs school for disruptive students

Editorial, Kingsport Times-News

Smaller classroom sizes and better salaries may help. But as Sullivan County teachers are reminding, student discipline is the key to learning.

Negotiating teams for the Sullivan County Education Association (SCEA) and Sullivan County Department of Education say the adverse impact from disciplinary problems looms so large they've asked Superintendent John O'Dell to appoint a task force to plan a separate school for consistent offenders in grades K-12. Yes, there are bad apples who continually disrupt the learning process even in kindergarten, and such behavior should not be tolerated.

Because of the pressure being put on teachers now for better test scores, it's very important to be able to have control of your class at all times, SCEA representative Mark Wedel says. It just takes one student, day in and day out, to ruin a class, he notes. "You have to spend time taking care of that situation, and it's taking you away from what you need to be doing in your classroom."

Standard disciplinary measures are simply insufficient to change the behavior of consistent offenders, SCEA representatives say. Sullivan County Schools employ behavior modification programs for special education students at the elementary school level and alternative schools for dealing with disciplinary problems at the middle and high school levels. But teachers say it's not enough. "I think there is a faction of students that are always going to be that way, and they need a place where they can be separated from the population," says Wedel, who has taught for 25 years.

Jim Jordan, a Tennessee Education Association (TEA) adviser to the SCEA negotiating team, agrees, noting that the problems cited in Sullivan County are echoed by teachers throughout the state.

A separate school for chronically misbehaving students would be welcome news to willing students and dedicated teachers, and well worth the investment, even though it's a cost that would be generated by only a few parents but taxed to all.

To a large degree, the problem originates in the homes of unruly students. The culture, habits and behavior of young people originate in the home and to a large degree are beyond the practical control of teachers.

Schools exist to teach subjects such as algebra, biology and English. But there is much, much more that young people need to learn that must come primarily from outside the classroom. That's because education is not merely about mastering a syllabus.

Education encompasses moral as well as mental discipline. It involves the sometimes painful process of gaining emotional and intellectual control over one's personal passions and prejudices. But these life skills must be taught day in and day out, in the home, and in a hundred different ways that the most progressive, compassionate teacher in the best-funded classroom cannot hope to match.

Modern public schools, unlike a generation ago, are required to educate any student, short of truly violent criminal misbehavior. And, in the increasingly litigious environment in which we live, public schools simply won't allow teachers to use well-known and effective methods of controlling students such as punishment, isolation and ostracism, which means there are really no effective ways a teacher can hope to maintain discipline. Chalk up another socially destructive victory for the lawyers.

Letters from May 2, 2004 Kingsport Times-News

Don't be so quick to cull "bad apples"

Re. a separate school for the "bad apples," at age 49 I am one of the youngest polio victims in our region. In the 1950s when all students were under such vital watch for this horrid disease in the Kingsport school system and teachers were alerting and educating parents about vaccinations, somehow I was overlooked. In 1963 I contracted polio and at eight years old, was forced to wear braces on my legs. Had I been the son of a physician or judge, it is faintly possible I would have received the same spiteful remarks and academic neglect that I endured for years.

However, instead, I was a "bad apple'' in the classroom. I was forever chastised because I was without pencils or paper. And because I was always wearing shoes with holes and a lot of newspaper on wet days in them, and walked to school in the winter without a coat of any kind, it had to be clear to teachers and staff that poverty was a second factor leading to behavioral problems. I look back at those miserable days of my childhood and realize why I felt angry, or moreover, forgotten. My parents were never counseled, nor was I ever taken aside by a teacher and asked if I was hungry, held, or even happy. Instead, I was socially abolished by my schoolmates as well as academic authorities.

Once I had been convinced by the school system's propaganda as well as through the intense neglect of student/teacher interest, I unofficially graduated myself as a "bad apple" and quit school. Quickly, I learned a trade, and now successfully feed a thriving family. But it would be many years of carrying the "bad apple" profile before I would soften my heart enough to listen to a speaker or yearn to learn or even love to read a story of any kind.

Teachers, you chose your careers so that you could make a difference. And, of course, you dread the difficult students. But if you only get the easy kids, then you aren't really sewing anything special, are you?

But what a hateful and foul idea to remove a young child, who is regularly acting out in the classroom, and put that child with rotten role models so that he can grow to identify himself as being "like the others" and efficiently learn street smarts from engaging with the horrors of his peers. Moreover, how and to what extent will the "bad apple" be defined, and who will have the depraved power to define and profile that student? I barely survived Kingsport City School system, but no child will have a chance if subjected to social profiling at the K-9 level.

Mike Lawson
Kingsport

How to handle disruptive students

The problem with students that are disrupting classes and chronically misbehaving has been identified by both the Sullivan County Education Association and the Tennessee Education Association as one that starts at home. So where better to stop the problem than at home?

When these students disrupt class, the teacher needs to take that student to the office and the principal call a parent. Tell the parent about the problem and tell the parent they will have to come to school and pick up their child. Allow the parent one hour to pick up the child.

If the parent does not come, have the sheriff's department pick up the child and take him or her to the juvenile detention center. The parent may go there to pick their child up. I don't think it will take many times for a parent to leave work or go to the detention center to pick up their child until teachers will see a very noticeable change in the child's behavior.

After all, if the problem starts in the home, it needs to be stopped in the home, at the parent's expense - not at the expense of the taxpayers to provide an alternative school. We have way too much taxation of the majority that is spent for the benefit of the minority. Why create more? Someone may have a better way of forcing the disruptive students and their parents into meeting their responsibilities. If you have, I am sure our education system would like to hear about it.

Dickie Pyle
Kingsport

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