WJCC Board Pledges Close Scrutiny of Discipline Interventions

By Amber Lester Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Facing the most difficult budget season in years, the Williamsburg-James City County School Board is re-examining every program to see what’s worth its investment.

At the same time, Virginia schools will be asked to provide data on dropouts to gain accreditation next year. With those two factors in mind, the school board asked the administration to provide information about the interventions provided to students in the district. By the end of Tuesday’s work session, the majority of the board members said they’d like to see numbers and data showing what works and what doesn’t.

Discipline was a topic at two recent community forums – one sponsored by area education advocates and another organized by the division. Each forum looked at dropout prevention and how discipline can affect dropout rates. Education advocate Jennifer Taylor, an organizer of the Dec. 5 community conversation, told audiences at both forums that out-of-school suspensions push students toward dropping out. She wants the school division to look more closely at interventions as alternatives to sending students home.

During the work session, Regina Yitbarek, director for elementary instruction, and Dianna Lindsay, director for secondary instruction, shared a list of interventions in use in district schools. For both school levels, interventions were divided into several categories.

At the elementary level, schools offer academic, behavioral and counseling interventions. These include standard procedures, such as tutoring and guidance counseling, but also include formalized programming, such as Response to Intervention (RTI) and Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS). In addition, James River and DJ Montague Elementary schools both have behavior specialists assigned to work with students who have recurring referrals; with their input, their job descriptions will be rewritten this year to better define their roles.

At the secondary level, schools offer academic, behavioral, counseling, mentoring, tutoring and optional interventions. Some of the programs include the Academy of Life and Learning, WJCC’s alternative education program for 7th and 8th graders; Athletics Advisors, which pairs an advisor with learner-athletes; and New Horizons, a nonprofit counseling organization staffed by William and Mary students. The secondary level intervention list also included routine responses, such as calls to parents and crisis counseling.

During the citizen comment period before the presentation, Beth Haw told the board to look at the intervention list critically. Haw, a member of the Special Education Advisory Committee, reminded them a list of interventions had been presented on Sept. 18, 2008 and implored them to ask tough questions about how the programs serve students, how much they cost and how they are staffed. “I’d like to see data and details,” she said.

After reviewing the list of interventions, the board members echoed Haw’s concerns. Denise Koch said she appreciated having a menu of interventions, but would like to see a more systematic implementation. “I appreciate the preliminary data, but with limited resources, we have to look at price tags,” she said. “I understand it’s hard to quantify [what works], but some of these we have to evaluate.”

Member Joe Fuentes agreed, saying he liked seeing what’s available, but would like to learn more about what specific interventions are used before a child is suspended. He said when the board receives a request to suspend students, the members never get information about what interventions were tried first.

“I’ll see in-school suspension, then out-of-school suspension and maybe once I saw ‘Saturday school,’ but I never see the interventions mentioned,” he said.

Lindsay said the reporting structure for suspensions might need to be improved. “OSS (out-of-school suspension) says we’ve tried it all and we’re not succeeding,” she said. “It’s never a first option ever other than in mandatory situations.”

Members Ruth Larson and Jim Kelly requested some data on interventions and follow-up on what has worked. “It would help to have numbers on a per school basis,” Larson said.

Yitbarek and Lindsay said data does exist for the major programs, but not necessarily for counseling that’s considered routine. They pledged to provide the board with more information as it considers what programs could be cut.