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by Heather Quitos
Friday, February 9, 2007
Violent incidents at Madison-area high schools throughout the academic year have brought concern among parents, school administrators and state legislators about the safety of students today.
Physical fights and bomb threats at schools such as both East and West High Schools have been reported by the Madison Police Department within the last five months.
"We're seeing a different type of student, where they're more defiant of authority," said Madison School Board President Johnny Winston Jr. "It's a small percentage of students that cannot and do not follow the rules and are, in essence, a big challenge for this district."
East High School, in particular, has had to lock down the school four times this year due to threatening incidents — including a bomb threat last month, according to Edward Sadlowski, the assistant director of Madison Teachers Inc.
"It's tragic," said Sadlowski, whose daughter is a freshman at Madison East. "A child has to go to school [and is] confronted with this question of safety."
But East High principal Alan Harris said he is confident in the school's ability to deal with rare problems like bomb threats.
While Harris could not comment on the individual incidents, he said the administration's policy with any student caught making a bomb threat is to subject to expulsion and felony charges.
From Sadlowski's perspective, the problem with providing strong security in school is the constant funding cuts school districts face, adding public education funding is "broken."
Winston said with state-imposed revenue caps, the K-12 budget can only increase 2.5 to 2.6 percent each year — a restriction Winston said makes it difficult to decide where exactly to spend the money.
"Basically, you are choosing between school security measures versus reading, writing and math," he said. "That's really a bad issue to be in."
Currently, the Madison School District spends $1.1 million on security measures including Madison police officers, security cameras, security guards and an educational resources officer.
When deciding between education spending and safety spending, Winston said a considerable amount has been put toward school safety, a priority at "the top of the list."
But the board president said budget restrictions hamper the ability to meet every need.
"When you have these competing needs, it makes it very difficult to provide the type of environments educationally or safety-wise that you really wish that you could," Winston added.
One state representative wants to make the spending decision a little easier for school districts around the state.
State Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, plans to introduce a bill soon that would exempt spending on school security measures from state revenue caps.
"School districts are very hard-pressed by revenue caps," Black said. "Right now, schools have to choose from spending for education and student and teacher safety. My bill would allow them to do both."
Black has held off introducing the bill until Gov. Jim Doyle releases the state budget Feb. 13 but said Doyle has expressed support for the bill allowing school districts to spend up to $100 per student per school year on security.
For now, both Winston and Harris said the strategy to keep schools safe is to stay proactive by establishing strong student-adult relationships and educational programs.
"The research on safe schools is really clear," Harris said. "The safest schools are where students and parents are active participants in school safety."
Winston said the school board is trying to create programs to help the students who end up in trouble in what he called a restorative justice model.
The model would allow students expelled from school to attend educational and anger-management classes in hopes the student could eventually return to the school.
But Winston stressed violence in Madison area schools are caused by a small number of students, and said the majority of students in these schools are good role models.
"There are students that are doing the right thing — we need to applaud them," Winston said. "We are trying to meet the needs of the student who are having difficulties."
Anonymous (February 10, 2007 @ 6:52pm):
Public schools are becoming more like prisons. Treating k-12 kids like livestock engenders violent retaliation. Why are we locking kids up in the most creative period of their lives?
"The research on safe schools is really clear," Harris said. "The safest schools are where students and parents are active participants in school safety."
That's crap. Do you think that installing a "snitch program" is going to make a school safer? Are there such programs exist at the private, elite schools? Ask any one of those students, and they'll tell you snitching will get you ostracized immediately, both by your peers and by the administration. Yet students in elite schools don't think twice about school safety. Why, because students are treated like people and are given high degrees of personal responsibility. When you treat people like chattle, they're gonna act out.
I remember when West High was more like a country club, a real racist place indeed. But, I would argue that that the current system is propagating a greater tyranny.
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