MONROE — Student safety concerns at Chain Lake Elementary prompted an all-parent meeting last week where people aired grievances about classtime disruptions, bullying and other conflicts.
The topic came to a head after a situation Feb. 11 in which someone called 911.
More than 70 parents and teachers filled the school library, and more watched the meeting from a webstream in a private Facebook group. (The district also filmed, and said it plans to share its video with parents.)
Parents said the current environment is making their young children anxious and unsafe. A few gave anecdotes of children throwing chairs and running through halls. Some gave distress that kids may get the impression schooltime interruptions and classroom-clearing evacuations are normal.
One mom said these disruptions are pulling paraeducators away from her daughter’s federally mandated individualized education time.
Teachers are feeling it, too: “I think teachers are feeling really overwhelmed because it’s behavior we haven’t seen before,” a kindergarten teacher said.
Broadly, the behavioral issues at Chain Lake Elementary are being seen elsewhere, said the district’s director of student services David Paratore.
The district’s presenter at the meeting outlined new state-level constraints in discipline, and discussed how behavioral issues are addressed.
The state overhauled the discipline manual in 2018. Kids in K-4 classes can’t be suspended at all for actions that previously would have sent them home, and schools can’t use “zero tolerance” policies for punishment save for exceptional cases.
“It’s a significant departure from the discipline you grew up with,” the district’s supervisor for behavioral health, Joe Neigel, told the crowd.
Hearing this exasperated parents. One muttered that the school could end up with someone bringing a gun.
The state’s K-12 bureau says zero-tolerance policies don’t deter future behavior, and can create racial disparity through uneven punishment, according to presentation materials from that bureau, the Office of Superintendent for Public Instruction (OSPI).
Five other schools use a behavioral program called the PAX Good Behavior Game which Neigel’s data showed has reduced incidents.
Chain Lake Elementary stopped using PAX in 2017, before current principal Ana Apter arrived. Officials at the meeting weren’t sure why.
Superintendent Fredrika Smith praised PAX as a solution at the meeting. However, the program cannot be introduced automatically by administrators. It requires “teacher buy-in” because the training is optional, school district spokeswoman Erin Zacharda said post-meeting.
The district intends to hold a series of meetings about the problems. Some parents asked how to give support.
Evacuations are becoming more frequent, and are a method for removing a problematic student.
An evacuation could be used because a child won’t stop disrupting class, Chain Lake’s principal Ana Apter explained. To get that student out, because teachers are under no-touching rules, it requires having everyone exit.
There have been approximately seven classroom evacuations at Chain Lake this year up to November, Apter said.
Parents asked at the meeting if they can support the district on these goals. Apter said she saw that as a positive.
The district also began holding small meetings last week to discuss the issues.
People can report issues through the Safe Schools online reporting tool. Parents wanted assurance at the meeting that the reports are not just received but being scrutinized.
Districtwide during the last school year, there were 259 such reports. About two-thirds were reports of bullying or harassment; less than one-third related to a safety concern.
On a private Facebook group tied to the issue, which the Tribune was given access to, post-meeting reactions were mostly negative. Members there said the district deflected on questions during the meeting.
