Superintendent Paul Meyers with Standard School Commune students on Community Reader Twenty-four hours on March six, 2015

Paul Meyers
March 10, 2015

There are often expectations for a new superintendent to make an immediate impact in his or her district. That was the case when I became superintendent at Standard Schoolhouse District in Bakersfield in November 2013, merely as the new Local Control Accountability Program (LCAP) was unfolding.

Being new to the district and the area, the needs cess required past the LCAP served me well as an educational leader. It didn't take long to place the areas of need or to come to agreement on how to address them.

I area of need in our K-viii district with well-nigh three,000 students was to reduce the number of suspensions. In 2013, the number of student suspensions at our eye school was extremely high – over three times the state interruption rate. Upkeep cuts over several years had reduced the middle school administrative team and, with over 900 students in 6th to 8th grades, it was clear that the squad was operating in survival way. Nosotros needed to provide more than support for students and staff and notice a program that offered a long-term solution to address educatee misbehavior too as guide future beliefs.

In addition to suspending students and sending them dwelling house for violating school rules, the eye schoolhouse was using an in-house suspension program called Opportunity Course, or "Op," as it was called by the students and staff. Op was basically a belongings tank where misbehaving students were sent for a day or several days every bit a consequence for disrupting the school environs. Op was castigating in nature, and the students were expected to remain quiet and do their schoolwork. For the Op instructor, the focus was on managing the class and at that place was niggling fourth dimension available for any type of intervention. The Op program had no real impact on changing or improving educatee behavior, and as a upshot many students were repeat offenders or "frequent flyers."

In January 2014, our managing director of student services Denita Maughan heard about a promising program. While attending the ACSA Pupil Services University, she met two administrators, Barbara Perez and Barry Tyler, from Oceanside Unified Schoolhouse District, north of San Diego. They shared their strategy to reduce suspensions,  which was based on the principles of restorative practices. Following that coming together, Dr. Maughan visited the continuation schoolhouse in Oceanside where the plan was beingness implemented. She was convinced that information technology could be adjusted to work at the centre school level. Our contacts at Oceanside agreed to help us implement a similar programme, and we drew up a consulting contract with them to help us practice so.

Thanks to increased state funding as a effect of the Local Control Funding Formula, nosotros were able to improve our student support services by providing a full-time school psychologist to each of our schools. We formed a centre school "Alternative to Suspension" team consisting of the site administration (principal and two banana principals), a campus supervisor, school counselor, schoolhouse psychologist, social work intern and the ATS teacher (formally the Op teacher). Each staff member plays an of import role.

In addition to providing counseling, our schoolhouse counselor and school psychologist play a vital role by teaching students how to admit and own their behavior and to brand amends with those individuals they take harmed both straight and indirectly. In order to prepare the apology, they conduct part-playing scenarios so students accept the confidence to make a sincere attempt to repair relationships that were impacted by their beliefs.

Alternative to Pause is based on restorative practices that originated in the criminal justice organization equally an alternative to penalization and incarceration. Adjusted for use in schools, restorative practices are used every bit an alternative to interruption by using a gear up of principles and strategies to encourage students to accept responsibleness for their behavior and repair any damage acquired by their actions. The foundation of restorative practices is based on the cadre values of respect, inclusion, responsibility, empathy, honesty, openness and accountability.

Offending students are assigned to the ATS class, where they engage in activities that enable them to accept responsibleness for their behavior, larn amend ways to reply in the hereafter, and make amends. The implementation of restorative practices requires boosted staff back up to piece of work with students and run classroom circles, a key component of the program.  The underlying concept of restorative practices is that people are more likely to reply positively when authority figures exercise things with them, rather than to them or for them.

We began the program when schoolhouse started in Baronial, and the results were immediate. In the showtime calendar week, the ATS plan already had engaged its commencement students. I stopped by to observe the procedure and asked a student what was different between last twelvemonth's Op program and this yr'southward ATS plan. Her response was, "This year it feels like the staff actually cares about me." Curious, I asked why. "Last twelvemonth nosotros just had to sit here and do our time. Now they are talking with us and helping united states of america work out our issues." Bingo! We had a winner.

It didn't accept long for the give-and-take to spread to the students that things were different this year at Standard Middle School. In add-on to a positive response from students, parents have been supportive and appreciate the positive touch on the program has had on their children.

At our lath meeting concluding December, Standard Middle School principal Jason Hodgson presented the midyear results of the Alternative to Suspension program. In the beginning five months of the programme, suspensions had decreased 55% compared to the same time period in the previous school year. In add-on, only 7% of the students have had to repeat their involvement in the programme

"Of all the 10-plus years that I've worked with students in an administrative capacity, our ATS programme is the about transformational program we've offered kids," Hodgson told the board. "In fact, ATS is such a powerful program that in spite of how fantastic the Chromebooks are for kids, I'd give them all back if we had to cull between ATS and the Chromebooks."

Rarely practise administrators have such firsthand success in implementing a new programme. Ours isn't perfect nonetheless, but I believe it could be easily adapted and replicated in other schools effectually the state.

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Paul Meyers is superintendent of Standard Schoolhouse Commune in Bakersfield, and a member of the steering committee of the Educators Network for Constructive School Subject.

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