Chase Finding Ways To Solve Problems Student Counselor, Mediator Will Help With Charges Of Racism

Torn by public charges of racism and a bitter personnel dispute, staff members at Chase Middle School recently began a wide range of steps toward solving their problems.

Larry Parsons, who supervises Chase for Spokane School District 81, said the effort could cost $10,000 but is cheaper than a lawsuit it could prevent.

District 81 is handling the school’s problems by:

Temporarily adding an administrator to help supervise, counsel and discipline students. Marie Justice started at Chase on March 13 and will work there at least until the end of the school year.

Hiring a Seattle theater company to perform a play about racism in schools later this spring.

Employing a national expert on conflict resolution to mediate private conversations between a school counselor and administrators. Fred Schrumpf later will branch out to other staff members who want mediation.

Hiring Schrumpf again in late August or early September to train the staff to resolve conflicts.

Working with the teachers union to help administrators and counselors write a “covenant” - that is, a list of promises of how they will treat one another.

Meanwhile, a new parents advisory group met for the first time Monday with Principal Rodger Lake. Twenty-five parents attended.

“My hope is that problems will be less likely to occur because of this committee being in place,” said Donna McKereghan, chairwoman of the Parents Advisory Committee.

Carrie Ann Evans, who filed complaints after school officials searched the lockers of her son and three other black students last fall, is a member of the new committee.

Evans said equitable and nonviolent discipline will be a prime committee concern. Evans and some other parents say some staff members often grab students roughly.

The new school’s first year was marred by claims of racial discrimination and a complaint from a group of staff members that counselor Lionel Harding-Thomas harassed them.

Harding-Thomas, an African American, claimed the staff was retaliating against him for standing up for minority students. Some staff members accused him of raising the issue of racism to mask his faults.

The district’s first stab at the problem was to invite two observers from the state superintendent’s office to conduct interviews and write recommendations.

The state report didn’t exonerate or blame anyone, but said there was “a hostile working, teaching and learning environment” at Chase.

“It wasn’t helpful,” said Parsons, who supervises several schools including Chase. “In fact, it caused more anger and more distrust.”

Although staff members saw the recommendations as superficial, Parsons used them to plan solutions.

Parsons said his own theory is that Spokane’s simmering racial tensions surfaced at Chase because the school did not have a solid discipline system in place in September. The school did not have a student handbook, for example.

“It just happened that this was the weak spot because we didn’t have the discipline stuff in place,” Parsons said.

Chase has almost 900 students compared to 630 last year at Libby Middle School, the East Central neighborhood school that Chase replaced.

The district was naive to think it could move Libby students and teachers from the low-income neighborhood near the freeway to Chase on 37th Avenue without discussing implications of the change, Parsons said.

“We heard it, but we didn’t understand what it feels like for families of color to take that school out of their neighborhood,” Parsons said.

Principal Lake said he hopes mediation will help the dispute among staff members. “We have an obligation professionally to find appropriate ways to disagree,” he said.

Schrumpf, co-author of books on conflict resolution in schools, works for Spokane’s Dispute Resolution Center. He began mediating at Chase this week.

Mediation “works if the people buy into it,” Schrumpf said.

Harding-Thomas said he is willing to sit down with staff and the mediator, but warned that “it could also open up a Pandora’s box” as people begin to talk honestly.

“I have a different view of the world because I’m African American,” he said. “Allow me to come to the table and bring my view.”

Danelle Elders, a teacher who signed the letter of complaint against Harding-Thomas, said she has doubts about mediation.

“I’m not sure if people are willing to risk sitting in a room with Lionel,” she said. “They’ll want to know ‘Why is he going to change after talking to me for an hour?”’

Another teacher signing the complaint, Helen Bannerman, took a wait-and-see approach. “If attitudes change in the office, I think it can be schoolwide,” she said.

The school’s problems stem from poor communication and the tendency of officials to sweep issues under the carpet, said McKereghan of the new parents’ committee.

“Rather than fight brush fires hopefully they can begin to address the deeper problems,” McKereghan said.