Schools Get Safety Lessons Few Teachers Can Handle Problem Kids, Report Says

Spokane teachers say they face increasingly out-of-control and assaultive students at younger ages - sometimes in first grade and kindergarten.

But they don’t always have access to information about problem students that could alert them to potential outbursts.

And most teachers aren’t trained to handle angry students with abusive or violent tendencies.

Those concerns emerged from a $15,000 security review of Spokane District 81 schools, conducted by the Washington Association of School Administrators.

The review team praised Spokane administrators, calling them “leading edge” for arranging the voluntary study. They’re the first in the area to request the comprehensive review.

The study also generated a 31-page report full of suggestions - many of which local administrators say they can’t afford.

Improved alarm systems, alternative programs for the most confrontational kids and controlled access to school buildings are among the recommendations.

But mentioned most often is the critical need to train teachers to deal with all sorts of threatening students: gangsters, drug users, even sex offenders.

Every elementary educator the reviewers interviewed reported more kids entering school who are severely disturbed and “unable to conform to normal classroom activity.”

Jim Rogers, principal at Cooper Elementary, agreed. “In the last five or six years, it seems to me like it’s really accelerating - the number of children who are just angry little guys.”

But training hasn’t kept pace, the report said. “(Teachers) have not learned techniques of dealing with confrontation, violence or out-of-control persons.”

Student services supervisor Mary Brown said teachers desperately need that training. “I’ve often seen situations where instead of diffusing the situation, the individual intervening would only make it worse.”

The security review couldn’t be more timely. It was completed in February, amid a string of shootings across the country in which students killed classmates and teachers. The study was released to board members and made public in late May.

Since the shootings, worried parents have demanded to know what educators are doing to keep such a tragedy from happening here, in Eastern Washington’s largest school district.

“It clearly demonstrates we’re not putting our head in the sand,” said District 81 Superintendent Gary Livingston. “We’re asking ourselves the tough questions that some schools aren’t asking yet.”

All building administrators worry about controlling access to “undesirable outsiders,” the report said.

Ferris High School, for example, has more than 160 doors with outside access. Sprawling campuses like that are harder to monitor than multi-story schools such as Lewis and Clark High - something to keep in mind when building and remodeling schools, reviewers noted.

Each school should identify ways of controlling access - perhaps installing surveillance cameras or hardware allowing some doors to be opened only from inside, reviewers suggested.

At Cooper Elementary, Rogers said panic buttons were just installed in administrative offices, along with video monitors allowing him to watch four locations. The improvements were paid for by a parents’ organization.

Walt Pegram, security officer at North Central High School, said he understands first-hand the problems of monitoring a large campus. Take the school’s annex, for example.

“I’m usually at 3 to 4 minutes at a fast walk to get there,” Pegram said. He plans to start riding a bike next year to make better time.

Locking some of the many entry doors would help control access, Pegram said. But it would also make it hard for kids to get to class on time.

Sometimes parents are the first to complain when side doors are locked, because they have to walk farther to get inside, said Joe Madsen, school safety director. “They have to be ready for it and want it as well.”

A common conflict is balancing education and security, administrators say. When do you send a misbehaving student to the principal’s office and when do you have him arrested?

The question comes up more often now that security officers with authority to investigate crimes and recommend charges are in all high schools. Neighborhood resource officers paid by the police department have office space in middle schools.

“Are they more police-like or education-like?” said Livingston. “To this point, we’ve said we’re probably more education.”

Administrators in one school were surprised when a student was arrested after a scuffle with his girlfriend. But the security officer was acting on a domestic violence law that said one party must be arrested.

Sometimes, the best move may be to pull violent kids from regular schools, said reviewers, who urged administrators to look at creating alternative programs for them.

That’s something a team of Spokane educators has been looking into since fall. They’re planning an alternative classroom for elementary kids with violent tendencies, said Mike Ainsworth, the committee’s leader.

“There’s really not a lot in Spokane for younger kids,” he said. “A lot of times those kids haven’t been in the system long enough to be involved with the mental health community or juvenile justice system.”

The students would be in smaller classrooms with counselors and specially trained teachers. Their former classmates would benefit from fewer disruptions.

Educators said they’re already addressing another problem noted in the review - incomplete student records. Teachers aren’t always aware of students’ troubled backgrounds because complete records don’t always follow them from school to school.

Spokane administrators are revising their student records policy and adding a requirement to include past discipline, such as suspension or expulsion.

Problems arise because educators hesitate to put some information in files, said John Gott, a retired superintendent who helped conduct the security review.

“There’s a grave concern on the part of educators that youngsters not be labelled in a way that’s likely to place them under a cloud of constant suspicion.”

Now, that concern must be weighed against making sure teachers are aware of potentially violent kids, Gott said.

A new state law is also giving teachers more student background, Brown said. The law requires juvenile courts to notify schools of all youngsters in their jurisdiction, along with their offenses.

“They’re kept in every school,” Brown said. “Teachers know they’re there and can examine that information if they wish.”

In the next few months, school board members, educators and security workers will meet to study the review.

Money - even to train teachers - will be a major concern. There isn’t money in the budget for most of the recommended improvements, said Livingston.

“You’ve got to figure out how much you want to spend on safety,” he said. “Does a dollar go to education, or to safety? I only get so much money per kid.”

While giving advice on making Spokane schools safer, the security review also commended District 81 for safety measures already taken in the past few years. Some of those steps include: Commissioned police officers in high school Two-way radios in schools and on playgrounds Photo ID for all staff and high school students Secret Witness programs in schools Mandatory counseling and rehabilitation for drug and alcohol violations No-tolerance policy regarding weapons and threats Annual survey of students regarding safety Resource library with books and videos regarding school safety.