U.S Departments of Justice and Education to Target “School to Prison Pipeline”

From Education Week.

A new undertaking from the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education targets school discipline policies that end up pushing children into the juvenile-justice system for crimes and rule-breaking on campus—and keeping them from pursuing their education.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan unveiled the Supportive School Discipline Initiative at a meeting of a Justice Department committee meeting Thursday afternoon.

“When our young people start getting locked up early… they start to move out of schools, out of the pipeline to success,” Mr. Duncan said. He recalled how when he led Chicago public schools, he found that 7 percent of schools were responsible for more than half of the arrests of young people in the city. A small group of principals were calling the police too often to deal with minor disciplinary issues, he said, while schools with similar demographics handled the same behavior problems in other ways.

“People wanted to do the right thing. They just didn’t know better,” he said. “So many of these children need assistance. What they don’t need is to be pushed out the door.”

The initiative announced Thursday has four parts:
• building consensus for action among federal, state and local education and justice stakeholders;
• collaborating on research and data collection needed to shape policy, such as evaluations of alternative disciplinary policies and interventions;
• developing guidance to ensure school discipline policies and practices are in line with the federal civil rights laws;
• and promoting awareness and knowledge about evidence-based and promising policies and practices.

Holder and Duncan referenced a report by the Council of State Governments Justice Center from earlier this week that found that more than half of all Texas middle and high school students were suspended or expelled at least once between 7th and 12th grades.

“I think these numbers are kind of a wake-up call,” Mr. Holder said. “It’s obvious we can do better.”

To learn more about what St. Paul Youth Services is doing to address this issue, read our recent article about the Behavior Intervention Program.

Cheryl Schmura: Both Numbers and The Human Spirit Are Important To Her As Board Treasurer

In her day job, Cheryl Schmura, serves in a high-level position in an agricultural business where she focuses on ensuring people make good decisions to grow the business.  In her volunteer role as Treasurer of the St. Paul Youth Services Board of Directors, Cheryl is attuned to staff making good decisions on the financial health of the agency and on the growth of programs that benefit youth at risk. Cheryl joined the Board in 2007, bringing strong experience as a Financial Director for 3M’s largest business. She is also a member of the Board’s Strategic Planning and Finance Committees.

What unites her paid and her volunteer roles is a deep value that “we need to live purposeful lives and make a difference where our talents lie”.  Cheryl recognizes in Nancy LeTourneau, Executive Director, and Dave Wilmes, Director of Services, a combination of vision to imagine new and better ways to reach vulnerable youth and their families and ways to execute that vision – a combination she views as ‘unusual’. She considers their leadership talent as the ability to see the changes in the community, anticipate future need for services, imagine, test and adapt programs to deliver these services, and develop the community partners to sustain them.  As a person with professional expertise in assessing financial risk, Cheryl admires the way St. Paul Youth Services staff exhibit resourcefulness in finding ways to accomplish a great deal with modest funding levels.

This combination is also part of Cheryl’s way of seeing the world. In her personal wisdom, “Life is about taking risks; life is a short journey and we have to try a lot of things”.  She sees this same commitment in the entire agency’s staff and admires its passion for youth and their families, and for making changes in community institutions that will better serve youth.

Cheryl’s faith is a source of strength that inspires concrete action. Serving on the St. Paul Youth Services Board of Directors flows from this faith source.  She understands and acts on the value that we all “have an obligation to give back”.  Cheryl has been a foster parent for two nephews. Of that experience she reflected, “Life is about confidence and we have an obligation to instill confidence and create the experiences that will result in new confidence”.

Cheryl is a strong advocate for St. Paul Youth Services’ early intervention programs. The phrase, attributed to Fredrick Douglas, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men,” inspires her. She is also a realist and a pragmatist who believes firmly that the ‘earlier we do, the less we need to do’.  She admires this philosophy in all of the agency’s direct service programs.

Cheryl says her contribution to the Board begins with providing oversight to the agency’s finances where her role is to be a “link between the operations staff who prepare the numbers and the Board members and auditors who use the numbers to provide governance”.  She also enjoys helping to “identity and drive new programs to reach out to youth who need us”.

Cheryl Schmura is grounded in both the human reality of faith, experience, hope, vision, caring and the practical reality of budgets, financial forecasting, fund-raising strategies and needs; together they give her life deep meaning and  she brings these wonderful gifts to the asset column of St. Paul Youth Services Board of Directors.

Behavior Intervention Program Specialists – St. Paul School Staff and Students Value Their Role

St. Paul Youth Services has an 11-year history through our Behavior Intervention Program (BIP) of tackling school suspension by holding students accountable for their behavior and helping them get back on track academically. You can find more information about the program and an example of our work with students here.

This spring, we asked teachers in the four schools we have specialists to tell us how the BIP program helps them be more effective in the classroom. Results from 134 respondents confirm ways BIP Specialists successfully partner with staff:

Source: St. Paul Youth Services, Spring 2011

As an outcome of this partnership, teachers enhance their own skills both in overall classroom behavior management and in the way they work individually with students who are being disruptive in the classroom. In the words of one teacher,

• “Mr. Runsewe has been just what we needed. He is direct, calm, and reasonable when he explains to teachers why a student is acting disruptive or angry, and he is calming, and direct with students. Students and staff are responding to his approach and moving forward in a positive direction. His goal is always to get the student back on track as quickly as possible and puts the focus on what to do about getting their credits and getting their work accomplished instead of the behavior….Mr. Runsewe also provides needed discipline when necessary. Students, who continue to misbehave, even after he is sure that the expectations are clear, are calmly assigned detentions per the schools’ behavior policy. Mr. Runsewe uses that time to counsel students to steer them more positive directions.”

A Specialist tells a story of her recent work with a student:

Camil, a 7^th grade student at the now former Hazel Park Middle School was referred to the Behavior Intervention Program for being frequently  late to class, disrupting the classroom by being confrontational with  teachers and students and refusing to do her class work. She also had a difficult time complying with the school’s uniform policies. Her grades were suffering tremendously – risking that she would find doors to good educational experiences closing on her if she did not change her behavior.

I met with Camil weekly to develop a behavior and academic intervention plan that would help get Camil back on track.  Our relationship became stronger over several months of one-to-one meetings and Camil began to trust me.  During one of our meetings, she admitted she was tired of the way things were and she was ready for a change.  She told me that older girls had bullied her with name-calling and negative comments on her appearance when she attended summer school several months earlier.  As a result, she began to lose confidence in herself. The bullying continued into the school year and she become more and more distressed.   I came to see that Camil took on a ‘tough girl’ or ‘bad-kid’ image with her teachers when other students were around. She hoped that by making this protective shell f at least, no one would ‘mess with’ her. Perhaps the girls who had bullied her would like her more now and choose her as a friend.  In private conversations with the teachers, however, Camil was more herself, respectful and attentive to talking with the teacher; she would not identify the bullies for fear they would hurt her.

I worked with Camil to resolve her school safety concerns and to help her begin to make positive connections with girls in the school who were friendly and wanted to be friends with her.  She joined a S.O.S, (sisters of success) group that I run as a way for her to build friendships.  Now that she was not needing to be the ‘bad-kid’ she was able to go five straight weeks without angry outbursts,  e.g., she was on time for classes most of the time, was not argumentative with teachers  and began to complete her class work. Camil was now enjoying school.

Submitted by Barbie Woodruff – Behavior Intervention Program Counselor