Our Opinion: District taking proper steps to fix discipline problems

Discipline is again a problem within Jefferson City's Public Schools.

Only this time, unlike a few years ago, the district is starting the process toward solutions on the right foot: It's acknowledging there appears to be a problem, and it's studying the issue.

We're glad to see that.

The last time we went through this was just a few short years ago, when a tidal wave of parents, teachers and even students criticized administrators for not backing teachers' efforts to discipline unruly students. At the time, some school board members went on the defense, even to the point of suggesting it was a "perception problem" (i.e. not a real one).

So far, we don't have enough information to suggest solutions definitively.

We only know discipline reports are up during the first quarter of this school year, compared to the same time period last year. What we don't know is to what extent that reflects better reporting, or just more bad behavior.

The district has said there's a disparity between white and black students who were disciplined during the first quarter of this school year.

One statistic pointing to this shows 26.7 percent of the district's black students received office referrals for discipline in the first quarter of the 2017-18 school year, compared to 11 percent of the district's white students. In addition, more special education black students have faced discipline compared to non-black students. (Federal law requires states to report such discrepancies.)

A more thorough review is to be finished by the end of the year, but the district already is talking about possible solutions.

One is making sure discipline is consistent among the schools. Another is the possibility of using the Simonsen 9th Grade Center for "alternative programming" for the problem students. That could happen after the planned new high school opens in the 2018-19 year, and Simonsen's 25-year service as a center for all ninth grade students ends.

District Chief of Learning Brian Shindorf suggested this could be a way to take students out of their typical environments that may be contributing to their behavior.

We like considering the idea for another reason: It would take misbehaving students out of the way of those who are there to learn.

News Tribune