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Senator Byrd

Leadership.      Character.      Commitment.

Cleo Mathews
President
West Virginia Board of Education

Thank you President Hardesty and good morning to all.  Thank you Senator Byrd for inviting me to participate in this forum on building safe schools. I would like to mention that I started teaching in West Virginia in 1957.  Then, the most common discipline problems were students running in the halls, going up and down the wrong staircases, and chewing gum in classes.  That was a different time. 

I was an educator for 40 years and along the way, in the '60's or early '70's, teachers were told not to impose their middle class morality upon their students.  Parents would teach children the values they espoused.  I felt at the time this was a mistake.  Family structures had begun to change, even then. Teachers were spending more time per day with students than parents were. 

Good teachers can be very strong role models for children of any age and I still feel that teaching kindergarten and first grade children is a calling, not just a job. 

West Virginia's public schools are among the safest in the nation.  This is partly  a function of having the lowest crime rate in the country.  In spite of these statistics, we cannot afford to be lax in our efforts to prevent acts of violence in our schools, similar to those that have occurred in other parts of the nation. 

I would like to broadly describe what the West Virginia State Board of Education and what the Department of Education are doing to provide a safe school environment for children of West Virginia.  I will give you a snapshot of how we are doing and lastly touch on some things we may want to try to do to improve the safety in our schools. 

Each school is required to have a school safety plan.  Embedded in that plan is a code of conduct, which requires attending regularly, completing assignments, obeying authority, refraining from aggressive threatening behavior, and refraining from possession and use of weapons, illegal drugs, or alcohol. 

Procedures for a variety of emergencies are defined in the plan as well.  These procedures were developed with assistance from the West Virginia Department of Public Safety, and we thank you for your help and efforts in that area.  The State Board policy is a result of legislation that has created the frame-up work of our safe schools programs. 

The Safe Schools Act of 1995 banned weapons,  required the safety school plan and measures for discipline, student involvement, and peer mediation programs.  The Safe Schools Act of 1996 created alternative schools for disruptive students.  Disruptive students can be removed from classrooms and there is a place for them to continue their education.  Using this legislation as a springboard, several prevention, intervention and support programs have been developed and some of you have picked up folders that describe these programs in detail.  I'm just going to briefly mention them. 

The Responsible Students Program is a positive discipline program and promotes social and economic behavior that is appropriate and responsible.  Appropriate behaviors are taught, modeled, and enforced by school-wide committees. 

Keys to Inter-visions is an intervention program based on cognitive restructuring.  The program is built on the premise that if you change the way that students think, you can change how they act.  This vital program is funded with our Safe and Drug-free Schools program money.  Community resources and mental health experts are pulled into this process and many students are transitioned back to public schools from alternative schools and our institutional programs. 

I want to emphasize, Senator Byrd, that the Safe and Drug-free schools money is a tremendous help in utilizing outside resources to get help for these children with special needs. 

The Student Assistance program is a combination of  prevention, early intervention, and support.  It was started for students with social and drug problems. 

Teachers are trained to recognize destructive behavior, define acceptable behavior, and know what to do and where to get help when needed.  Again, outside resources and mental health agencies are called upon when necessary. 

Peer mediation programs exist in most counties.  Student-to-student activities are used to resolve minor problems.  Student training includes problem solving, conflict resolution, and student responsibility in keeping schools safe.  The Respect and Protect program expresses the democratic principle that every child has the right to feel respected and protected in the school.

Everyone has the right to feel free of threats and harm and humiliation.  It is the responsibility of adults to establish and enforce policies requiring that these rights be respected by everyone in the school.  This is our newest program, and principals are very enthusiastic about it. 

All these programs that I've mentioned are putting back the character training that I mentioned early-on in my presentation.  Teachers and administrators receive training for all these programs and school safety is a part of the State Board's school accreditation system. 

Even as school begins this month, teachers will be receiving training on disciplining special education students in compliance with the changes in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.  Special education students can be removed from a classroom for disruptive behavior, but guidelines must be followed. 

The Safe Schools Act of 1996 provides for alternative environments for students who have been removed from classrooms.  At the end of the second school month during the recent school year, 5,065 students were being served in alternative education settings.  Forty-nine percent of the previous year's alternative school students were re-integrated into traditional school settings. 

I must say, we have a quality consistency program with our alternative schools.  We still have a lot of work to do there and that is one of our next challenges, because some of these schools work very well and others do not work as well as they should.

I would be remiss in not mentioning the State Board of Education's unique program of providing a school system for institutionized juveniles and young adults in West Virginia.  This program has been acclaimed as a national model and provides direct educational services to over 6,000 juveniles and young adults in a variety of settings.  We call this program the 56th county. 

The second question is, how are we doing?  According to the West Virginia Federation of Teachers Report Card on the WV Safe and Productive Schools Act, West Virginia has made solid progress in almost every area of discipline and safety in the three years since the act's implementation. 

The most common discipline problem in our schools continues to be abusive language directed by students at other students.  The next most frequent problem is disruptions in or near school buildings, followed by threats of violence against other students.  The report states that teacher-reported incidents of abusive language declined 29%, threats of violence by students against other students were down 26%, and student-on-student assaults have been cut by nearly 40%, but remain perhaps the most serious of our discipline problems in the West Virginia public schools. 

Consistent with national surveys, most discipline and safety incidents occur at the middle school and junior high school level.  The alternative schools may have something to do with this. 

With reference to guns and weapons, 1998 data indicates that every 13 days a student or youth in West Virginia was killed by a gun.  The Department of Education's weapon survey (and that includes guns, knives and anything that can be construed as a weapon, such as a club) indicates no deaths occurred in our schools, but six weapons injuries did occur during the 1998-99 school year. 

The weapons survey shows a decline in the number of weapons incidents reported (from 292 in 1994-95 to 187 for 1998-99).  Looking at it just a little more closely, you will see that in our most recent year, there were 21 gun incidents.  Most of our incidents involved knives.   

I'll end with what we need to do, and that is: 1) expand our after school programs (and this will take money, as Dr. Fox indicated). Most crime takes place right after school.  2) do a better job teaching the concept of diversity.  We have a diversity of cultures in our state, and initially the diversity education was a matter of color and not the different cultures that we have, and 3) combine rigorous academic learning and community service with civic participation. Students need to learn to care about other human beings. 

I want to finish with this:  As a society, our great challenge is to develop a new generation of people who do not have the ability to harbor hate for any individual or group of people, and who see the face of God in every child, man, and woman they meet.  Only then, can we say our work is complete.