Student Crisis (Without the Support Team)
Earlier this week, Chairwoman Rizzi participated in a news story with a concerned RPS parent, and her concerned Wythe student. They discussed a few themes that have plagued RPS and other local (and national) school systems.
Too many fights
Too many weapons getting into schools
Principals don’t have enough resources to make change
A general reluctance to expel students
A call for community intervention
This set the stage for Wednesday night’s community meeting at Wythe - a meet and greet with the new principal, (ironically named) Mr. Olds. Speakers came to the podium, one by one, and turned national headlines into compelling personal anecdotes.
Here’s what we learned from the community via public comment and the press:
There are students trapped in this cycle of school violence
When news cameras caught a fight break out outside Wythe, student Chrystal Reyes says “that’s very common in the school.” (Watch)
One woman’s granddaughter can’t get to class because of the lengthy lines at the school’s metal detectors. (Watch)
Other students are afraid to speak out, and are unwilling to help school staff investigate threats to their safety. (Watch)
Perhaps, some students cannot speak out, because there aren’t enough staff members they can communicate with:
“In my opinion, no, there isn't," student Chrystal Reyes said when asked if she felt there were enough CSAs to protect students and staff. "There needs to be enough staff and especially Spanish-speaking staff. Because [the student body is] mostly Hispanics." (Source)
I describe this as a “cycle” because the teachers - only 14% of whom report feeling safe at Wythe - refer misbehaving students to their school administrators (Principals) for disciplinary action. Principals and district administrators then refer these students for expulsion, just to have those recommendations overturned by the School Board, and those students returned to schools that are ill equipped to accommodate them. (More on that in a bit.)
As a result - less than half of students who report feeling safe at some RPS Schools:
50% at Albert Hill Middle School
50% at Richmond Alternative School
49% at Lucille Brown Middle School
49% at Swansboro Elementary School
48% at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School
43% at George Carver Elementary School
43% at River City Middle School
41% at Thomas C. Boushall Middle School
40% at Armstrong High School
40% at Thomas H. Henderson Middle School
38% at Thomas Jefferson High School
33% at George Wythe High School
20% at Amelia Street School
Brigade Commander Jaheem Hewlett, a student of Franklin Military Academy, shared these concerns to the Board back in February:
“My fellow peers in the division… do not feel comfortable or safe in the school setting. We recognize that this is not just an issue at school, but also an issue in our communities.
As the representative for RPS students this evening, my suggestion to the division leadership is that our school system become more proactive rather than reactive.
Furthermore, I want to highlight the concern for mental health that RPS students may be experiencing, and mention that support is needed. …Some students have personal hardships and have to cope with difficult situations going on at home that are beyond their control. Covid has also had a residual effect on the mental health of our students. We do have our school counselors and some teachers who listen and give advice to students, but more support is needed.
A suggestion from one of my fellow SAC (Student Advisory Council) members is that we have more therapists, psychologists and counselors available to connect with our students throughout the school day or after school as-needed… If we can provide these services for students needing them, I believe it will greatly improve the learning environment and student culture across RPS.” (Watch)
There are not enough resources to maintain order, or meet student’s social-emotional needs.
Unfortunately, there isn’t enough money to support Hewlett’s safety and security recommendations. Take mental health, for example:
The Department of Climate Culture and Student Services is overworked and understaffed. In October, Director Angela Jones told the Board:
“We have fabulous school counselors, incredible psychologists, social workers, behavior specialists, student support specialists - and me! - and it is not enough. It is not enough. People are working incredibly hard to get the right supports to our children.
…This [data] only speaks to a small portion of our kids. This doesn’t speak to the child that shows up every day, who is still making the grades, and is hurting on the inside. We don’t have data points on those kids.
…We have made considerable investments in growing our team, but it’s still not enough.” (Watch)
The budget they passed last week includes funding for "5 social workers (at George Wythe HS, George W. Carver ES, Henry L. Marsh III ES, Martin Luther King Jr. MS, and River City MS); [and]... 1 counselor (at RAS)". It does not include additional staff (1 coordinator and 2 specialists) to run a Crisis Support Team and free up Angela Jone’s department “to spend more time on their Tier I work to prevent extreme behaviors from manifesting in the first place.”
As for physical safety: Melissa Hipolit reports that school staff across the district are alarmed by student misbehavior “ramping up instead of shutting down.” Multiple schools have asked for more Care and Safety Associates (CSAs), but there aren’t enough to meet demand.
We learned during the Safety and Security presentation in February that there are only 60 filled CSA positions out of the 68 the Board budgeted for last year.
The budget they passed last week includes funding for one additional CSA at George Wythe, and one at Thomas Jefferson.
Chairwoman Rizzi says our limited resources are the problem:
"I know [school staff] don't have what they want in terms of security. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that we don't have the resources. We're very streamlined in terms of resources. We can't provide more than what we have access to right now," Rizzi said. (Source)
There’s discipline disagreement.
When a student’s needs exceed the school’s preventative (Social Emotional staff) and reactive (Care and Safety Associates) supports, and their behavior endangers themselves or others (BESO), they are referred for expulsion. These referrals get the support of the school principal and the division administration, but many parents and students will appeal these expulsions. The case goes before the Disciplinary Committee where the School Board overturns nearly all expulsion referrals.
These students are often sent back to the same schools that were unprepared to serve them in the first place - whose administrators already deemed them too big a safety threat to keep in the building. It appears that the teachers and administrators feel obligated to protect the whole student body, whereas the Board only sees (and serves) the expelled student they see before them.
In a public statement released on social media in February, Chairwoman Rizzi said:
“The panel hearings are often spaces where we get to talk to these children, ask them about their hopes and dreams, help them see that continuing down a dark path will only lead them to darkness, show them kindness, offer them support. Their needs are so large, we can’t possibly fulfill them all, but we try to offer salve for their wounds…
…almost 100% of these children are Black and Brown and living in poverty. Hunger makes you stressed, makes you angry, makes you want to fight…
…Portraying our youngest, most vulnerable as child criminals when often they are acting out of a need to survive is foul and reprehensible…
Suspending these children does no good.”
The community, however, doesn’t always see things that way. One man who spoke at Wednesday’s Wythe event says discipline is the answer:
“First you must have discipline. And that discipline don’t start at school. It start at home…and when there’s opposition, there’s consequences. They must want to learn first. That is the main idea and goal: Education and academics…
I understand you don’t want to put them out of school… but, one bad apple spoils the bunch. The whole bunch - it spoils it. Once one kid sees one kid get away with something ‘Oh I can do that, they didn’t do anything to him,’ right?
Sure our parents don’t want our kids to get put out of school and expelled from school… you don’t want to deny them anything. But it starts with one’s self. Self esteem. Determination. Drive. Incentive. Goals and Objectives…” (Watch)
Another speaker says he doesn’t support police in schools - “this is not a prison!” He wants to see a city violence prevention program instead. (Watch)
Note: Care and Safety Associates (CSAs) are not police, they are Mandt-trained interventionists. There are SROs in some Richmond schools, though, who are provided and overseen by the Richmond Police Department.
In any case - if endless ”second chances” are the Board’s priority, it would behoove them to put their funding where their big-heart is, instead of antagonizing their security staff and leaving exhausted and under-resourced school staff to pick up the tab.
Community Intervention
There is one thing everyone appears to agree on: the need for community.
Principal Olds is “emphatic” about creating a robust Parent Teacher Association (PTA) at Wythe:
“We need more parents to come out and to support after-school activities… When we have back-to-school night, that’s the number one activity we need you involved in… so we can start being proactive, and celebrating students, instead of reactive to the failures.” (Watch)
Chairwoman Rizzi Agrees:
"We desperately need parental involvement. That's what I would like to see way more than safety and security people. I'd like to see some parents," Rizzi said. "I'd like to see more volunteers and a more robust community supporting the school because that's one thing they do not get, and they're begging for it, they're hungry for it." (Source)
We also hear calls for faith communities to volunteer in the schools. (Watch)
This, to borrow Brigade Commander Jaheim Hewlett’s words, just doesn’t seem to reflect “the reality of the world we live in.” One mother who stepped up to the podium encouraged the audience to see both student’s social-emotional needs and parent’s socio-economic ones.
“Everybody in this room knows how much rent and the cost of living in Richmond has effected every single life. I know people with 4 and 5 jobs. It’s not feasible to be here [Wythe High School] and have to work 5 jobs to make rent…
I hate the sometimes we get the bad rap that parents don’t want to be there.”
She says she and others have to choose between their bills and their babies. (Watch)
This is a perfect - albeit unknowing - pitch for the School Board to accept the City Council’s “Children’s Budget” proposal. The crisis conditions all-to-often unfolding inside Richmond’s schools are the direct effects of things like hunger, housing instability, gun violence, and limited opportunities to build wealth. These are traumas we ought to prevent as a nation - but we can start right now by pooling our City’s resources, finding/filling gaps in much-needed services, and confidently investing in intervention efforts with proven results. Or, as the final speaker of the night says:
“School Board and City Council need to be aware of what’s going on in the city. They need to be working together for the sake of the kids in the City of Richmond.” (Watch)
Some elected officials - like Vice Chair Cheryl Burke - are on board (pun intended) for this collaboration. She tells Council she is eager to support “the whole child.” Others, multiple sources tell me, sit in the back of the Wythe auditorium heckling speakers like an over-served sports fan alongside a fallen former Board member who recently called the Superintendent a “master” running RPS like his plantation.
Where the city goes from here will largely depend on the standards we hold for our representatives, and who we elect in 2024.
Feel simultaneously better and worse reading this hours-old announcement from the York County superintendent. We’re not alone, but the problem is both close and… everywhere else, too.
“…Over the last several weeks, school staff have responded to multiple instances of students bringing prohibited items to schools, making inappropriate and even threatening statements, and physical altercations between students on and off campus.
I am saddened, troubled, and even angered by the events affecting our schools. Our students and staff should be able to come to school every day confident they are in safe, secure, and welcoming school environments.”