And a tepid response it is. The Washington County Insider has been all over the case of the increasing violence in the West Bend School District, the uninterested response of the school board and administration, and the parents’ increasing frustration.
February 24, 2022 – West Bend, WI – The West Bend School District sent a note to families this week addressing concerns discussed by parents regarding bullying and safety on the school bus.
During the Monday, February 21, 2022, West Bend School Board meeting five parents spoke out about a student being bullied and injured during several incidents while the child rode the school bus.
Sadly, most, but all, teachers administrators don’t want to deal with bullying or violence until it is too late.
Mar,
The problem is this totall cancerous leftist mindset that if any discernment between good and evil is made….one will be labeled “intolerant”. Boy pretending to be a girl going into girls bathroom or locker room making girls unconfortable…”intolerant” if teacher or administrator kicks the perv, who needs mental help out. Leftist lexicon of identity politics has become a mindfield that has created total chaos in public school system. Even conservative administrators, with good discipline intentions have no chance. The godless system is corrupted beyond repair in my view.
Well, actually I meant that the administrators and teachers don’t want to get involved.
They get involved. There are investigations that may make the school look bad or they don’t want to do the paperwork or get a parent passed off at them.
@ Mar: There are investigations that may make the school look bad
Yup, you nailed it. “Student-incidents” get reported to WI DPI, and the aggregated figures are at a link (Discipline at Student Engagement) at the WISE Dash Public Portal.
So, schools that aggressively and assertively deal with discipline issues will show a higher percentage of issues than those that don’t. Then comes community interpretation. Some might look at a higher figure as indicative of major problems, whereas others might be skeptical of low numbers (maybe the school district is under reporting incidents to look better). Per centages are a better indicator than numbers, as obviously a larger student body will generate more incidents.
I was looking at several districts in Washington County.
1st, raw numbers for 2018-2019 school year:
Kewaskum: 64
West Bend: 249
Germantown: 91
Slinger: 56
Htfd K-8: 94
Htfd High: 63
It’s like, OMG, look at West Bend – 249!!
But now look at per centages:
Kewaskum: 3.5%
West Bend: 3.8%
Germantown: 2.3%
Slinger: 1.7%
Htfd K-8: 5.5%
Htfd UHS: 4.8%
Statewide the average rate is 8.5%. Milwaukee is 30.4%.
So, I recommend that there be some kind of community stakeholder consensus to the effect that, “forget the numbers, we want this stuff dealt with as assertively as possible, and let the chips fall where they may as far as worrying about showing a high number – the community is not concerned about that.”
I took a look at the video of the meeting. What I found shocking was the board member response during the Consent Agenda portion of the meeting. She pretty much runs over the Superintendent, ordering her what to do. Mind you, both the Board & Admin get sandbagged at times during public input sessions. So their responses might be measured and cautious, and not all information has been processed.
The Superintendent is asked what the response will be as far as having adults on the bus for a while – it appears that the Administration was already working on a plan to have adult presence on the buses for about 20 days. She was then pressed on who those adults would be. There are 5 bus routes and 5 administrators at Badger/Silverbook. This Board member then ordered that all 5 administrators cover all 5 routes.
Some may interpret the Superintendent response as being uninformed or evasive. I see it as being appropriate and professional. There is also the issue of school security. School security plans tend to be discussed in closed sessions. I would hazard a guess that the plans have very specific roles that are to be implemented in an emergency situation by the “A” level administrators.
CNN did a study of school shootings – one of the prime times is the early part of the school day. So now, during the time when staff should be on high alert, this Board member is insisting and broadcasting that the entire “A” team will be stuck on buses during the period that statistically has been shown to be the riskiest time for school violence.
I can emphasize with the concerns that parents and students might have about bus ridership. I attended the West Bend School System, rode the bus, and graduated in 1971, 1st class to graduate from East. My aunt & uncle were farmers who drove bus AMs & PMs. Things happened back in those days too, and I as a rider, and my aunt/uncles as drivers had a few “scary” moments too. However, the needs of all students must be considered. There is no reason that properly prepared teacher’s aides (or even volunteers or paid security) cannot perform bus “monitor duty”, in lieu of highly paid professional administrators (average $100,000 annual salary before benefits) doing it. If I were a WBSD parent who did not have students riding the bus, I would be demanding that the top-level administrators be on the grounds when my child in school. I would be so insistent that I would not wait for the next public input opportunity which is a week away to express my concerns.
Here is the link to the video – topic starts at about 39 minutes in.
https://youtu.be/F9gSqIG9Yvs?t=2394