Do schools conceal violent incidents and threats to avoid negative press and parent outrage?
Among the extended family I saw over the holiday was a young relative who is working as a substitute teacher in the Northeast since he can’t find a full-time teaching post. He shared a story that surprised me, and I wanted to run it by folks here.
He was subbing at a low-performing high school that recently had a well-publicized stabbing. A student in his class pulled what he thought was a real gun on him, and they had a standoff for several minutes until the teen put the “gun” away and the teacher tackled him to the floor. It turned out the gun was a toy, and the student received a three-day suspension for the incident.
The substitute teacher was disappointed with the punishment, but said the school wanted to prevent another round of negative press.
Would such an incident be kept quiet in Georgia? Could it go so easily unreported under zero tolerance policies in which students can get suspended for Tweety Bird key chains?
And speaking of keeping things quiet, I heard about two Atlanta high schools being on lock down the week before Thanksgiving due to terrorist threats. Apparently, parents at Grady and the New Schools of Carver were not informed of the threats. The person who mentioned it to me felt the incidents spotlighted a troubling lack of coordination between APS and Atlanta Police.
I plan to ask APS about this Monday. Did anyone in either school community get formal notification of these threats?
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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139 comments Add your comment
Central Office staffer
November 27th, 2011
1:24 pm
@Jenny, If you don’t believe school administrators are influenced by blogs, you’re out of touch with reality. I work in a large system and they are very, very attentive to what is written here. See how quickly DeKalb responded;
http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2011/11/11/now-it-appears-dekalb-is-not-filling-high-paid-secretarys-slot-after-edict-from-new-school-chief/
cris
November 27th, 2011
1:27 pm
I’m of two minds about this subject…should these things be swept under the rug? No, but remember, for the most part, we are dealing with juveniles…and like it or not there are legal privacy issues that have to be followed. It’s frustrating as a teacher to be told that fights, drugs,etc. have happened, been found and not know who needs to be kept “under thumb”. (Not that you can’t find out from the students most of the time.) And the school I’m at constantly has to deal with large hispanic population=lots of gang activity…which is simply untrue. Yes, we have gang members, but they are usually kept under close eye by the school resource officer and are dealt with swiftly and quietly to avoid “free advertising” to interested students. Of course, if a student has made threats or shown violence in the past, it would be much more practical to let the teachers know ahead of time so at least situations that might escalate more of the same behavior can be avoided and/or prepared for.
Fed Up!
November 27th, 2011
1:33 pm
Maureen…PLEASE stop acting so oblivious!!!! You definitely live in a ’sheltered’ box! ‘Bad’ things happen in ALL types of school. OH by the way…said school in your blog graduate students from very well to do families and receive scholarships to Ivy League schools!!! Stop stereotyping…oh wait – that is your norm.
let teachers teach
November 27th, 2011
1:39 pm
Ed Heatley does and says things to principals that should be reported. Blast him on you tube.
Ernest
November 27th, 2011
1:40 pm
To directly answer the question from this blog, the answer is yes. Back in 2003 the AJC reported that Gwinnett County under-reported over 40,000 disciplinary incidents to the state. As a reminder, there is a state-mandated discipline report that can determine AYP status on the ‘danger’ level of a school and district. This can impact the perception level of a community and negatively impact economic development opportunities. Make no mistake, all school districts have their ’skeletons’ however at different levels. Sometimes it comes down to how those in power influence public reporting of any negative stories.
In Gwinnett’s case, it opened everyone’s eyes to the inconsistent manner in how various incidents are counted. Not sure if this has been corrected but at the same time, I question if anyone has done any analysis to see.
I got below from Dr. Trotter’s website on the Gwinnett incident:
http://www.theteachersadvocate.com/id34.html
BibbTeacher
November 27th, 2011
1:46 pm
Yes it does happen all too often, the reason, numbers. For some reason, those higher up in education see student discipline such as out-of-school, and in-school suspensions as a negative reflection on a school. The thought (while deceptively correct) is that students cannot learn out of the classroom. The truth is that students in a disruptive class learn less. So administrators are picking and choosing when, who and what to report.
Ie. the overage student I sent to the office for “Wait lil’ man I’m capin your —” was sent back to the room after administrative counseling – two weeks later he was arrested for a fatal shooting. The student that threatend a teacher in September, was moved to another class with no other action taken – in jail for armed robbery. The five empty seats in my class are all due to real police work outside.
Do we really need that Federal money for students that endlessly disrupt classes or consistantly assault others? Why are we playing Russan Roulette with other peoples children? Answer- administrators are being graded on how many seats they keep bodies (not students) in and how little is brought to light.
Maureen Downey
November 27th, 2011
1:50 pm
@Fed, The issue isn’t bad things happening; the issue is whether parents are alerted to those “bad things.” Not sure why you see stereotyping of any sort in asking whether parents at two APS high schools were notified of recent terroristic threats received by the schools.
Maureen
mountain man
November 27th, 2011
1:52 pm
And as I have said repeatedly, discipline (or lack thereof) is one of the major unaddressed problems in education today. Especially at low-SES schools.
?
November 27th, 2011
1:54 pm
@BibbTeacher: What federal money and to which students are you referring? Is there something you know about funding that the rest of us should understand?
Ole Guy
November 27th, 2011
1:57 pm
Fed Up, don’t be so hard on the lady…she’s simply bringing, to light, some very serious issues which need both public attention AND public action.
Graduating from high school and receiving scholarships to the Ivy Leagues is, in and of itself, not a big deal. The big deal lies in GRADUATING…ON TIME. Given the propensity of dumbed down educations, the handing out of academic accolades like candy at a Christmas Party, and the degree to which the educational power elite has allowed parental pressure to enter into the equation, the school system has apparently done a magnificent job in bamboozeling STUPID PEOPLE, LIKE YOU, into thinking that all is well.
Contrary to your “HEAD-IN-THE-SAND, DON’T-BOTHER-ME-WITH-DETAILS” outlook, Maureen is simply exposing some of the shameful practices, within the educational circus, which a highly mis-informed and ignorant public…EXEMPLIFIED BY YOU…should be made aware of.
It would seem that YOU, Fed Up, are the oblivious party. Unfortunately, you seem to be accompanied by far too many whose goals seem to lie along the lines of complaining, pontificating, and blaming the bearor of bad news.
Marietta Boomer
November 27th, 2011
2:00 pm
Thanks for this article, Maureen, but anybody who can read knows that public schools are trash today.
A friend’s child was strangled until he passed out by a group of bullies (Marietta public school). No punishment or publicity. The child was permanent scarred, needed continuous therapy (who wouldn’t!) and had to move to another school.
It’s been clear for sometime (like decades) that either you send your metro Atlanta child to public schools (particularly middle and high school) or you are endangering them now and in the future (no education). If you can’t afford private school, then why are you having kids, Georgia?
BAD PARENTS = major part of all of today’s problems in the U.S. If you can’t bring them up properly or pay to educate and feed them, then it is IMMORAL to have children in the first place.
Prof
November 27th, 2011
2:05 pm
“Jenny” sounds like a principal at a school that has buried such discipline problems. What is remarkable here is that so many teachers and parents from so many school districts have their own similar stories to tell: first-hand witnesses who could contact the AJC later (and be promised anonymity).
Somehow, this culture of concealed student violence by schools seems related to the schools’ cheating scandal also concealed for so long.
Maureen Downey
November 27th, 2011
2:06 pm
@marietta, Did the parents call police?
Maureen
Joan
November 27th, 2011
2:11 pm
Most of the cover-up’s I hear about are special needs children being restrained and put in seclusion. This seems to be a well hidden secret that school districts do not want to be out in the open.
Maureen Downey
November 27th, 2011
2:12 pm
@Prof, There is a story here, but it will take whistleblowers as the common theme here is that records are not kept. I have looked at discipline reports in the past — those collected by DOE from districts but not verified due to lack of staff — and there are wide disparities. But even within schools, there are vast differences in how many discipline referrals teachers make.
The teachers who are better at defusing problems and handling challenging kids tell me that they end up getting more of these kids placed in their classes. So, they end up being punished for being better at handling disruptive kids.
Maureen
Shiloh Parent
November 27th, 2011
2:16 pm
Maureen, gun confiscated at Shiloh HS. Not public. Fights everyday. Gang activity. Now the principal looking for a promotion. Teachers having an affair with a student. Kids hang around the school till 6-7 pm without any supervision. Drug deals happening. Shiloh is a joke. Admin is a joke except for one white asst principal and AP C.Doug. They hire a 4′10 AP. what fight can he stop? Answer none. Someone said they shut down school sponsored activities because of an outside sports activity. Someone rented the gym. Don’t know how true but it came from someone I know.
Maureen Downey
November 27th, 2011
2:20 pm
@Joan, Certainly, the recent Fulton case in which at six children were reportedly abused by a special ed teacher was chilling. (Thanks to all the folks who sent me links to this story.)
I think that is why this issue is complicated. The cover-ups go both ways.
CBS Atlanta did extensive reporting on this. You can watch some of it here. I will also put up an AJC link, but am on vacation today and cannot access our archives from where I am to pull up the news story.
http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/15286066/exclusive-parents-say-fulton-covered-up-student-abuse.
Maureen
Professor Fate
November 27th, 2011
2:20 pm
The problems is GIGO (”Garbage in / garbage out”), pure and simple. Garbage parents maintain garbage home environments, that produce garbage kids, that turn their schools into garbage institutions. If a kid sees the adults in their lives constantly fighting (or worse, shooting at someone) every time they feel “disrespected” (and why these people should be respected in the first place is beyond me), how else are they going to act? Is that the kids’ faults? No, it’s the parents’. We can spend millions and millions more on the kids, and have little to no impact — its the parents (or, rather, lack thereof) who have ruined them, often beyond repair.
Prof
November 27th, 2011
2:21 pm
@ Maureen. Must such whistleblowers have their names publicly revealed? Some of the bloggers here are teachers who have direct knowledge of the violent incidents.
Maureen Downey
November 27th, 2011
2:29 pm
@Prof, No, people can speak to reporters off the record.
Maureen
Lee
November 27th, 2011
2:30 pm
@Maureen, re: “Did the parents call the police?”
That’s another dirty secret that most parents do not discover until their child gets caught up in the backwash.
If an incident happens at school and the school administration did not call the police, they will rarely (if ever) do anything. They will “defer to school administration” and if the parent pushes the issue, they often find themselves fighting the administration on the issue.
Atlanta mom
November 27th, 2011
2:44 pm
“I heard about two Atlanta high schools being on lock down the week before Thanksgiving due to terrorist threats. Apparently, parents at Grady and the New Schools of Carver were not informed of the threats. ”
Exactly what where the parents supposed to be informed about? Presumably the threats were checked out and found to be a prank. As usual. Do you know how many fire alarms are pulled in the springtime? Either because a student has a test, or it’s a beautiful day and some child wants some outside time?
Maureen Downey
November 27th, 2011
2:47 pm
@Atlanta, I think these incidents rose to a more menacing level. And, while the threats were proven to be unfounded, I think the concern is the response before that was ascertained.
Maureen
Do schools conceal violent incidents and threats to avoid negative press and … – Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog) | Driver Safety Courses
November 27th, 2011
2:48 pm
[...] Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog) [...]
Ole Guy
November 27th, 2011
2:50 pm
Prof Fate, like many, you have most-eloquently stated the problem, but faded away at suggesting anything resembling a solution…WHY?! Because any-and-all EFFECTIVE solutions would be both non-pc and unpopular within a society which has, effectively painted self into a corner created by years of ignoring issues.
Are these issues kids’ faults? You say no…at some point in time, these kids will grow, chronologically, at least, into adults and, more than likely, parents who, like THEIR folks, don’t give a crap. So just exactly where/when does the adult world start preparing kids for the adult responsibilities which they will surely encounter? Are kids simply to have no responsibilities/no consequences imposed upon them simply because they have yet to reach a certain age?
While it is certainly the easiest course of (in)action to simply write off the problems to causes over which the schools have absolutely no control, the HARDEST…the MOST UN-PC…the MOST POTENTIALLY CAREER-THREATENING courses of action remain untouched…placed in the closet of “If-I-ignore-the-problem-maybe-it-will-go-away”.
You can blame parents…AND YOU ARE 100% correct…but that, alone, will accomplish absolutely nothing. HOLD KIDS FULLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS, PERFORMANCE, and BEHAVIOR. Otherwise, we can all expect the same ole _ hit well into the future.
@KSUDorm
November 27th, 2011
2:50 pm
When I was Lassiter, administrators did a good job of letting students know what was happening. Announcements were made over the P.A. system. E-mails were sent as warranted. As a student, I never felt like things were hidden – and neither did my parents. Now that I’m at Kennesaw State (http://bit.ly/tuXpX8), I feel very much the same. Incidents are posted as e-mails to the general student population. I guess it varies from place to place, often dictated by the adults in charge and their motivations. Are they pushed by the desire for promotions over the well-being of kids? Are they inspired doing what is right, no matter the reflection on their careers?
Atlanta mom
November 27th, 2011
3:03 pm
Maureen,
I don’t understand what is to be gained by informing the parents of a non-existent threat. 500 parents descending upon a school while a threat is being investigated is not an optimal situation. And, evacuating the building for hours on end, while every classroom is checked, it a formula for more prank calls.
Teacher Reader
November 27th, 2011
3:06 pm
How can we stop this from happening? Do we need a Georgia State Wide Blog like the Dekalb County Blog to make incidents out in the open and the public aware? I am not sure that even parents really realize the magnitude of problems and how they are swept under the rug, and only begin to realize when their child is effected in some way.
As a former teacher, the discipline in our schools is lacking. However, the discipline in many homes is also lacking. Ole Guy is right, until the children at all levels are held accountable for their actions, nothing will change and our society will continue to go down hill. Very few kids have little idea of how to work for what they want and have found that demanding what they want will get it for them.
Our schools are a mess, and I am not sure how they can be cleaned up. I know that my child cannot attend our local public school and realize that moving will bring other issues at a new school. Our public schools are to me magnify the problems of society, and too many are with blinders on. I do hope that this sparks some investigating by the media, but sadly I have a feeling that it will fizzle.
Teacher Reader
November 27th, 2011
3:09 pm
@ Atlanta Mom, My child is my responsibility 24 hours a day. I want to know if a bomb threat took place and what happened while the threat was being investigated. Maybe it’s just me, but as I parent, I don’t think that my responsibility ends when my child is in school. I have a right to determine if the school is a place where I want my child and if my child is being educated for the hours that he is in school.
RJ
November 27th, 2011
3:10 pm
Maureen,
Schools don’t want to be on the unsafe schools list, so they hide lots of incidents. In my school, it’s so rare that a child is disciplined by administration that most teachers just don’t bother to write kids up anymore. Kids can curse at their teachers, bully other students, fight, etc and nothing is ever done. This is an elementary school! It’s absolutely ridiculous!
Woody
November 27th, 2011
3:18 pm
I’m curious, because I don’t know, do teachers typically receive training at ed school on how to maintain order in a random group of 30 people? What sort of training is that? Or are they thrown to the wolves in the coliseum, the better to provide entertainment? How about principals? Do they get training in how to control 1000+ people confined to a building? Honest, just asking.
One parents inside perspective
November 27th, 2011
3:22 pm
A few years ago a Gwinnett teacher was having a very open relationship with a boy in my neighborhood. A few neighbors contacted the principal. The relationship continued. Last year my child’s Latin teach “quit” in the middle of the year divorce/relationship with student. Those students were without a qualified teacher that rest of the school year. Students that waste days of learning with unqualified sub. teachers. It is basically a free for all in the classrooms and hallways. The students are bullied and the teachers have their own little social clicks. As if they are reliving their high school days except now they have power. Bottom line not in my neighborhood property values would drop but, now with the economy and foreclosure rate who cares let it all spill out.
NTLB
November 27th, 2011
3:23 pm
@Maureen—YES, they do hide violent and unsafe incidents ALL THE TIME due to ramifications of not making AYP and negative publicity. I found out about students trying to commit suicide in our school’s (a North Fulton county high school) restrooms via the school custodians. Maureen, if you really want to the details on how unsafe a school is, just go ask any school custodian in that building.
oldtimer
November 27th, 2011
3:27 pm
Things are covered up all the time. I once worked for an administrator who wanted NO one sent to the office. We were to write the referral and they would get to it when they could. We were never to call the police officer. If needed office staff would do that. So even if we had fights etc. We called the office and “they” handled it. One year latter, I retired.
oldtimer
November 27th, 2011
3:28 pm
NTLB is sure correct…or the school secretary.
Jenny
November 27th, 2011
3:44 pm
Central Office staffer
November 27th, 2011
1:24 pm
‘@Jenny, If you don’t believe school administrators are influenced by blogs, you’re out of touch with reality.’
It was exactly my point that schools DO sway to the breeze of uninformed blogs like this – that’s the problem.
That you are part of this blog and have a reading comprehension level of an ant further proves my point.
Leadership is paramount to the success of any enterprise. That the spineless drivel on here can influence decision making is devastating to the education of our children.
Call in the experts.
Merry Christmas
Teacher Reader
November 27th, 2011
3:50 pm
@ Woody Students are taught psychology and how to “use it” to run their classroom. Most classroom discipline is learned while student teaching, or at least that was my experience. There are things that as a teacher I could handle on my own, but when there is violence teachers should not have to deal with that.
As a pregnant classroom teacher, I was threatened by a student to punch my stomach in the hopes of killing my unborn child, because she did not like that I did not allow her to run my classroom. I was told that I was the problem and that she needed more responsibility. Something that still baffles me. I don’t think that students who make threats because they don’t get what they want when they want it deserve to have responsibility and certainly students shouldn’t be running the classroom. This is just one incident that happened my first year in DeKalb-but my 12th year as a teacher.
Colonel Jack
November 27th, 2011
3:56 pm
Jenny … unless I am reading you incorrectly (and my reading comprehension is light-years ahead of that of an ant), the so-called “experts” you say we should call in are the very people who’ve caused the problems in schools in the first place. They’re the ones jumping on any bandwagon that comes along, hoping that this will be the “program-in-a-box” that will make their schools succeed.
The last person I’d ever call in would be an “expert.”
Esther Panitch
November 27th, 2011
4:10 pm
Maureen,
I am the attorney for the child whose jaw and nose was broken at Westlake HS 3 weeks ago. My eyes have been opened about violence in schools which has been concealed by administrators. I would be happy to speak with you about what I am finding in my own investigation.
Esther Panitch
dekalbed
November 27th, 2011
4:11 pm
At the DCSS school where I work such threats have been communicated to parents.
But the opportunity to break rules and go unpunished or inconvenienced is also comunicated to students and parents.
And I would argue that the school and out of school administrators’ unwillingness to enforce school/county rules and the lack of any real punishment (a 3-day suspension for a student who usually doesn’t want to be in class anyway?) are why students continue breaking rules until these transgressions manifest themselves in more serious law-breaking disturbances like taking school communicative devices, bringing or dealing drugs in school, or threatening or attacking students or teachers.
Courtney
November 27th, 2011
4:15 pm
What happens in Gwinnett Schools stays in Gwinnett schools. They pressure teachers with their jobs not to report anything.
catlady
November 27th, 2011
4:17 pm
We were put through a series of nonsense staff development on how to “difuse” a student about to explode. We were told to get someone to cover our class (hahahahhahahahhaha) while we invite the student into the hall to walk and talk for a while.
Okay, now this was the stupidest thing I had ever heard (and after 39 years in education that is saying a LOT). First, there is NO ONE available to take your class. Administration is busy, and your fellow teachers, at the elementary level, are all teaching! Second, you are giving positive reinforcement to the student who soon sees that when he gets “in crisis” it is a get out of class free card. Not only does that kid’s behavior get reinforced, but soon you have several kids playing that card.
I am held to a high standard to teach these kids, no matter how far behind, how disruptive, how disinterested, or unable. I cannot be “walking the hall” to difuse a kid with serious behavior problems and still meet my obligations to the other 26 in the class–nor should I be expected to!
We even have some teachers with “additional training” in this nonsense. What we need is to have the cajones to remove the kid from the classroom until such time as he can conform his behavior!
And, as to the topic, I am sure things are covered up or “coded down.” Parents are informed about lice, but not about acts of violence or threats at the elementary level!
Maureen Downey
November 27th, 2011
4:21 pm
Ms. Panitch, Thanks. I will call you tomorrow.
Maureen
Ernest
November 27th, 2011
4:31 pm
Since a few posts have mentioned AYP and schools being labeled as ‘persistently dangerous’, I took the liberty of finding how that works in GA. If interested, go to:
http://www.gadoe.org/aypnclb.aspx?PageReq=AboutUSCO
I recall back in 2003, DeKalb had some of the highest rates of incidents in the state. Gary McGiboney, who oversaw that at the time indicated one could look at the DeKalb report and know that it reflected a more stringent reporting mechanism. Think about it, would you be more afraid of a DeKalb school with how it handled reporting or a school in another district that may not be as aggressive with its reporting? What could hurt you and your child more, what you do know or what you don’t?
Marie
November 27th, 2011
4:40 pm
My child goes to a pretty affluant high school in north Fulton and there are drug deals in the parking lots before and after school. We have a resource officer at the school, but the school is so large he can’t possibly police the entire school. I am fairly certain that the school administrators know about the drugs at the school. Our students are very well behaved – even those who use drugs – so sometimes I think that the school tolerates the drug activity because we don’t have many disciplinary problems, and we have rather high test scores. There are times that I think that the administrators sweep our drug issues under the rug because they don’t want to call any negative attention to our seemingly idyllic school.
Observer
November 27th, 2011
4:49 pm
“Jenny” at 1:14 pm and 3:44 pm sounds very like a troll…in fact, quite a familiar Good Parent troll to the regular readers of this blog. Nasty insults in a string of 1-sentence paragraphs… I’m surprised that “Jenny” hasn’t accused you teachers yet of whining.
K-12 needs change
November 27th, 2011
4:52 pm
Yes, schools and districts are VERY dangerous. Every child is at great risk of never receiving a quality educatio0n.
Jennifer Falk
November 27th, 2011
5:08 pm
When it comes to student discipline (or lack thereof) transparency to a community is non existent – end of story. When information or data is released to the community it is riddled with spin depending on the audience.
I have been a student of discipline reporting in Georgia since 2003 and would venture to say that I continue to be amazed at the lack of transparency at the local level provided to parents, supporting business and civic stakeholders.
Larry Major
November 27th, 2011
5:33 pm
@Maureen, Sit your young relative down and smack him upside the head (or whatever action you feel is appropriate) to get his undivided attention. He needs to call the local police dispatch desk at the standard phone number – not 911, the standard number – and tell them he wants to report an assault. They will send a peace officer to his location to complete a report of this incident. When the report is filed, it is public record and can be forwarded to the local newspaper, where it will hopefully get some ink.
If you think this is somehow harsh, please consider the consequences of inaction.
This kid needs to learn RIGHT NOW, before it’s too late, that his actions are intolerable. Otherwise, he will someday pull a gun on a peace officer, armed courier or any number of us who don’t have the luxury of living in the Happy World. The outcome of this is very predictable.
No parent should ever have to endure the heartbreak of planning their child’s funeral. Maybe some light time and probation will straighten this kid out, maybe it won’t. We can’t know what will happen, but we can at least try for the best outcome.
Woody
November 27th, 2011
5:55 pm
We moved out of a school district because the middle school was too rough for one of my children. Occasionally I would visit, and there were toughs in the stairwells and bends of the hallways, shaking down other children for money. It was a standard day at school, with no standards for order. The principal, who liked sitting in her office, had the attitude that the children needed to work this out for themselves. Eventually my child just refused to go into the building. So, we put him in a private school for six months and then moved out of district. A safe, secure environment has to be absolutely the first order of business for a school. But I would say that it begins with the principal, even though the assistant principal often takes the role of school disciplinarian. The principal has to be out there roaming the halls, visiting the classrooms, listening, watching, enforcing order, controlling the school with their presence. The principal has the power, and people respond to that.