THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 10, 1995 TAG: 9501100016
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
Guns in school get much attention, and properly so. But other forms of violence and disruptive behaviors are far more common in classrooms and school corridors. They demand even more of teachers' energy and time, and deprive even more students of the kind of learning environment everybody expects of schools.
So how to deal with disruptive students should, and does, get school officials' attention. What has needed changing, and now is, is the official emphasis.
For some time, the primary focus has seemed to be helping the disruptive student. That's important. But the first priority of schools and the people who run them should be educating that vast majority of students who are not discipline problems, who come to school to learn.
To do that, schools need ways to identify the disruptive and, when necessary for the safety and education of other students, remove them from the class-room. Otherwise, schools face increasing pressure from private schools and public ``charter'' schools that don't tolerate disruptive student conduct.
Over the past school year in Norfolk public schools, for example, some 10 percent of the 37,000 pupils committed two-thirds of the reported offenses. Seventy-five percent of Norfolk's students stayed out of trouble - and it's that 75 percent who should be and seem to be becoming the schools' major concern.
Norfolk is seeking legislation that would permit schools not just to identify disruptive students but to bar them from the normal school setting and to require their parents to take responsibility for their children's behavior. Norfolk, like other cities, is also seeking funds for alternative schools - including reform schools? - for the disruptive student.
Norfolk is hardly alone in having - and tackling - these problems. Virginia Beach, for instance, is assembling a Safe Schools Task Force, composed of 53 school administrators, teachers, parents, public-safety officials and other concerned citizens, to review and revise the Beach's safe-schools plan. The committee's first meeting is slated for February.
As soon as tonight, however, Norfolk's parents, students and other residents may join in a discussion of school discipline policies. A discipline committee ap-point-ed by the School Board is holding a public hearing at 7 p.m. at Lafayette-Winona Middle School, 1701 Alsace Ave. It's an opportunity that has been all too rare. Norfolk's residents should take it. Other cities should emulate it. by CNB