THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 26, 1995 TAG: 9506260031
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Northeastern High School officials have decided to start teaching discipline as well as enforce it.
A group of administrators, counselors and teachers will spend this week hammering out a discipline plan they hope can create a united front on student behavior issues.
``We're going to try to work on exactly what we think we need to improve,'' said incoming Principal David Christenbury, who will attend the sessions and officially start work next month. ``How to establish expectations, and how to hold kids accountable to those expectations.''
The weeklong meeting is part of the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Schools' efforts to forge a district-wide response to the growing problem of discipline and unruly children.
``The overall discipline climate has been a real concern to teachers and to parents and to kids,'' said C.E. ``Mack'' McCary, assistant superintendent for instructional services. ``This is the beginning of a more comprehensive effort.
``It's really going to become a curricular issue, just like teaching math and science.''
Among the items on the table for the Northeastern committee this week is the creation of a discipline code to ensure consistent enforcement of behavior.
Officials will confront specific problems that have been identified, such as profanity in the halls, Christenbury said. And they will look for ways to deal with what acting Northeastern Principal Becky Phelps calls the ``won't-dos,'' kids whose refusal to cooperate disrupts the teaching process.
``That's mainly what we're trying to do is come up with a positive way to help these children,'' Phelps said. ``So teachers can teach and children can learn.''
``Children don't have the values that they did 10 years ago,'' she said. Then, officials could tell students they should behave in school as they do in church. But some children today ``haven't had those experiences,'' Phelps said.
McCary said employers have emphasized the need for students to leave school with the ability to cooperate and get along with others. Fewer kids, he said, are picking up these traits at home.
``We just can't assume that all kids come to school anymore having those skills,'' McCary said.
These notions have prompted the entire district to rethink the way it approaches discipline, officials said. Superintendent Joseph Peel is circulating a draft of a district-wide policy that fuses discipline education with other school functions.
The document sets the tone and direction for developing discipline plans at each school, McCary said.
``What we're working to do is to make sure that the overall approach in the school is a caring and consistent approach,'' McCary said. ``This whole thing is oriented toward kind of renegotiating the contract among the school, the parents and the kids.''
Peel was on vacation this week. But he mentioned the discipline plan to School Board members at a meeting earlier this month.
Among efforts to make children and families more accountable, Peel has suggested not admitting children to class who have failed to take prescribed medication, such as drugs that calm hyperactivity. Peel also is proposing an after-school remedial discipline program that would require parental attendance to stave off suspensions.
But accountability in this new contract extends to everyone concerned, including school staff members, McCary said.
``If we're doing things wrong,'' he said, ``we expect to be called on the carpet by other parties to that contract.'' by CNB