
DATE: Friday, June 27, 1997                 TAG: 9706270698

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY YOUNG, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   81 lines

NORFOLK TEACHERS ASK BOARD FOR DISCIPLINARY HELP ENFORCING POLICIES MORE CONSISTENTLY MAY MAKE LEARNING EASIER, THEY SAY.

In a recent survey, 8 out of 10 city middle school teachers said they had encountered at least one student this school year with a chronic discipline problem who disrupted learning for other students.

More than half said they had felt physically threatened in the past two years.

Eighty-eight percent feel those problems would improve significantly if their schools consistently enforced a discipline policy - something 67 percent of them think is not happening now.

Those were the results of a survey returned by 167 of the district's 505 middle school teachers. The survey was conducted by the Norfolk Federation of Teachers and presented to the School Board on Thursday.

``Please adopt stronger policies and enforce them consistently,'' said Karen Althoff, a teacher at Lafayette-Winona Middle School who said she recently took a student to court when the school failed to punish him for verbally abusing her.

``A business would not tolerate these behaviors, and yet our school system allows students to think that rules are meant to be broken.''

Along with the survey results, the teachers group had three recommendations for the district:

Adopt a ``zero tolerance'' discipline policy, in which consequences for poor behavior are clear and are consistently applied.

Remove chronically disruptive students from the classroom to improve learning conditions for the other students - and raise academic standards for all students.

Increase funding for schools and develop school budgets based on the district's needs, not on what the City Council projects it can spend.

The schools have rules but ``they don't have specific consequences for them,'' said Marian Flickinger, NFT president. She said middle school teachers were chosen for the survey because that's where the union has received the most complaints about discipline.

In the survey, 57 percent of teachers said their classes were disrupted ``many times each day,'' compared with 13 percent who said their classes were disrupted ``only a few times.''

The most common student misbehavior noted was ``abusive or profane language spoken by one student to another,'' with 69 percent of teachers saying they had witnessed it in the past year. Eighteen percent said they had witnessed assaults against school employees.

On the academic side, 60 percent of teachers thought their school's standards were too low, compared with 36 percent who said they were ``just right.'' Eighty-two percent said they thought students would perform better if more was expected from them.

Nearly three in four said their school administrations supported ``social promotions'' for students who had failed academically, and 38 percent said they have been pressured by an administrator to give a grade higher than they thought a student deserved.

Flickinger said that to solve some of the problems, the city needs to make schools more of a financial priority. For example, she said, more programs are needed for disruptive students removed from regular classes.

``Take a bolder stand this year and build the budget around the needs of the school system,'' Flickinger said to the School Board. ``You will have the support of the public and the federation in a campaign to provide adequate funds to our schools.''

Board member James Herndon replied: ``Just remember about that support when we start stepping on the City Council.''

Some of the board members said they thought the board's discipline code was clear and fair, but said they would look into whether it was being followed consistently. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS

Most common behavior problems middle school teachers witnessed in

1996-97

Abusive or profane language spoken by one student to another - 69

percent

Unexcused absences/tardiness - 55 percent

Threats of violence aimed at another student - 52 percent

Assault against a student - 49 percent

Vandalism of school property - 46 percent

Abusive or profane language by students against teachers - 39

percent KEYWORDS: NORFOLK PUBLIC SCHOOLS DISCIPLINARY POLICY