Editor’s Note: This is the first of two articles looking at what officials say are growing discipline problems at Pottstown Middle School.
By Evan Brandtebrandt@21st-centurymedia.com @PottstownNews on Twitter
POTTSTOWN >> In January, there were more than 20 incidents involving physical violence in Pottstown Middle School, according to teachers who have been keeping track.
“In one day, there were five fights,” said one teacher. “We had a sub actually get punched in class.”
But you might not find an official record of all those incidents – at least not listed as physical fights.
David Todd, principal of the school’s 7th and 8th grades, says while there is no significant numerical increase in the number of reportable discipline incidents this year, there is definitely a sense that students are being more disrespectful.
“Fights are equal to what they were when I was here four years ago,” Todd told a group of about 50 parents, staff, neighbors and school board members who attended a special meeting on discipline problems on Feb. 28.
But some staff members, who spoke to The Mercury on the condition of anonymity, said level figures for fighting are likely because many of the discipline referrals – as much as 40 percent by their own record-keeping – have either not been dealt with, or get down-graded to non-violent offenses.
“We put in a referral and half the time, nothing happens,” said one teacher.
Disrespect is a constant problem
“One of the things we are seeing that is disconcerting on a lot of levels, is the disrespect. Not only for other students, but staff as well,” Todd said at the Feb. 28 meeting.
On that, Todd and his staff agree.
A survey drafted by the Federation of Pottstown Teachers – filled out by 72 of the school’s 73 teachers and provided to The Mercury – showed exactly zero teachers saying students have a “very high level of respect for staff at the middle school.”
But more than 97 percent categorized the level of respect students show as “somewhat low” or “very low.”
“The students say horrible things to the support staff, the crossing guards as well as the teachers,” said one teacher. “I had a 10-year-old tell me to” (perform a sex act.)
“I’m flabbergasted that there are not more parents coming to school board meetings to complain,” said Beth Yoder, president of the Federation of Pottstown Teachers.
There is disagreement about both the cause of the escalating problems at the North Franklin Street school, and what to do about it.
Inconsistent discipline
Yoder, and several other teachers who were also granted anonymity, sat down recently with The Mercury to discuss the issues in the building.
They said one of the primary problems is “inconsistency and inadequate support” from the building administration in matters of discipline, with some students getting lax punishment and others, the proscribed discipline.
“When a student acts up in class and gets sent to the office and comes back with no consequences, they’re emboldened, and so are the other students who see that nothing happened,” one of the teachers said.
Matthew Boyer, the principal of the fifth and sixth grade classes, observed “mostly the fifth graders don’t get involved in the incidents, but they watch, and when they get older …”
Last month, acting superintendent Stephen Rodriguez asked the school board personnel committee for permission to keep veteran Rita Berkhimer, who had been filling in, on board at the middle school to oversee discipline there for the fifth and sixth graders.
Things have improved since then, the teachers said, but not enough.
More than 80 percent of the teachers surveyed believe they get “not enough” or “very little to no support” from the administration for “student behavior management.”
More than 83 percent categorized the building’s climate as “poor” or “extremely poor.”
Large staff turn-over
Perhaps that’s why nearly 57 percent of the teachers surveyed said they are “likely” or “extremely likely” to look for work outside Pottstown Middle School “within the next year.”
“Who wants to come to a place where you are demeaned and disrespected every day?” one teacher asked.
Yoder noted that “in the last five years, there has been 48 percent turn-over” in the middle school. “We’ve had teachers who leave after two weeks, and some of them who have left for less money. And we’ve had subs who are here for one day and say they’re never coming back,” she said.
“You start feeling helpless,” said one teacher. “It creates a foxhole mentality.”
The teacher survey found more than 55 percent “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with their level of job satisfaction and more than 76 percent categorized teacher morale as “somewhat low” or “very low level.”
Some of it comes with the territory. It’s not an easy age to deal with.
“I’ve been at the high school and I can tell you teaching here at the middle school is probably the toughest job in the district,” Todd told the parents and community members at the Feb. 28 meeting.
Searching for solutions
Rather than simply voice complaints, the teachers have also proposed solutions, and Yoder said she has met repeatedly with central administration, including sharing the results of the survey.
Most recently, the teachers submitted a “middle school resource plan.”
“I realize it’s a wish list and that money is always an issue in this district, but we’ve got to do something,” said Yoder. “Otherwise, we are really at a loss about what to do.”
The plan calls for three hall monitors, one for each floor, in addition to the teachers who keep an eye on the halls between classes.
“If someone gets really hurt in the hall, the lawsuit is going to cost a whole lot more than three people at $10 an hour,” Yoder said.
She said since the fifth grade was moved into the middle school, problems have “snowballed” because not enough additional staff was added to deal with the crowds.
“It’s very chaotic in the halls,” Yoder said, noting last week an eighth grader “ran into a teacher” who suffered a bruised bone and partially torn rotator cuff.
(An unannounced visit to the school Friday by a Mercury reporter found the hallways to be under fairly good control with teachers moving through the halls keeping order.)
But while a traffic cop of sorts may be in order, it is not the job of an actual police officer, said the man who is the actual police officer in the school district.
Cop on the beat
Police Chief Richard Drumheller told borough council Wednesday his department is discussing the school resource officer program with school district officials.
“It hasn’t been discussed in years, so we want to look at that and see if there are ways we can tweak that and make it more efficient,” he said.
Currently, that officer is David Mull, who has an office in the high school but is also charged with lending a hand at the middle school as well.
Mull told The Mercury Friday that he does not get called to the middle school as often as he used to, because previously he was getting called for things that are not in his purview – “things like dress code violations and discipline problems.”
“I’m more on the criminal end of it,” said Mull, who was the department’s Officer of the Year in 2012. “I’m not a principal and I’m not an assistant principal. I don’t deal with discipline,” he said. “When it becomes a criminal matter, that’s when I get involved with it.”
Other teacher suggestions for helping rein in bad behavior include a permanent second vice principal or disciplinarian; a “time out room” an “incident response team,” or even just walkie talkies.
“I can’t tell you how many times I have called the office for help and no one answers,” said one teacher.
Asking community for help
Todd is also reaching out to the community in the search for solutions.
As John Armato, the district’s director of community relations put it, “this isn’t just a school problem. This is an issue that needs to be addressed by the entire community.”
After speaking to the group of parents, community and school board members who attended the Feb. 28 meeting, Todd asked them all to break up into smaller working groups in the cafeteria and brainstorm solutions.
He said the discussions led to a focus on self-confidence, lack of which results in students going along with bad behavior to belong; and providing the students with the tools to stand up to peer pressure.
One teacher said the people in the sessions focused on “school violence, lack of supervision, classroom behavior and parents’ roles.”
There is another community meeting scheduled for March 28 to continue the work begun on Feb. 28, although neither meeting appears on the district calendar posted on the web site.
Rodriguez told the board’s personnel committee last month that the district is seeing some success with a conflict-resolution program at Barth Elementary School called “social and emotional learning.”
(In fact that program is the subject of a series of parent meetings in the district’s elementary schools starting March 16 at Barth.)
That program provides students with concrete tools to deal with conflict without escalating it and Todd said it is coming to the middle school in September.
Mental health professionals needed
But while it helps to have students learn how to resolve conflict among themselves, it does not address the underlying social and emotional issues some of the children bring to school every day, said the teachers.
“Some of this starts at the elementary level, we see some of it as early as first grade,” said Yoder.
“But we have no guidance counselors at the elementary level and by the time they get to the middle school, the problems have gone a long time without being addressed,” said one teacher. “Teachers are not mental health professionals. We do not have the training to deal with some of the issues these kids have, but we have no choice because it’s right in front of us every day.”
That is another area where Todd and his staff agree.
“The big one is the social and emotional conflict,” he said during the Feb. 28 meeting.
“When you sit down and talk to these kids on a one-on-one basis, and you find out some of the stuff they’re dealing with, I’m amazed they make it through the day,” said Todd. “If I had to deal with what these kids do every day, it would bend me down to the ground.”
Students lose the most
Through all of this, it is many of the students who bear the brunt of the problem as much as the staff.
One teacher shared what a student had written in an assignment, writing “I don’t feel safe” in the middle school and adding “I’ve almost lost my hope.”
“What’s really sad,” said one teacher, “is that more than 80 percent of the kids are fine. But these constant disruptions are robbing them of an education. If you’re worried about scores at the middle school, consider that these kids are missing hours and hours of instruction with all these problems.”
