Big changes on the way at Kickemuit Middle School

District, school board response comes to pleas from teachers for help addressing students' behavioral and emotional issues

By Ted Hayes
Posted 2/12/19

Big changes are on the way for Kickemuit Middle School, days after a long line of teachers stood before the Bristol Warren Regional School Committee and made their case for increased funding and …

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Big changes on the way at Kickemuit Middle School

District, school board response comes to pleas from teachers for help addressing students' behavioral and emotional issues

Posted

Big changes are on the way for Kickemuit Middle School, days after a long line of teachers stood before the Bristol Warren Regional School Committee and made their case for increased funding and resources to address the emotional and behavioral health of the school's 700-plus students.
From bringing in detailed police officers for the immediate future and looking for funds to pay for a permanent school resource officer starting next year, to strategizing ways to find funding for new initiatives and old ones lost over the past several years to budget cuts, Bristol Warren Regional School Committee chairperson Erin Schofield said Monday that her committee is committed to quickly finding solutions to the school's growing behavioral issues.
The changes won't come overnight, she said, but they are coming:
"I want people to understand that I'm really optimistic that we can all work together here and come up with solutions," she said.
"I'm invested in this (and) the other school committee members are as well. Between the nine of us we have about a dozen or so kids and grandkids in our schools. So we are committed to this job."
The school committee's response following last week's meeting has not come without criticism. Detractors have spoken out on talk radio, hundreds of Facebook posters have vented their anger, and on Monday representatives of the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Rhode Island Disability Law Center, Rhode Island Legal Services, Providence Student Union and parent Support Network of Rhode Island added to the chorus.
In the letter to Ms. Schofield and district Superintendent Dr. Mario Andrade, the organizations criticized the committee for its decision last week to immediately bring in a police officer instead of "quickly expanding resources that have been depleted over the years to address the social service needs of students."
“When viewed in the light of both the testimony you heard last week and the disciplinary data we have reviewed that the school has provided the R.I. Department of Education, hiring a police officer as the first step is cause for some alarm since it may end up exacerbating, rather than alleviating, the school’s problems," the organizations' leaders wrote in a press release. "When a student’s immature behavior is addressed by a law enforcement official trained in criminality and arrest, not in getting to the root of a behavioral issue, neither the child nor the school is well served.”
In response to the criticism she said she has heard from the community, Ms. Schofield said the school board and superintendent's office are working as quickly as possible within the confines of their governance structure to make substantive changes.
Some are in process, some are yet to come, and include:

1. Hiring a detail police officer. This step has already been taken, and the district is paying for a police detail at the school while working to find funding and training for a full-time school resource officer there.
On Monday, Ms. Schofield said there have been discussions with legislators and state education officials on the possibility of receiving grants or other funds to help pay for a full-time officer. The funding mechanisms have not yet been solidified, but she said the hope is to have a permanent resource officer in the school next school year. While the organizations criticized the decision Monday, Ms. Schofield said, "we have been working on getting an SRO in that building for quite some time."
She stressed in a statement to the Times Tuesday that the officer is being put "because teachers' union reps felt that having a police officer in the building would provide support as we work to put the necessary social-emotional supports in place. The police officer is there as a resource for the students and adults, not for disciplinary or punishment purposes or to be a security guard."

2. Exploring behavioral issues at the school. Last week, the committee formed a Safety and Security at KMS Subcommittee group to discuss the issues brought up by teachers, and how to address them. It is made up of several school board members, teachers, administration and union representatives, and the Superintendent.
The subcommittee met for more than two hours Monday evening and members plan to meet again this coming week before returning a report to the full school committee on Monday, Feb. 25. Since the discussion has been behind closed doors, Ms. Schofield said she could not talk about specifics. However, "there is a lot on the table."
"We want to come out of (the meetings) with some real action plans in place just to get the ball rolling."

3. Directing Dr. Andrade to look at how to "secure additional therapeutic services for KMS as soon as possible," Ms. Schofield said at last week's meeting.
Again, Ms. Schofield said there is nothing definitive to report, as the remedies could be anything from school psychologists to additional staff or other measures, among many other solutions. The bottom line, she said, is that the measures will be put in place to help those students who have emotional or behavioral issues, while also addressing the needs of the larger school population. For his part, Dr. Andrade said following last week's meeting that he will do what it takes to get those services in place:
"Whatever is in place, we are going to have to reallocate resources," he said. "That's a priority of KMS and of the community at this point. There might be things that we're looking at funding at the moment that we might have to reallocate" resources from.

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