There was a bit of a shouting match at the Oklahoma City Public School’s board meeting on Monday night.
Ed Allen, president of the Oklahoma City American Federation of Teachers made a public comment, reiterating his feelings that student behavior in Oklahoma City Public Schools is getting out of hand, and that the district is neglecting to act on it. During his comment he referred to the teacher survey the OKC-AFT recently circulated to teachers about the district’s new policy on student discipline.
“Now you know,” Allen told the board. “Now you know because AFT teacher Survey reveals the ugly truth of what really happens in the schools and classrooms across our district. Unfortunately these identified problems receive little attention, pretend attention, or no attention."
Allen continued, "What will it take for our district to admit these conditions exist? Those reading the survey results and comments will understand that 1) Many of our schools and classrooms are not safe and orderly. Number 2) It is difficult, if not impossible, in many schools to get administrative help with student misbehavior. 3) Adequate time is not given to our teachers to take care of normal classroom responsibilities. And 4) Teacher morale is extremely low, and retention will be a growing problem.”
Allen said he wanted to know if teachers were getting the support they need from administrators when disciplining students. The district is currently revising its code of conduct in an attempt to curb its suspension rates. The Center for Civil Rights Remedies recently called them some of the highest in the nation, and in the fall of 2014, the U.S. Office of Civil Rights started investigating OKCPS for allegedly suspending black and Hispanic students at disproportionate rates. KOSU reported on this in March.
Board member, Bob Hammack, responded to Allen’s comments later on in the meeting, calling them false.
“You don’t say, this is a fact, when it’s not a fact,” Hammack said. “You don’t say this represents everyone when you don’t have the courtesy to disclose that it doesn’t represent everyone. It does not speak for all teachers.”
Allen tried to respond, but Hammack said, “I’m talking, pal. Have a seat!”
Hammock continued, “The picture he paints is certainly troubling, but the characterization, however, and that this board is indifferent and is not striving to fix these problems is laughable. It shows remarkable ignorance.”
Hammack touted that the district had 98 percent of their teaching positions filled at the beginning of the year, as proof that the district is doing something right.
“Our staff is working every day to make the lives of students better, and if you can’t stand that, too bad, pal.”
The district has reduced its suspension rates by about 40 percent so far this year. But Allen said that doesn't mean behavior is actually improving:
"But in that effort, we believe, there’s been a message sent to principals, to ignore discipline problems, because those may turn in to suspensions, because those numbers have to go down. And all along they’ve been implying to the community, when they announce that their suspension rates have gone down, they’ve been implying that behavior is better. That’s absolutely false. There’s no correlation between reducing suspensions and improved student behavior."
The union conducted its survey on October 3, and 836 teachers responded, which is about 30 percent of the teachers employed by the district. Tim Willert from The Oklahoman reported on it, here.
Some of the results are:
- 60 percent of respondents said there was some increase in the amount of offending behavior from last year. 29 percent said it was about the same.
- 32 percent of respondents said their administrators were very responsive and supportive in dealing with behavioral issues. 16 percent said they were slightly or very unresponsive.
- 86 percent said the teachers were responsible for administering the majority of discipline.
Superintendent Rob Neu also released a statement saying:
“The conditions described in the AFT-OKC teacher survey are not new, or uniform across the district. Improving student behavior, support for teachers and reducing suspensions will require changes in the entire district and those changes must start with the adults.”
