Episode Details

Happy Friday!

As we wrap up another productive week, I want to take a moment to express my sincere thanks and appreciation for the hard work and dedication you continue to demonstrate. Your commitment to our students and community remains unwavering, and it is reflected in the ongoing work toward meeting our discipline and attendance performance targets. While discipline referrals continue to present challenges, we are seeing improvement in our attendance rates, thanks to your continued efforts. Additionally, we were informed by DESE that we will be receiving our ATLAS results within the next two weeks. I look forward to sharing these with you and discussing how we can continue building on the areas where we are making progress. Thank you again for all that you do!

Our Leadership PLC met this morning to review and discuss current trends in our discipline and attendance data. As a district, we are committed to addressing the challenges we face head-on, and we are actively collaborating on solutions that will help us meet our goals. In this week’s Wrap-up, I want to provide you with an overview of our recent discussions, insights into how we are addressing specific discipline trends, and a few important informational items to keep on your radar.

Year-to-Date Discipline

As of October 4, 2024, we have seen a notable increase in discipline incidents across several categories compared to the same period last year. For example, bus incidents have risen significantly, from 58 incidents in 2023 to 83 incidents in 2024. Class disruptions have also increased, with 33 incidents this year, up from 31 last year. Fights have increased from 5 incidents to 16. Additionally, incidents related to disorderly conduct have surged from 11 in 2023 to 40 this year, reflecting an area that requires focused attention. We are also seeing a higher number of violations related to personal electronic devices, which jumped from 6 incidents in 2023 to 39 incidents in 2024.

Our district leadership team is fully aware of these trends and is actively collaborating to analyze the underlying causes and identify more effective intervention strategies. I would like to provide a little more insight into how we are addressing these increases.

Personal Electronic Devices

It is obvious why our electronic devices infractions would increase due to our prohibiting cell phones but we are also seeing very positive results from this policy such as more social interaction among students and less distraction in the classroom.

Bus Incidents

At the start of this year, Mr. Torix informed me that we have more students riding the buses than in previous years, and we are still experiencing a shortage of bus drivers. Last year, to address the driver shortage, we combined one route with others, which allowed us to operate with one less driver. However, this year, with one fewer route and more students, some of our buses have become overcrowded.

I plan to reinstate the combined route to help alleviate the crowding, but we do not yet have enough drivers to do so. Several individuals are currently in the process of obtaining their CDL, and we are holding after-school and evening sessions to help expedite their certification. Once these new drivers are on board, we will add the extra route, which we anticipate will reduce the overcrowding and help address some of the discipline issues we are seeing on the buses.

Class Distruptions and Disorderly Conduct

Class disruption