Held to answer

A school board that is scared of its teachers and students is a school board that needs to grow a spine.

It says something about the Portland School Board that only Steve Buel remained when 400 students, teachers and their supporters interrupted a meeting to protest contract negotiations. (Andrew Davidson, the student representative to the board, also remained to his credit.) The rest of the board left, presumably with the excuse that they had another meeting.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, then, to show up three days later for a public meeting of the school district’s Bond Accountability Committee to find the door locked. Since I appeared harmless, they let me in. (Later when school board co-chair Pam Knowles arrived, she too had to rattle the locked door for entry.)

The seven-member Bond Accountability Committee is a group of school board-appointed citizens monitoring the progress of the almost half-billion dollar school bond, approved by Portland voters in November 2011. This was its sixth meeting.

The committee listened to reports on the bond’s financial audit, performance audit and its equity audit. The committee also asked if it was true that another bond already is being discussed for 2016. Yes, it is.

If board members are seriously thinking about hitting up the voters for another bond in two years, they and the teachers might give some thought to how their public image looks now.

While school administrators start grooming their list of needs and wants for the next bond, and teachers threaten a strike if they don’t get the contract they want, the students who took over the board meeting presented their own list of demands. Who can blame them for thinking that’s how it’s done?

Among the students’ demands were the usual things, such as smaller class sizes and more guidance counselors.

But “proper funding of the arts?” The city already passed a controversial arts tax in 2011.

“Funding for wrap-around programs?” Check the state budget for social services. It’s one giant wrap-around program.

“Support for all teachers?” Not all teachers are equally competent; some may not deserve support.

“No school closures?” If a school is half-empty and underperforming, maybe it’s time to shut it down.

“Relevant curriculum?” Fine, if it means more vocational-tech classes. But this is a school board that has shown a willingness to waste money on diversity lectures and Courageous Conversations that do nothing except heighten racial and ethnic stereotypes.

One demand on the students’ list has already been hailed a victory: “Restorative justice.”

Restorative justice is not what it sounds like. It’s not restoring something that has been taken from a victim. It means restoring something to the perpetrator – making him whole, giving him something that he wanted or needed.

In the context of school, because a student was lacking in something, he broke a law or violated a code of conduct. He disobeyed the teacher or disrupted class or threatened someone. Under restorative justice, instead of being expelled or suspended he would have his needs addressed and be restored as a student.

It would have been better had this concept been called restorative discipline to remind the student that he did something wrong that needs correcting. As it is now, restorative justice has nothing to do with justice. It’s almost as if punishment is wrong, as if students and teachers should be treated as equals.

Restorative justice is currently a popular concept, along with its variations. The same week Portland students were demanding restorative justice, NPR’s “Here and Now” was exposing the injustice of employers who refuse to “ban the box.” This is a reference to the box on employment applications that asks an applicant if he or she has been convicted of a crime.

The box usually is also accompanied by a statement that having a criminal history will not automatically exclude them from consideration. In some cases, there are tax incentives available to employers who hire ex-felons. (The NPR story didn’t mention that.)

If there’s a sympathetic trend not to hold adults accountable for past criminal behavior, is it surprising that some parents think their children should not be expelled or suspended for their behavior?

A group called Portland Parent Union has pushed for restorative justice, and it claimed success last year when the Oregon Legislature passed HB 2192-B, calling for rollbacks in zero-tolerance policies.

An excerpt of the Portland Parent Union mantra:

“We are the FAMILIES fed up with the racism, push out, so called achievement gap and exclusion within our education institutions. We are families who will demand our rights for our children to get the education they deserve. We will take our place as experts of our children back. We will model the strength and tenacity of a strong father/mother/grandparent/guardian who does not give up.”

Considering the poor social skills and preparedness that some students bring to school, it’s doubtful the parents of such students are reliable experts.

Portland Parent Union acknowledges: “We will take full responsibility along with accountability to galvanize, organize, and strategize the families.”

That sounds good, but had they been accountable all along, our public schools might not have devolved into de facto orphanages for kids who lost the parental lottery.

Is it any wonder teachers want more money? If you felt like you were being used as a punching bag for political purposes, you might be counting the days to retirement, too. For teachers, contract negotiations can be a chance for payback.

Unfortunately, whatever Portland school teachers’ final contract looks like, nothing may change in the classroom. It could get worse.

HB 2192-B will take effect in July, and by then school districts are supposed to modify their zero-tolerance policies. Portland Parent Union has bigger plans:

“While the passage of HB 2192-B is an exciting step towards dismantling the School to Prison Pipeline, advocates will continue to push for greater reform. According to Sheila Warren of the Portland Parent Union, this victory will give the DSC (Dignity in Schools Campaign) momentum to fight for a moratorium on out-of-school suspensions, and will similarly give leverage to the Disproportionate Discipline Advisory Team in Oregon to push their recommendations to the Department of Education.”

This is why the Portland school board needs to develop spine.

In October, six of the seven board members responded to a Willamette Week story on expulsions of black students with a letter stating, “Portland’s focus on equity has produced important gains. … We have expanded programs that have helped schools get better results for all students, and have reduced out-of-school discipline (such as restorative justice). … The fact that students of color are disciplined at a higher rate than white students is unacceptable. It is not an excuse that this disparity is long-standing or that it afflicts every major school system in the U.S. We will continue to tackle this problem on all fronts, until we achieve better and more equitable results at all our schools.”

No mention of parental responsibility. No mention that Oregon now has the worst graduation rate for white students. (Portland is the state’s largest school district.)

In the current negotiations, the Portland school board might look at what they have to offer teachers that has nothing to do with money.

– Pamela Fitzsimmons

Related:

Craven Conversations on Race

King and the Gangstahs