Schools

School Board Mulls Parental Notification, Access To Hearing Recordings In Discipline Work Session

Members press for more clarity, discussion about proposed system changes

Fairfax County School Board members and local advocacy groups say more work is needed on recommended changes to the system’s disciplinary process – specifically in the areas of parental notification and access to audio recordings of hearings.

Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Jack Dale presented and Student Responsibilities and Rights handbook at Monday’s work session, along with and groups such and

The board dedicated $500,000 for reform The school board will give their amendments to the proposed changes sometime later this month and vote during their June 1 meeting.

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Dale’s initial recommendations and the issue of involuntary transfers – a point of focus for much of the discussion about reform – were largely unchanged from earlier meetings, and hardly touched compared to several other issues school board members said needed more clarity.

“I’m worried that there’s not enough clarity at the earliest stages of the process,” said at-large member Tina Hone, who pushed for more exploration into prevention and an emphasis on kids who are involved violence or gang activity.

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Mason District School Board Member Sandy Evans said she felt that the recommendations didn’t go far enough and did not include true parent notification. Under the recommendations discussed Monday, parents would receive notification only after a student is questioned by a principal and before signing a statement.

The proposed policy does not specifically require the principal to notify parents after a student is questioned, though one official mentioned “by the end of the day” earlier in the presentation.

 “As soon as a child is brought in for something they’re suspected of that could lead to their expulsion or criminal charges, as a parent, I want to be called,” said Evans, whose comment drew applause from the audience.

When pressed by Evans as to why parents would not be informed before a principal speaks to a student, Dale said principals need time to figure out things on their own before notifying parents.

Under the proposed plan, FCPS would also provide parents access to audio recordings of all hearings, but would not distribute them. The practice is expensive, risks confidentiality and allows for selective editing by third parties, officials said.

School board members thought the recordings should be more widely available.

“[The disciplinary process] is a confusing process, it’s an emotional process and to that end, I don’t know why we can’t give them an audio recording because they’re going to walk out of those hearings and their heads are going to be spinning,” said Providence District member Patty Reed.

The system would also expedite letters sent to parents after students go through the process. Detailed decision letters would be reserved only for the 20 percent of hearing office students the school board sees; shorter, more concise letters would be sent to all students who receive lesser consequences by the second day of a hearing.

The letters would explain that a hearing took place, what students are being accused of and if they admitted or denied it, along with the decision and the appeal rights, said Mary Ann Panarelli, director of intervention and prevention services for the Department of Special Services.

Other recommendations included:

  • Extending the current three-day seminar on prevention of drug and alcohol intervention to five days.
  •  Assigning a case manager to any student who is out of school on suspension longer than 10 days to ensure that each student stays current with his or her academic assignments.
  • Putting students in the process through an emotional status assessment

 [See PDF for full explanation of details under each area].

Monday’s recommendations also dealt with changes in language of the SR+R, most notably around the possession of over-the-counter medication versus prescription medication, and the intent behind the possession. Currently, students who bring over-the-counter drugs to school face a wide range of consequences; expulsion can only be recommended if the student’s intent is to distribute, misuse or abuse over-the-counter drugs.

While prescription medications remain in the same category as drug and alcohol infractions, the recommendations give school principals the ability to do thorough investigations and recommend alternative consequences for students in possession of their own prescription drugs instead of being required to recommend expulsion.

“I think it’s very important that we recognize these are children we’re molding; they’re not criminals, so I would like to change the tone to make it more constructive,” Reed said. 

Fairfax Zero Tolerance Reform’s Caroline Hemenway said the language changes discussed in Monday’s session did little to address the group’s main concerns, and in some cases, took the system backward.  

“The alarming problem is that the language proposed by FCPS staff for SR&R changes was absolutely inadequate and had almost no relationship to the proposals they delivered in discussion preceding the SR&R presentation,” Hemenway said in an e-mail after the session. “We expect that the actual amendments to be worked on and presented prior to the next full board meeting will reflect the real views of real parents involved in real discipline issues -- which has not happened yet.”


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