Franklin Schargel’s Blog

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a problem of not being able to focus, being overactive, not being able control behavior, or a combination of these. For these problems to be diagnosed as ADHD, they must be out of the normal range for a person’s age and development.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the number of children diagnosed with ADHD has almost doubled in the last 20 years.  Now almost one in five American boys are diagnosed with the condition by age 17.

What are the implications for American education?  Assuming that 1/2 of school classrooms are made up of males:

• In an elementary school classroom of 25 students, half of whom are male, at least 2 students have ADHD.
• in a high school class of 34 students, half of whom are male, at least 3 students have ADHD.

These students because of the effects of the disease may disrupt the teaching and learning process. Teachers need to be prepared to teach these students because many of them are assigned to Special Education classes, “pushed out of school” or assigned to alternative education schools, or encouraged to dropout.

 

 

It is time to end the charade of the concern of politicians and conservatives about the future of America.  The United States supports the building of schools in and around the world because we know that education is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to build a country.  Go into a room of highly successful people anywhere in the room and you will find one commonality. Most people sitting in that room were able to achieve their success by succeeding in their educational systems. Education should be the one budget item that is protected at all costs.  In the 21^st century, great countries will have great schools.  So it is strange that we engage in nation building in foreign countries and scrimp at home.  How is it that we can afford to increase our military budget, and cannot afford to invest in America’s children’s future?  It would appear to me that this is a great way for our country to compete with other countries in the future.  If we look at China and India, they were able to leapfrog much of the rest of the world by laser-like focusing on education.

 We keep on hearing that education is expensive.  It isn’t! Ignorance is.   We either will pay for education up-stream or the lack of education downstream.  Over 70% of our nation’s prisoners are school dropouts.  We were told that the reason we couldn’t limit executive pay on Wall Street was because we needed the best and brightest to run these companies, yet the same people who told us that are now saying we need to limit teacher pay to save money.

 Good schools benefit everyone. Poor children who get a good education become successful adults who contribute rather than drain the system. Tax dollars are going to them one way or the other.  We need to find a more equitable way to pay for schools other than property tax, especially as our population grows older. It creates a huge burden on property owners and massive inequities.  America was built by having free, public education for all.  Yet, we are abandoning our goal of a good education for all. Budget cuts are undermining our long-term prospects for a prosperous society, by shortchanging our youth of the skills that they need to contribute.  We’re eating America’s seed corn!

When Michelle Rhee was the chancellor of Washington, D.C. public schools in 2008, she was convinced that tenure was hurting her students. Back then, she told The New York Times: “Tenure is the holy grail of teacher unions but has no educational value for kids; it only benefits adults. If we can put veteran teachers who have tenure in a position where they don’t have it, that would help us to radically increase our teacher quality. And maybe other districts would try it, too.”

Today, as the founder and CEO of StudentsFirst, a non-profit organization that fights against seniority-based tenure.
The fight against tenure has found a place in many state legislatures as well as with some governors.
Tenure was put in place to protect teachers from capricious firings but Ms. Rhee contends that  “a fifth-year teacher can be just as effective as a 20th-year teacher.” And tenure is achieved in K-12 systems only after a probationary period of 3-5 years.  In addition, tenure in K-12, unlike university tenure, does not guarantee a life-long job but merely “due process”.

Is the fight over tenure really a fight over higher paid, longer-serving teachers or student achievement? If given a personal choice over a doctor in a critical, possibly life-ending surgery, would you choose a more experienced doctor who has had a great deal of  experience in performing the surgery or a newly-hired, book-trained, technologically prepared surgery?  Who would Ms. Rhee choose?

Franklin will be presenting two workshops at the National Alternative Education Conference to be held in the Atlanta, Marriott Marquis.  The workshops will be:

Raising the Graduation Rate of Alternative Learners

&

Creating Safe Schools

Investigator-Initiated Research: The Comprehensive School Safety Initiative

Deadline: May 20th, 2014
The Department of Justice Appropriations Act, 2014, provides funds for the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to undertake a research-focused initiative, the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative, to increase the safety of schools nationwide. This wide-ranging initiative will bring together the nation’s best minds to research the root causes of school violence, develop technologies and strategies for increasing school safety, and provide pilot grants to test innovative approaches to enhance school safety across the nation.
Funder: National Institute of Justice
Eligibility: Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, small businesses, individuals, city or township governments, public and state controlled institutions of higher education, state governments, special district governments, public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, county governments, Native American tribal governments (federally recognized), Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the, IRS, other than institutions of higher education, independent school districts, for profit organizations other than small businesses, private institutions of higher education.
Amount: $1,000 – $1,000,000.
Contact: Link.

I am honored to present this from my friend, Stephen Sroka. School Safety Lessons Learned: From Cleveland to Newtown was chosen the Best of the Blog for the ASCD Whole Child Blog for 2013.  Stephen is a highly prized speaker speaking around the world on the topic of school safety.  I am honored to call him my friend.

 

School Safety Lessons Learned:

From Cleveland to Newtown

By Stephen Sroka

I dealt with school violence before it was fashionable and funded. To me, any child killed anywhere, anytime, is a huge tragedy. But decades ago, when children were killed in the inner city of Cleveland, you probably never heard about them. But when the killings moved to the suburbs, such as Columbine, they became national news. The Newtown shootings shocked this country like no other school violence. Now, school violence prevention is front page-news everywhere. Working with school safety for over 30 years, I have tried to help schools and communities keep our youth safe and healthy so that they can learn more and live better. I offer several lessons that I have learned.

School violence can happen anywhere, but not here. After school shootings, it is often heard, “I cannot believe that it can happen here.” As we have learned, school violence can happen anywhere. But don’t be surprised after the next tragedy if someone says, “I cannot believe that it can happen here.” Denial is human.

Be prepared, not scared. Schools are not powerless. Awareness, education, and advocacy can help break down this attitude that it can’t happen here. Schools and districts need to have a school-community emergency plan of action in place for students, staff, and parents. It should be both practiced and proactive. Practice drills are crucial. Denial allows violence to grow unseen. Preparation allows violence to be dealt with as soon as it is seen.

Social media has changed how we communicate. Texts, tweets, and Facebook posts, which were not around at the time of the Columbine shootings, now offer instant information-and misinformation. Before problems occur, students need to be part of a dialogue with parents and educators about how schools can responsibly use social media to make schools safer. Social media may prove to be one of the best new tools to help keep our schools safe and parents informed, and to encourage students to take ownership of their schools and education.

Bullying is a symptom, and mental health is the issue.

Bullying is a hot topic and often is blamed for many of the heinous actions that result in deaths. Bullying is serious and needs to be addressed. But, some experts today do not see bullying as a cause, but rather as a symptom of a mental health problem. In fact, bullying is often mentioned as a cause for violence even when it is not, as Columbine. Issues such as mental illness, depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, anger, family violence and substance abuse are often at the root of such destructive behaviors.

Treat the illness: not the symptom. Many professionals would like to provide a comprehensive mental-health approach for the schools, families, and community. Perhaps depression screening for all students may prove to be more helpful in identifying those at risk of hurting themselves as well as others. Some experts are now suggesting that teachers be taught mental health first aid to assist those in crisis. As we often see, hurt people, hurt people; and the use of mental health professionals, such as, school counselors, school social workers, school nurses, school psychologists, as well as, school resource officers may enable us to help people, help people.

Building relationships is key. We may need more metal detectors, but we must have more student detectors. The Secret Service found that school shooters usually tell other kids, but not adults. Adults trusted by kids may be given life saving information. We need to put a human face on school safety. Teaching to the heart, as well as, to the head to reach the whole child, not only academically, but also to the social, mental, emotional, physical and spiritual dimensions, will help build a school and community of respect. Social emotional learning can help students learn in a safe environment. We often say to police officers that you have a more powerful weapon in your heart than in your holster, to make your school safer. School safety needs to be built in, not tacked on. Students respond to people, not programs. You cannot mandate kindness, but you can nurture it by building relationships with communication, collaboration, cultural awareness, and caring. Words can kill, and words can give life. You choose.

When kindness fails, you need to be aggressive, forceful, and effective. An emergency plan of action needs to be in place, practiced and proactive. Teachers and students should be trained and allowed to practice lockdown drills. Parents need a low tech and high tech communication system for responding to school emergencies. Gone are the days of Columbine when police waited for hours to enter the school. Today police and community emergency response teams are trained for active shooter/rapid response, to take out the shooter ASAP.

Healing is personal. Schools need to be prepared to deal with the consequences of violence immediately and long after the incident. Individuals react to grief in a wide a range of ways, and there is no best way to grieve. Where some people need to process the grief immediately, others need to be left alone. Grief has no specific timeline for everyone.

School safety has entered uncharted waters. When I started working in school safety decades ago, the weapon of choice for school violence was a box cutter or knife, now it is semi-automatic weapons. What will be next? The unthinkable is now doable, and probably unpreventable. The Newtown shootings raise disturbing issues and questions. Controversial approaches, which once would have been considered ridiculous, are now being debated, such as arming teachers and having teachers and students take out the shooter by any means possible. Guns, metal detectors, mental health issues, zero tolerance, and other emotional issues make for complex and difficult decisions. A voice of reason is often lost in the heat of hysteria.

There are no guarantees, only intelligent alternatives. Today, we are better prepared to deal with and prevent school violence than we were in the earlier days in Cleveland and Columbine. There still is no 100% guarantee that our schools will be violence-free. There are no easy solutions, but there are intelligent alternatives to reduce the risks. It’s time for all schools to explore these alternatives. For some, tomorrow may be too late

© 2013 Stephen R. Sroka, PhD, Lakewood, Ohio. Used with permission.

Stephen Sroka, PhD, is an adjunct assistant professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and the president of Health Education Consultants. He is an award-winning educator, author and internationally recognized speaker. He has worked with school violence issues worldwide for more than 30 years. Connect with Sroka on his website

www.DrStephenSroka.com or by e-mail at [email protected]

 

 

Does showing anti-bullying videos encourage or discourage bullying?  This is the question that police and school officials in Sparks, Nevada are trying to determine.  An anti-bullying video that includes a dramatization of a child taking a gun on a school bus to scare aggressors was shown in the school. The video, which uses the scene as an illustration of the wrong way to respond, was being studied as students and faculty members prepared to return to Sparks Middle School, where a boy fatally shot a teacher, wounded two classmates and killed himself Monday. Reno’s KRNV-TV reported that some students said they watched the video, entitled “Bully,” earlier this month. It wasn’t clear if the video had been seen by the young gunman.

A study published in the Journal of Criminology suggested that anti-bullying programs could be having the opposite effects. In an analysis of 7,000 students from 50 states, researchers from the University of Texas at Arlington found that students at schools with anti-bullying initiatives may be more likely to become a victim of bullying.

Schools need to be aware of the law of unintended consequences when showing videos or discussing things which can be used in the opposite way.

Most of Tyler Long’s teachers loved him because he absorbed classroom material “like a sponge,” his mother, Tina Long, recalled. Her son was a “rule-oriented” elementary school student who had an “obsessive interest” in golfing. Social situations often overwhelmed him, however, and he was frequently the target of harassment by his peers. While in the sixth grade in Georgia, Tyler was diagnosed with Asperger’s disorder, an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and subsequently placed on a number of medications. According to Long, the prescriptions made her son sleepy and he soon gained 60 pounds.

The schools did little to halt her son’s bullying, Long claims. The middle school principal, she alleged, told her to write off the harassment as “boys being boys.” A week afterward, she said Tyler was attacked by three students in a school bathroom.

Throughout middle school and high school, the bullying continued. “They pushed him into lockers, they spit in his food,” Long said. “A boy said there were over 200 people doing this to him. … It was every day.”

“I just knew I was going to come around the corner and find Troy dead, because of his heart,” she said. Her youngest son was born without a right ventricle, and had underwent numerous surgeries. “I’ll never forget watching them take him out of my house, in a body bag,” Long said. “We just didn’t know how bad it was for

A well-developed reporting platform, school transparency and community involvement are all necessary to combat school bullying on the national level, Long said. “They have got to have a good documentation system to where everything’s not meetings and papers,” she said. “We have got to be able to pull up what’s going on in our schools.”

However, she believes another key factor is student inclusion.

“Let these kids use their creativity to come up with what they need to make this successful,” she said. “Because they can do it, I’ve seen it.”

She encourages parents to speak to their children’s friends because, she said, no matter how tranquil a student’s home life may be, the impact of his or her school experiences could prove dire.

“If we had went to that school and started talking to people about what Tyler was going through, we would’ve known,” she said. “If your kid comes and says “˜I’m getting bullied,’ times it by 10, because it is always much worse than what they’re telling you.”

Schools need to take reports of bullying seriously.  They cannot dismiss it with clichés like “it’s normal” or “˜it’s boys being boys”.  Too many youngsters, especially those perceived as being different (too fat, too short, members of minorities, LGBT kids, or those with learning disabilities) are being targeted.  We need to hold aggressors accountable for their actions.  Schools need to develop a reporting platform.  There is a need for community involvement to combat school bullying.  Parents need to speak to their children’s friends because no matter how tranquil a student’s home life may be, the impact of his or her school experiences could prove dire.  If a child reports to a parent or school official that they are being bullied, times it by 10, because it is much worse than they are telling you.