Rusnacko talks on effects of district cell phone policy

I’ve seen a big difference from last year.”

Student School Board Member Briseis Rusnacko

ISD 200 held a special meeting of the Hastings School Board to approve the Hastings Educational Secretaries’ Association contract. After the special meeting, the schoolboard held a workshop where the board heard from district principals about student behavior, from School Resource Officer Georgeann Freeman-Denn, and from several social workers from across the district concerning the importance of student surveys.

Student Behavior Report

Elementary school principals Paul Bakker of Pinecrest, Matthew Esterby of McAuliffe, and Kyle Latch of Kennedy spoke before the board about student behavior in the first part of the 2024-2025 school year, including addressing concerns of rising statistics of behavioral issues as compared to prior years.

“We are still feeling really great about the data even though the number increased,” said Esterby. Esterby spoke to how the instances of behavior issues in the elementary schools are generally less severe than in previous years and that fewer students are having behavior issues, despite the fact that there are more instances overall.

Middle School Principal Ryan Wynn spoke to behavior issues at the Middle School praising both the cell phone policy and the pod redesign that took place over the summer.

“In the hallways, it’s quiet […] but a good kind of quiet,” said Wynn.

In particular, Wynn pointed to a shift in where referrals are taking place: “50% of referrals are from in-class,” said Wynn, noting that the worst referrals are when students are alone in hallways or bathrooms, attributing the change to the pod redesign.

High School Principal Scott Doran also spoke to the district’s new cell phone policy, noting that 416 of the high school’s 519 referrals this year—more than 80%—were for cell phone use.

“They are really low level and the support from our families is outstanding,” said Doran.

Even the student school board members had good things to say about the district’s cell phone policy and its effects on student behavior: “I’ve seen a big difference from last year,” said Student School Board Member Briseis Rusnacko.

Each of the principals noted that the effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic are waning when it comes to behavioral issues from kindergarteners all the way to the high school. Doran summarized this thought: “Kids remember how to be in school now.”

School Resource Officers

In cooperation with the City of Hastings, the district is considering adding a second School Resource Officer (SRO) in addition to Officer Freeman-Denn. Hastings Police Chief Dave Wilske spoke to the classification of SROs as well as how Hastings compares to neighboring districts. “SROs are technically investigators because they investigate crimes and incidents,” said Wilske, speaking to the amount of time it takes for investigations. This labor-intensive aspect of investigations hinders an SRO’s main purpose which is to “be proactive,” said Wilske.

Red Wing has two SROs and one investigator, Cottage Grove has one SRO and five investigators, and Inver Grove Heights has one SRO and four investigators. In addition, Hastings has the most juvenile and adult felonies in the county, the “highest in Dakota County by far,” said Wilske.

Georgeann Freeman-Denn, the sole SRO for District 200, spoke to what a day in the shoes of a School Resource Officer looks like in the context of the district potentially adding another SRO. “Every day is very, very different. I don’t know what to expect,” said Freeman-Denn.

Freeman-Denn walked board members through her week up to that point including speaking with suicidal individuals, dealing with the bomb threat called into the middle school on Tuesday, investigating 911 hangups from the middle school, investigating criminal sexual complaints, advising on an accident in the high school parking lot, and taking a student for a ride in her squad car after they had received enough Raider tickets, amongst many, many other activities.

Such a packed schedule of not only moving between schools but filing paperwork on incidents makes focusing on that proactive approach difficult.

“My hope is that we can add an SRO in 2025,” said Wilske.

The school board will vote on the matter at the Nov. 20 meeting.

Student surveys

District Family Resource Coordinator Molly Cirillo, MEL Social Worker Mackenzie Lucas-Kennedy, HS Counselor Steve Peterson, MS Social Worker Cyndi Sheehan, and HS Social Worker Sara Stenger all presented on the importance of student surveys for the district.

The school board had proposed changed language for Policy 520 concerning student surveys. In particular the change to language for having students opt into certain surveys rather than having the option to opt out was of note.

The board proposed the change from a previous district policy which was Minnesota School Board Association’s (MSBA) model policy to the opt-in system for surveys “containing questions pertaining to the student’s or the student’s parent(s) or guardian(s) personal beliefs or practices in sex, family life, morality and religion,” according to the draft of the new policy language. Opt-in systems are widely understood to produce inferior data to opt-out systems because of the fewer students able to participate and self-selection bias within that participating population.

The panel presented about the various surveys administered to students and how data from these surveys, especially pertaining to mental health, are used. While all students and parents have the option of reviewing beforehand and opting out of surveys, students self-selecting themselves as willing to say they are amongst those who struggle with thoughts of self-harm, depression or suicide is crucial to the district helping them.

“We can do our jobs better because of the information we have,” said Sheehan.

The panel also addressed several common misconceptions surrounding surveys about mental health, namely that asking about issues of mental health can make those issues worse or put the idea into student’s heads, which is false.

After the presentation the board members asked questions of the panel and amongst themselves including raising concerns about the broad language of this change. Stenger referenced how she had worked with families who believed that asking students about mental health would fall under the category of asking about morality and religious beliefs, thus blurring the line between which surveys the district could have students automatically opted into or not.

Director Jenny Wiederholt-Pine cut to the heart of the issue: “Do any of our surveys actually ask ‘do you know about your parents’ practices in sex?’” The question left the board member shaking their heads.

Vice-Chair Jessica Dressely spoke to her discomfort when her son asked her about a survey given in class asking about medical conditions in his family, but “They were not asking about sex,” said Dressely.

Treasurer Mark Zuzek pushed back against the changes: “I want to express extreme caution with changing the langue from the MSBA model policy […] this is not old language. This is current language.”

“Opt out is the best model for getting that data,” said Director Matt Bruns.

The board decided to review the language of this policy at the next policy committee meeting and add a definition of the term ‘survey’ in order to specify what exactly would fall into this category.