International travel for groups reinstated, district won’t fund long-term tech fund to help budget

By John McLoone

Discipling and behavior problems at Hastings School District buildings tend to be committed by repeat offenders.

Superintendent Dr. Bob McDowell gave a report on behavior and discipline at the ISD 200 Board of Education meeting Wednesday night, Aug. 24.

McDowell said a behavior committee was formed during the 201819 school year, and a discipline policy review committee was formed in the 202122 school year. That committee includes school staff and parents. A new discipline policy was adopted in the 202122 school year.

McDowell said committees are working through data. From that, changes are being made.

There have been additional student support staff added.

“We’re really focusing on restorative practices this year,” said McDowell. “The discipline policy doesn’t fix behavior problems in the classroom.”

Restorative discipline is defined as “a relational approach to building school climate and addressing student behavior.”

The “climate” is changed on the front end to reduce having to discipline as many behavior problems.

“We really need to focus on the front end of this,” said McDowell.

In the 1819 school year, at the high school, there were 1,632 referred behavior and discipline referrals. Of those 1,113 were for attendance issues, parking problems and work refusal. There were 519 discipline events from 269 students. Of those, 48 students had three or more referrals. There were 107 out of school suspensions.

By comparison, in the 202122 school year, there were 1,429 referred incidents, with 1,086 being from attendance, parking or work refusal issues. There were 362 discipline events involving 190 students, and there were 32 students with three or more referrals. There were 106 out of school suspensions.

The vast majority of the problems were minor.

“They were ‘I didn’t bring my parking permit. I drove a different car.’ That’s not disrupt the classroom type discipline,” McDowell said.

This last year, there were times when problems spiked at the school.

“We have parts of the year where bathrooms were a problem for us, like during the ‘Tik Tok’ challenge. It felt like things were not going well,” said McDowell. “We responded by adding hallway monitors.”

One “challenge” in 2021 from the social platform Tik Tok had students videotaping school bathrooms being vandalized.

In the middle school, in 201819 there were 1,395 referred incidents coming from 378 students, and 150 students had three or more incidents. Of those, 97 resulted in out of school suspensions.

In 202122 at the middle school, there were 911 referred incidents coming from 274 students, and 96 had threeplus incidents. There were 149 out of school suspensions.

“At the middle school, the difference is more significant. Last year, we had less than 1,000 referrals. Our out of school suspensions increased at the middle school by quite a bit. That’s something we have to look at,” said McDowell. “What’s going on with those kids that they’re being suspended at a larger rate?”

At the elementary schools, in 201819 there were 309 referred incidents, compared to just 121 in the 202122 school year. In 1819, there were 22 students with threeplus incidents, compared to just 14 in 2122.

Out of school suspensions dropped from 38 in 1819 to 18 in 2122. In 1819 there were eight students who were given 35 of those suspensions, while in 2122 there were four students with multiple suspensions.

“In the grand scheme of things, we have really wellbehaved kids. We have students that struggle with school. We have students that struggle with behavior for a variety of reasons. We have to make sure support is in place,” said McDowell.

Work is being done to “align” discipline, so all teachers are disciplining in similar fashion.

“I think we’ll continue to see these numbers decrease,” Mc-Dowell said. “We’re working with staff, so they know what systems are in place. We’re making sure staff are holding students accountable at the same level. It’s no different than when we’re parenting. We’re doing a lot of selfreflection and good information is coming out of our teaching staff which is not surprising. We’re in a good spot.”

Board Director Lisa Hedin commented, “I would hope at the administrator level that there’s an evaluation of equitable discipline practice, that we see that classes of students by race or gender or special education status are having the same experience.”

“That’s what the principals are working on now,” said Mc-Dowell.

He said the district was given a first notice “for disproportionality” from the state.

“Our dismissal rate for our special ed students and our students of color were at a higher percentage than white students. Those are things we’re paying attention to.”

He said the state tracks discipline by gender, ethnicity, race and special education status.

“Districts are notified if they’re disproportionate,” said Mc-Dowell. “One year, you’re notified, two years you’re put on notice, three years you may have to come up with a plan.”

In other business: Back to school

McDowell said there are 43 new hires to the school district, and 22 of them are teachers. Teachers returned to class Aug. 29.

He commended the district maintenance and custodial staff with getting buildings ready for the school year.

“I want to give a huge shoutout to our custodians and our maintenance staff. Our building look really great. They’re really shortstaffed. Anytime anyone has the chance to give a shoutout to our custodians, that’s really appreciated,” McDowell said.

Board retreat

Director Stephanie Malm urged that a session be put on the docket to help the board to work together. The board had been working to schedule that for late August.

She suggested it be included with a coming work session evening if it can’t be a standalone meeting.

“It wouldn’t be ideal. After a long day of working, it’s hard to sit for three or four hours, but it’s critical,” she said.

“Whatever it takes to get it done,” agreed Board Chair Brian Davis.

International travel

School groups can start to plan international trips again.

The school board restricted travel to the contiguous United States because of the logistics of getting students home if travel was shut down due to the pandemic.

The motion passed by the board stipulates that participants must be offered trip insurance to protect families if there is a trip cancellation. Trip organizers also must submit a medical emergency plan. If a student can’t return with the group or has to stay longer, parents assume responsibility for the student.

“International travel is coming back. I’m excited about that,” said Davis.

Technology fund transfer

The district voted to put on hold transferring money each year for longterm technology projects because of a tight budget year expected. McDowell said that $100,000 was put into a technology fund annually, but that was increased to $300,000 last year.

“This is something the board has done for many years now. Historically, it was $100,000 a year. As we went through budget adjustments last year, one of the decisions the board made was to increase that to $300,000.”

There is currently $925,000 in the fund. “Our recommendation is we ask the board to rescind that and allow us to keep that $300,000 in the general fund,” Mc-Dowell said. “We feel we have enough the in the shortterm to take care of our technology need.”

The rescinding of the funding is permanent until the board votes to reinstate it.