MULGREW EXPLAINS POSITIVE LEARNING COLLABORATIVE

Below is a piece that our union dues paid for in City and State penned by UFT President Michael Mulgrew on the Positive Learning Collaborative. Is this the cure for our school safety issues? Is it one possible solution of which there are multiple potential answers? I leave the editorializing to you.

Beyond Suspensions: A Real Solution to Student Discipline BY MICHAEL MULGREW, PRESIDENT, UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS

Discipline in our schools has been reduced to a simplistic question about the rise or fall in the number of student suspensions. But the real issue is much deeper -- how to change the overall climate in our schools to reduce the conflicts and occasions that make suspensions necessary.

In programs like the joint UFT-DOE Positive Learning Collaborative, all adults in a school building are trained to cultivate strong relationships with students, to recognize when students are facing crises that could lead to behavioral problems, and in techniques that help them defuse student conflicts. This is particularly important for children who face extraordinary challenges like homelessness or disability, and who are much more likely than their peers to be disciplined or suspended. Effective programs also provide curriculum to help students learn constructive ways to deal with frustration, anger, and depression; behavior specialists who regularly visit classrooms to provide on-going support; and a data system to track progress so schools can adapt mid-stream if something is not working. We need these changes because African-American and Latino students have borne the brunt of our failed discipline policies. They have been disproportionately suspended under "Zero Tolerance" plans. And equally troubling, they have been the first to have their education disrupted when other students act out and school communities are unprepared to tackle the problem - a reality that rarely becomes part of the public discussion. In New York City, the six public schools with a total of 3,400 children in the first cohort of the Positive Learning Collaborative have seen an 82 percent drop in suspensions, and a drop in more than half in the kind of violent incidents that usually lead to suspensions. At the same time, academic gains have either kept pace with or exceeded the citywide gains in standardized tests, while both staff and parents have reported increased levels of trust among all parties and a calmer and more nurturing school environment. One such example is PS 42 in the Bronx, a school where large numbers of children grapple with traumas such as homelessness, and where discipline had been a problem. To try to turn the school round, new principal Lucia Orduz brought in new resources and the Positive Learning Collaborative (PLC), which introduced programs to train teachers in a variety of restorative justice practices. In the words of Ms. Orduz: "We're offering the staff a solution. We're saying, here is the equipment, here are ideas, here are tools. You're not in this alone." The result: suspensions started to go down, not by pretending there were no problems, but by training the adults in the building in how to alter their own -- and students -- behavior. According to Ms. Orduz, thanks to the Positive Learning Collaborative: "We stay abreast of new techniques that we can incorporate, new tools that we can give our teachers, so that we are not only addressing negative behavior, but we're preventing negative behavior." Similar successes have been found in similar programs in districts ranging from Schenectady to Philadelphia to Oakland, California. We have been generally supportive of the city administration's reforms of school discipline, though we have insisted that student suspensions can sometimes be both necessary and appropriate. But in our discussions with the Department of Education, we have made it clear that focusing solely on suspensions treats a symptom rather than the underlying problem. Teachers, students and families deserve schools with a safe, nurturing learning environment. It is the job of the adults -- particularly supervisors -- to create and maintain that environment for all children, a job that whole-school programs like the Positive Learning Collaborative can help accomplish.

To hear more about a Bronx school using PLC listen here: http://www.uft.org/news/podcasts