Student behavior issues a top concern for Wichita schools going into next semester

Following a semester marked by student brawls and weapons arrests, some Wichita Public Schools employees say the district isn’t doing enough to keep staff safe in the classrooms and halls of city schools.

“Educators, security officers and staff shouldn’t be fearful to come to work,” service union busines representative Esau Freeman told school board members at a meeting earlier this month.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than 80% of public schools across the U.S. report the pandemic has negatively impacted both student behavior and socio-emotional development.

Wichita district officials say the disruptive behavior of less than 10% of students is stretching educators to their limits and undermining the “more than 90%” of students who are doing the right thing. For Kansas’ largest school district, the behavior issues have been acute while not unique.

A fight at Southeast in September led to a security officer using pepper spray to disperse a crowd of students in the cafeteria, and a brawl at West earlier this month resulted in the school’s head principal being struck when he tried to intervene.

“All school districts are a mirror or what’s going on in society,” BOE President Stan Reeser told The Eagle. “The good things that are happening in our community show up in our classes. The bad things that happen in our community show up in our classes.

“We just came through a trauma of two and a half years of a severe amount of isolation. And not only are our students feeling it, but our educators are feeling it. Our administrators are feeling it, and believe me, our school board members certainly are.”

In the first two weeks of the fall semester, staff found five guns at Wichita high schools — including two at East, one at Heights and one at North, records obtained through the Kansas Open Records Act show. The BOE approved plans in September to install weapon detectors in the entrances of each district high school.

“It is your responsibility to provide a safe working environment for your employees,” Freeman told school board members. “Unfortunately, if we were handing out grades, USD 259 is struggling to make an F into a D minus. We should be providing public education but it feels like we’re running a correctional institution.”

District spokesperson Susan Arensman disputed Freeman’s characterization in an email statement to The Eagle.

“Safety is of paramount importance to our district, as evidenced by the priority we placed on safety by including it as a pillar of our strategic plan,” Arensman said. “We consistently monitor data, and our data indicators do not say what Mr. Freeman is saying.”

District seeks solutions

Delena Mock, a security officer at North High School, wrote in a letter to Freeman that the district’s efforts to remedy disruptive behavior do not appear to be working.

“The students that batter one another don’t care and staff are getting hurt,” Mock wrote. “Policies that deal with this type of behavior do not seem to be helping. We are just passing the problems around when they get sent to other schools.”

Mock expressed frustration with the district’s talking points on student behavior.

“The statement that is being said and repeated often is ‘The behavior of a few will not be the focus of our district.’ However, the ‘few’ are who we are speaking of that cause a complete high school to go into lockdown or more police presence being called in,” Mock wrote. “This [is happening] not just a few times but more than people know.”

Reeser, the BOE president, said the district is investing in a multifaceted approach to curtailing disruptive behavior that acknowledges the collective trauma students have experienced over the last few years.

“We’ve put more money into counseling. We’ve put more money into mental health. We’ve put more money into restorative practice, which is going to take time to show some benefits or some positive outcomes,” Reeser said.

During teacher’s union contract negotiations for this school year, the district agreed to a memorandum of understanding forming a behavior work group to review and study student behavior districtwide in the wake of the pandemic.

That group includes four representatives each from the teacher’s union and service union, as well as Sean Hudspeth, the district’s chief human resources officer. The group has met twice and two more meetings are scheduled for the spring. School board member Kathy Bond requested that the work group provide regular updates to the BOE next semester.

“We don’t know everything that goes on as far as behavioral problems but we do know that they are elevated,” board member Hazel Stabler told The Eagle.

“I agree that the situation is at a point where we definitely need to take immediate action. And what that would be, I don’t know. I wouldn’t know without learning — I don’t know everything that’s being done.”

Earlier this month, Stabler attended the Council of Urban Boards of Education’s annual conference in Miami, where district officials from across the U.S. commiserated about the challenges they’re facing.

“It’s a universal problem. We’re not special. All urban schools are experiencing the same behavioral problems, the same teacher shortages,” Stabler said.

Employee testimonials

Teachers and other district employees were given an opportunity to provide the student behavior work group with feedback about their experiences in schools since the return to in-person education last school year.

Of the 115 anonymous testimonials provided by school district employees and obtained by The Eagle through an open records request, just three reported no concerns with disruptive behavior and the district’s approach to controlling it.

“We focus on the behavior students’ trauma, but what about the trauma happening because of their behavior?” one employee wrote.

“The behavior in my classes and in the building are a contributing factor in my decision to retire at the end of this year,” wrote another. “Lack of understanding and communication with administrators over behaviors is another, teachers being blamed is not fair or correct.”

Common themes expressed by teachers and staff were that students have become more distracted by devices and disrespectful towards adults since the pandemic began.

“Students are so much needier since covid as they don’t always know how to interact with others,” one employee wrote.

“My team is very concerned about the physical violence we are experiencing in elementary schools,” wrote another. “Students are slapping, punching, kicking, pushing, spitting, wrestling, and throwing items at other students and staff.”

Another common theme was that parents need to be involved and held accountable for their children’s behavior.

“We’ve got a lot of parents in situations where their whole life is feeding and housing their kids and then hopefully having enough money to put gas in the gas tank so they can drive those kids to school,” Reeser said. “For us to then ask them to do some more — it’s a tough task but it has to be done because it’s really going to take a collaborative effort.”

Reeser said finding solutions to support employees will be a major priority for the district in the coming semester.

“We are going to need teachers to feel supported by school principals when they need them to deal with a difficult situation,” Reeser said. “The building administrators need to feel like they have the flexibility and the backing of the top administration and the school board when they have to make the tough choices on what is right for the child and for the family in regards to behavior.”

The district is also in the process of naming a new superintendent to replace Alicia Thompson, who last month announced her plans to retire at the end of the school year.

This story was originally published December 30, 2022 at 5:42 AM.