Guidelines

I am one member of a five person board. The opinions I express on this forum are mine only, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Escambia County Staff, Administrators, Employees, or anyone else associated with Escambia County Florida. I am interested in establishing this blog as a means of additional transparency to the public, outreach to the community, and information dissemination to all who choose to look. Feedback is welcome, but because public participation is equally encouraged, appropriate language and decorum is mandatory. Although this is not my campaign site for re-election--sometimes campaign related information will be discussed, therefore in an abundance of caution I add the following :








Tuesday, February 17, 2015

An Escalation of Misbehavior, Increasing Violence Not Adequately Checked

Don Parker from WCOA had me on as a guest this morning to discuss discipline issues.  We had a pleasant conversation, and I discussed the discipline plan I brought to the school board last Friday morning.  I was somewhat surprised that the majority of the board feels things are essentially okay and that the current system/discipline matrix needs more time to be deployed so the results can be analyzed.

I worry about how many victims it will take before we take bold action and use every tool in our kit to get discipline under control, and violent, dangerous students moved to separate locations/programs so they won't destroy the learning environment for students and teachers as they are currently doing.

I'm going to continue to talk about the most egregious discipline infractions and the anemic ramifications these students receive each month.  Eventually, hopefully, this will get the attention it so desperately deserves from administrators and the other school board members.  This is the way parents and teachers who have contacted me want me to proceed-and so I will continue my attempt to keep the focus on these issues going forward.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...


I overheard a group of educators talking about students, after school, near a middle school parking lot. The leader of the group said to the others " if they don't kick you in the groin or pull a knife on you - let it roll. That's what the district wants.

Jeff Bergosh said...

Anonymous-that is sad and I hope that person was being sarcastic. I can tell you that is not what I want. In fact, I would tell you to please call the district anonymous hotline if you know our rules are not being followed. If the teachers are being coerced to overlook bad behavior, which I am starting to hear from more and more insiders, then the students who also happen to be disruptive, aggressive, and violent/dangerous--these students will perceive this and the atmosphere at some of our schools will deteriorate even more.