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Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009

Bibb schools’ No. 1 issue

The Bibb County Board of Education will come to voters during the next few months to convince them it needs to continue the ELOST (Education Local Option Sales Tax) that will expire Jan. 1, 2011.

The board wants to build five new elementary schools and renovate others. It wants to make improvements at Miller and Appling middle schools, Westside High School and at the central office. I don’t doubt all the items on the wish list are needed. However, there is something the district needs that is not covered in the almost $200 million ELOST.

While I’m no expert in cirriculum or instruction and I don’t have the experience of years in the classroom, I do know learning is more difficult when disruptive students are around, and the steps the Bibb system is employing to remove those students falls far short of what’s needed.

Simply, Bibb has a discipline problem. And after just one full week of the 2009-2010 school year, students are, to use the vernacular, “off the chain.” Why? Because they know they can.

Expelling disruptive children in the Bibb County system is more difficult than reading President Obama’s health-reform plan. Troublesome children are shipped back to the same classrooms where, the day before, they called their teachers “GDBs.”

This does three things: It demoralizes the teacher; it provides a foul example for other children; and it gives the foul-mouthed child an air of invulnerability.

I know what you’re thinking. “Richardson, don’t identify a problem without providing solutions.”

OK, here goes. The Bibb school system needs to establish a set of age appropriate alternative educational settings. Unfortunatly, that would include students in elementary school. Quite frankly, one of the reasons our alternative baby-sitting schools don’t work now is because children, by the time they are in middle and high school, are dealing with issues that should have, and maybe could have, been identified and corrected years before.

These alternative learning centers would not just be schools staffed by district personnel. These schools would be equipped to handle all the issues its students present.

The facilities would be fitted with 21st century technology and would deal with the mental and physical well being of its students. It would be staffed with the best availble teachers skilled and trained to deal with the issues disruptive students present.

The schools would be zero tolerance, last chance facilities, particularly in the middle and high school grades.

Reading, life skills and conflict resolution would be emphasized. Students would live and breathe it. Basic educational skills would be hammered home. Parental involvement would be mandatory. If they don’t want to do it, read the following paragraphs.

Students sent to these facilities would not return to their home schools until they had completed a plan for their success. The plan would include family, law enforcement if necessary, family counseling and extensive follow up.

OK Richardson, what do you do with those who fail? A simple message: “You can’t go to school in this district anymore. Have a nice life. See ya later.”

Sounds cruel, doesn’t it? It’s cruel to hold back students who want to learn and can learn but are being influenced by those who could care less about their education.

To implement such a program, community support is required. The state doesn’t pay for alternative education so the burden would fall on local taxpayers, but the now old saying applies: You can pay now or later, but you’re gonna pay. The only question is, how much?

The going rate for a Georgia prison bunk is $17,758 per year. Take your pick.

Charles E. Richardson is the Telegraph’s editorial page editor. He can be reached at 478-744-4342 or via e-mail at crichardson@macon.com.