Bigger Alternative School

October 22, 2018

Introduction:

Like other parents who send their teens to Pickens High School, my wife and I got a bit of a scare this past week with the threat of violence made against the school.

Measures Taken:

Like I said to my wife and those who asked me about it, many steps have been taken to improve security at all schools, going back as far as 2002 (just after Columbine) when our school district added student resource officers (SROs) to its middle and high schools.

Today, there are more than 1,500 cameras in our school system. There are things like air lock door systems in our schools that you must pass through two doors to get inside, and doors close on their own. There are intercom/ buzz-in systems to enter the front door every school. Class rooms doors are hardened, kept closed and locked from the inside. Classrooms have communication systems to the main office and the police. Principals, administrative staff and the SROs are in constant contact via a walkie-talkie system. Schools have stepped up their intruder drills and planning. Principals undergo training in active shooter response. SROs are now in every school. A ton of simple protections have been added too, like all wearing visible ID badges, and upgraded fencing around bus depots to guard against sabotage. I would say close to $15 million has been spent the past 10 years enhancing security.

I do not think there is a place our children regularly go, beit the movies, church, ballfields or the mall that has anything close to the security measures in our schools.

Family Breakdown:

Having said that, this was another clarion call to our education leaders of an unfolding problem that must be addressed.

The key to a successful, healthy and safe academic environment are students who are prepared to accept a lesson, and respect each other as well as the rules and the personnel running the schools.

Due to the breakdown of the family, more children are growing up unsupervised or without necessary guidance at home. This parental vacuum in many homes has been filled by the media, TV and movies peddling violence, four-letter words, disrespect for authority, a “just do it” mentality, kill and be killed video games or whatever generates ratings, sales or pushes their destructive agenda. As I have long said, our culture is collectively suffering from mental illness. The most convincing evidence is the way our culture is filling the hearts and minds of our children with this garbage.

You do not need to take a trip to Finland see the problem and its source. Next time you go to church, observe who is not there. Younger people. Today too many are getting their morals, values and principles from the media, the internet or their friends, rather than the Bible.

This is spilling into schools today. Many children are not emotionally developed enough to handle these adult issues being thrown at them and naturally are overwhelmed. This is manifesting itself in students who behave poorly, and others who have emotional challenges like anxiety and psychological issues as mild as not valuing education and simply not caring about their studies. Some have deeper issues and have even committed suicide or act out by bullying others or at its extreme, all these school shootings.

Not More Academic Solutions:

Most of the leaders in the education system, from those in Washington DC to Columbia to the school district/ school board, are blind to the growing clinical problems within the K-12 student body. Their college degrees, training, and work experience are in education, so they see the world through an academic prism. As a result, the solution to most every problem is an academic one, beit a new curriculum or reading program, a better textbook, more teacher training, another new teacher evaluation method, state of the art school buildings, additional instructional coaches or another technology upgrade.

Trust me, if a student is getting no guidance at home, is fascinated with guns and is angry, you are never going to reach or help him by running his Algebra teacher through yet another training seminar on how to better teach quadratic equations.

Fully Embracing the Concept of an Alternative School:

Back in 2010, the school board realized there was a growing number of students with emotional, psychological and behavioral issues, and they are not getting the clinical help they need in our mainstream schools.

Such students need an alternative school, one that not only teaches core subjects, but stresses a clinical approach of therapy, student and parent focus, and a true mentor program, all within a school environment of structure, boundaries and consequences. Hundreds of such students in our school district need to be in such an alternative school and program.

In 2012 we were able to take a step or two in this direction, mainly pushing the alternative school up to 150 students with a plan to take it up to 250 students, but we did not get further than that. When the new administration came in in 2014, backed by this rubber stamp school board, they cut the alternative school back to 50 students, and now they mainstream most all of these students.

You see, school district administrators by nature want to run academic institutions that focus on what they know and are comfortable with -- academics, not alternative schools stressing a clinical approach they do not understand and really don’t care for. And to take 300 to 400 students out of their mainstream schools and put them into an alternative school, frankly, turns their stomach. Hence they aim to mainstream all the students, except a small number of them.

Ask any teacher at your child’s school, and they’ll say they have a student or two in each class he/ she can not reach, or the school can't handle, and the student is not getting the clinical help he/ she truly needs. As a result those students are falling behind, suffering from things like anxiety or are disruptive to the school.

This past week, we got a bit of a sense why this mainstream-as-many-students-as-possible approach is not what is best and the idea of a large alternative school must be embraced. Such students (and there are many of them) belong in an alternative school that would offer them the help they need with the behavioral, emotional and psychological issues they face. This way they can reach their potential and graduate.