Page 14 - 3-6-15 Friday's Edition

Letter To The Editor Local
School District Hosts Community Discipline Chat
LEWIS BRINSON
Assistant Superintendent of Administration, Hillsborough County School District
On Wednesday, February 11th, Mrs. Kim Moore, Principal of Middleton High School, hosted a Community Discipline Chat. The meet- ing was attended by representatives from 28 Area IV schools, district administrators, principals, as- sistant principals, staff, teachers, parents and members of the community.
Dr. Lewis Brinson, Assistant Superintend- ent for Administration for the Hillsborough County School District opened the meeting, with a welcome and greetings along with the presen- tation of the district-wide data on discipline. Dur- ing the meeting Dr. Brinson touched on several areas that included: The Strategic Plan Goal; The Vision; and The Mission.
The Strategic Plan Goal was to reduce the number of discipline incidents at schools in Area IV, which consists of: 16 elementary, 6 middle, 3 high schools , 2 ESE centers and 1 alternative school.
Data review of Area IV was given by Henry Washington, Area IV Leadership Director.
The Vision is to eliminate the school-to- prison pipeline and close the achievement gap by ethnicity, gender and socio-economic groups.
The Mission was to increase graduation rates for all students by reducing disciplinary in- cidences and exclusionary discipline practices. Each school was housed in a classroom for break- out sessions in order to share data, and to de- velop open communications. They also had a discussion to identify groups with disciplinary is- sues.
Parents and concerned community members attended a session with their child’s school to dis- cuss disciplinary problems, with staff and teach- ers for their children and community.
Mrs. Heather Holloway, Assistant Princi- pal of Middleton High School discussed in detail the school-wide discipline data plan. The Plan will be available on the Hillsborough County School District in the near future.
Mrs. Holloway will coordinate a Student and Parent Disciplinary Committee.
The Committee, who will meet quarterly, will discuss ways to reduce behavior and disciplinary problems.
Dr. Brinson plans to create community meetings such as this at other schools throughout Hillsborough County. The goal of the meetings is to identify, discuss and eliminate behavior and disciplinary problems in the school district.
Who Benefits From Sulphur Springs
Elementary Change?
So, the question should be who will benefit from the school transition of Sulphur Springs Elementary to K-8?
In response to the “School Board Approves Transition of Sulphur Springs to K-8 School:”
The decision to transi- tion Sulphur Springs Ele- mentary School to a middle school needs to be critically monitored on behalf of stu- dents and their academic success that is supposed to prepare them for high school.
In June 2014, Sulphur Springs Elementary school appeared on a list published by Florida Department of Education, titled “Histori- cal 300 Failing Elementary Schools.”
The Hillsborough County Public Schools had 26 failing elementary schools on that list includ- ing Sulphur Springs Ele- mentary School, with additional information on schools demographic and reading proficiency.
The Sulphur Springs El- ementary School minority rate is 99 percent and read- ing proficiency is 29 percent (meaning 71 percent do not read proficiently). The tran- sition to middle school has nothing to do with changing the outcome for many African American students who are trapped in a failing academic school for many more years to come.
So, the question should be how many of these stu- dents will ever be enrolled
in a high school and func- tion academically well enough to obtain their high school diplomas?
This is old information, we know that prisons are built based on third grade reading scores, we know when a child continues to experience failure year after year they eventually drop-out of school or are pushed out of school. We know this setting at Sulphur Springs Elementary School is a breeding ground for fu- ture school to prison pipeline, and we know as early as pre-kindergarten African American students receive harsher treatment than their white peers, and teachers are over-reliant on out of school suspensions or expulsions.
So, the question should be from the beginning, who is willing to educate African American students effec- tively? Sulphur Springs Ele- mentary School has been historically very unsuccess- ful in educating the major- ity of minority students and therefore, the transition to K-8 perhaps will not im- prove the academic success rate for many of these stu- dents. As a community, this has been the story for a half century and our students continue to be uneducated and unprepared for life.
Thank you, SABA BAPTISTE, Chair, Hillsborough County Branch NAACP Education Committee
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