Marion City Schools Board facing a discipline crisis

Marion City Schools is facing a crisis of discipline that could cost it teachers, staff and students, according to a justelected board member.

Scott Weibling, who joins the Marion City Schools Board in January, made a series of posts on his Facebook page criticizing the district for what he saw as a lack of discipline within the schools, one of his core campaign platforms preceding the Nov. 2 election. He, and others, went further at Monday’s board meeting.

“We will lose families. We will lose teachers. We will lose principals. We will lose custodians. We will lose bus drivers, class aids. They’ll be gone and nothing that we do will matter if we cannot guarantee a safe environment that is conducive to the academic process,” Weibling said in the Dec. 13 board meeting.

He hopes to create change and fulfill his campaign promise of a return to increased discipline when he joins the board in the new year. Until then, he explained, he is taking advantage of the opportunity to speak out as a member of the community before he’s bound by board protocol and decorum.

“There’s a major disconnect between what our current board and district administration either thinks or hopes is happening inside our buildings districtwide and what is actually happening.

That’s where we have the parents, the students, the teachers and other staff members themselves who are reporting a very different reality than is assumed by people in leadership positions, and that’s what needs to change,” he said.

Marion City Schools Superintendent Dr. Ron Iarussi and the board of education members did not formally respond in the Monday meeting, allowing the public to speak.

However, Iarussi responded after the meeting explaining the district is aware of the issues.

“We collectively want to address student behavior. We want our staff to feel safe. We support our staff in those endeavors and we are looking at a lot of ways to help with the behaviors that some of our students are exhibiting,” Iarussi said.

He explained Marion City Schools wants to address the social and emotional aspect of education by looking at these behavioral problems, which he said worsened throughout the COVID pandemic.

Iarussi is welcoming anyone from the community to reach out and arrange a meeting with him to discuss the public forum since they didn’t have a dialogue at the Monday meeting.

“We don’t typically get into debates at a public board meeting, but I would encourage anyone who wants to sit down and have some conversations about what we’re doing to call me. I would be more than happy to speak to anybody from the within the community about what we’re doing in relationship to those things,” he said.

During the meeting, Board President Leslie Schneider announced, “we hear you,” when needing to cut off teacher, parent and Marion Education Association President, Jami Rawlins, after the three minute cutoff of public speaking.

As Rawlins stood in front of the room of board members and community members, she asked for help from the administration for teachers facing a crisis of needing to enforce discipline in the schools.

“I’m here just to talk about student discipline,” she said. “I have done my due diligence for an entire semester sharing the concerns of the abuse, the assault, et cetera, et cetera, that continually happen to our teaching staff and entire staff on a regular basis. These are not isolated incidents.”

Optimistic for the opportunity to allow the kids’ behavioral issues to change, Rawlins said that she is tired of asking the administration to give the students that chance.

“We are driven, and that is why I am going to stand up here until I can get something done: because I am at my wit’s end trying to ask for help,” she said.

“We are not the punching bags for the daily verbal and physical abuses,” she said. “Our staff is getting punched, kicked, spit at, have items thrown at them, they are using their bodies as shields to protect the other kids in the room when things are being thrown.”

Other community members who followed included a current teacher, Tony Webber, and a district substitute, Della

Ellis, who both shared similar sentiments about a lack of enforcing rules throughout the district.

Danielle Smith, a mother of six boys, five of whom are students in the district, tearfully described the bullying she claims her sons have faced, saying they are the quiet, well-behaved kids in class.

“My 10-year-old who goes to Garfield, who in the 4th grade, is now on a safety plan. In case you don’t know, I had to quickly find out what a safety plan was when I walked into the school after my child had been called racial slurs and had been beat up constantly at school,” Smith said.

She is requesting the administration allow teachers a greater ability to advocate for her sons.

“Why do you have a 10-year-old on a safety plan? That doesn’t sound safe. That’s not safe,” she said.

Coming into the new year, as Weibling steps into the board of education along with fellow board member-elect Rocky Ratliff, he says he expects the voices from the community to continue to speak out and get even louder.

“There’s more coming, and I’m going to be on the other end of this in a month and that’s nothing I’m going to shy away from,” Weibling said.

“The voices are going to get louder. The voices are going to get more consistent, and the voices are going to get higher in volume, too, in terms of the number of people who are speaking,” he said.

Story by: Sophia Veneziano (740) 564 - 5243 | sveneziano@gannett.com