Principals: PPS must address classroom disruptions
Less than three months into the academic year, principals from multiple city schools have asked the board of directors to reinstate a student discipline policy it ended in June that allowed schools to impose more severe punishments for children with repeated minor offenses.
The policy change — which prohibited certain punitive actions for students with three or more minor offenses, including out- ofschool suspensions — was intended to keep children who were not causing major problems in the classroom. But it has forced teachers to deal with students who repeatedly cause issues that disrupt their lessons, according to school officials.
The school board is set to vote Tuesday on a resolution that would reinstate the policy, the removal of which was the subject of months of debate. The public will have a chance to share its thoughts on the matter with school board members during a virtual hearing at 6 p.m. Monday.
Nina Esposito-Visgitis, president of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, said she was not surprised that principals have asked the board for help because classroom disruptions have become a “huge” problem at many schools, particularly high schools.
“The transition back to schools has not been a smooth one,” she said.
School officials said for months that they were concerned about the increased mental health issues children would bring with them as they returned to the classroom after most city students spent more than a year learning outside of school during the COVID-19 pandemic.
district should implement some of the ideas that were developed by the committees that were brought together as the school system worked to restart in-person instruction over the past year-plus.
The committees came up with some “great ideas,” she said, such as resiliency coaches to help students who are experiencing issues.
The district, however, has not funded any of the proposals, she said.
A spokeswoman for the district could not be reached.
Ms. Esposito-Visgitis also suggested that schools give counselors and other critical support staff more office time by taking them off of hall duty and lunch duty, an issue that she said she has been fighting for years.
“Why are they opening milk? Why are they doing hall duty?” she said. “They’re opening up milk and breaking up fights.”
James Fogarty, the executive director of A+ Schools, said the problems principals are seeing in their schools are the unintended results of a policy change.
Instead of reinstating the old policy, he said, the school board should seek a more nuanced solution that helps teachers and principals without harming students.
“There needs to be some response, and it can’t just be we’re going to leave the policy in place,” he said.
He said the district should go from school to school to find out which interventions are working and which ones are not. The district must also assess whether the schools that are having more issues have a higher concentration of poverty or students with disabilities, he said.
Additionally, he said, the district should analyze the root causes of the problems and try to engage families in finding answers.
“The answer can’t just be [saying] ‘ try harder’ to the teachers and principals,” Mr. Fogarty said. “You’ve got to give them something.”
School board member Terry Kennedy introduced the resolution to reinstate the policy after she and other board members met with principals who sought their help with the issue.
Ms. Kennedy said during a board meeting last week that when teachers have to spend time dealing with one student who is acting up, it cuts into the time that other children have to learn.
“At what point do the rights of the students who are misbehaving become more important than the
rights of the students who are behaving and want to learn?” Ms. Kennedy said.
But Pam Harbin, another board member, noted that the district disproportionately suspends Black students and students with disabilities.
Instead of a policy change, she said, the district should try to help students who are experiencing problems.
“I think we need to provide what we’ve promised for years — that we were going to put supports in our schools,” Ms. Harbin said. “The policy change that you’re asking for is not going to give care and healing to students. It’s giving punishment to students, and I think we need to be really, really careful about how we do
that.”