Safety and the Students at Hamilton Southeastern Schools – Q & A

Bradley Jones

This is a continuation of the Safety and the Students at Hamilton Southeastern Schools, Part 1 article.

Questions and Answers from the HSE Safety Meeting

The March meeting was followed with an open discussion question and answer session. Questions were raised around several common issues. The following is based on my notes from the meeting.

Q: Why doesn’t HSE screen kids?

Dr. Bourff indicated this was a regular question. He indicated that the district does not screen kids.

Q: Could we restrict the size of backpacks?

This is something that could be considered. Another question that was raised at the public meeting was in regard to using clear backpacks. Dr. Bourff indicated this is something that they would take under consideration as well. There was also an indication that at some point (years) in the future, the use of technology might reduce or eliminate the need for backpacks.

My personal thought to this is based on feedback I’ve heard. Clear backpacks are not necessarily a viable solution. Would you also remove pockets, coats, purses, and other areas where items could be smuggled into a building? Additionally, there are some items that are needed by kids such as medications and personal hygiene items that could be embarrassing to carry in a clear bag where other kids could see them.

Q: Do we have ‘circles’ or times where each kid can be simply asked “how are you doing?”

I don’t have an answer written for this question. Part of the role of the SROs is to build these relationships and to work on keeping communication open with students. It is hoped that teachers, counselors, and others would do this as well.

Q: Is the school district considering metal detectors?

Dr. Bourff addressed this question with a response that it was “not likely. Maybe.” He indicated that metal detectors are not shown to be effective. In addition to weapons being left outside of a school, there are numerous issues that come with the logistics and costs of using metal detectors. There are enough details around metal detectors that I’ve written a separate commentary on the topic.

Q: There is a requirement to have a background check to volunteer for class parties, however, the doors seem to be open more freely during this type of school event…

The response to this was, “We have moments where we are vulnerable. There are a number of times when the offices simply can’t cycle the number of people that are entering a building. This is a topic that will need to be reviewed.”

Q: Will class parties be taken away? For example, the “Wellness Walk” at one of the schools is rumored to be possibly taken away.

Dr. Beresford responded that they don’t want to frighten the kids, but they want the kids to be secure. When there is a cop on campus, most bad people will leave.

This is the answer I have in my notes. It doesn’t really answer the question. This question was followed by the next question.

Q: Is it possible to have more security officers at vulnerable times?

It was indicated that during some of these more vulnerable times there are traffic cops and others that are also at the school or within the areas.

Q: Are there any plans for an SRO at all of the schools?

Currently there are seven SROs for the 21 HSE schools. There is one at each of the high schools and then the others bounce between the rest of the schools.

Dr. Beresford commented on this question. He indicated that all public buildings such as court houses have security with the exception of schools and possibly post offices. He stated that we have 22 buildings but can’t afford 22 officers. While one person in the audience indicated that the district should raise taxes to get an officer in every school, that person didn’t currently have a child within HSE yet.

Dr. Bourff indicated that there has been a discussion on a state-wide initiative for a referendum to cover school security. He stated that there are some schools in the state that might not have the funds for SROs, so there are issues at the state level that need to be addressed.

Lt. Johnson indicated that there should be more SROs added to the school He said there has already been a request for another SRO for next year (2018-19 school year). At the more recent public meeting, Dr. Bourff indicated that several SROs could possibly be added next year. He indicated that the district would only hire the right candidates for the role and that any new SROs would need to be trained before they could start. Budget would need to be found to cover any new hires.

Q: There was an incident at Fall Creak. Some parents indicated that the communication from the principal to the parents was vague. Who approved the wording? Is there a protocol for such messages when issues happen in the schools? Why was there not communication district wide on the issue?

Lt. Johnson stated that the emails sent out for the Fall Creak issue were crafted with input from the police and the HSE administration. Because there was an ongoing investigation and because they were still responding to the incident, some information needed to be restricted. There was pushback from the police chief to limit any communication.

Overall, it was indicated that communication needs to be better. One parent requested that more follow-up happen after such incidents to provide a more “warm and fuzzy” feeling to parents so that they know their kids are going to be safe at school.

Q: In another state, officers did some of their work at the schools. They used the school as an ‘office’. Could this be done at HSE with the Fishers police?

Lt. Johnson addressed this question. He stated that at one point, the officers did do this. At this time, however, the time spent in a roll call room or office by police officers is extremely low because most of the reports are done on the computers in their cars. They have shifted to a paperless system.

Having said that, there was also an indication that officers could possibly spend more time in the areas of schools beyond the traffic control that happens. Even having police cars sitting in the parking lots can help.

Another response to this question was by the Fishers High School Assistant Principal. He stated that there is a focus on “people over products”. This was related to spending money for solutions whether it be hiring more SROs or buying metal detectors. The idea is that there are a lot of things you can do that don’t cost, and that can be done with what is already within the schools. Having police park in the school lots was one example. Another example that he presented was to have door checks done by students. Students with clipboards can check each of the doors on a regular basis during the school day to confirm that they are closed and locked. This not only helps confirm safety, it also teaches responsibility as well as engages students in the process.

Q: A lot of schools are election locations. Will this be revisited going forward?

Dr. Bourff indicated that, yes, this is a safety issue as is the traffic that such events cause. While a civics lesson would be lost, he doesn’t know how long schools will continue to be used for elections. With the last presidential election, they did close school for that day.

Dr. Beresford commented that extra security protocols happen on the election days. Additionally, three HSE schools have already been removed from being used for elections. Those school locations were shifted to churches.

Q: Studies are coming out indicating kids are having an adverse reaction to the drills and ALICE.

This was stated by a person attending the meeting. The HSE administration indicated that they had not heard this and asked that any information on the topic be shared with them.

Q: Stigma Free is at the high schools. Will it be rolled out to the Junior Highs as well?

The response was that Stigma Free is at all schools. Stigma Free at the high schools was initiated by students. There are friend groups and such related to this. Additionally, the Guiding All Kids initiative is doing some of the same efforts. Social emotion needs are addressed as are kindness wells, mindfulness, and other things.

Dr. Beresford indicated that kids will be under stress their entire life. As such, they need to be taught how to manage life.

Q: Will teachers be given guns?

This question was addressed at both the meeting in March as well as the public meeting. Dr. Bourff indicated that this is very unlikely. Police officers and SROs are trained professionals. Not only are they trained to use guns, but they are also trained to handle high-stress situations. Training for police officers is updated regularly. Dr. Bourff indicated that expecting a teacher to effectively use a firearm without making a mistake in a high stress situation doesn’t make sense. Such situations are tough for police officers and SROs that go through regular training.

Conclusion

Dr. Bourff ended the meeting by asking if it would be good to get with the PTOs to provide training or workshops on what parents can do or communicate around this topic. He indicated that fact sheets could be created as could webinars that could be placed onto the school website. The March meeting was followed up with a larger public meeting, and there were indicates that additional communication would continue to occur.

Overall, HSE schools are considered ahead of the curve on what they have done regarding securing the safety of the students and teachers. Even so, the administration has indicated that this is an area where ongoing improvements will continue to address the ever-evolving issues that surround keeping kids safe.

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SDTimes: 10 things that change when a developer gets promoted

Bradley Jones

Check out one of my newest articles. This was published by SDTimes:

10 things that change when a developer gets promoted

The push to climb the corporate ladder is strong. Depending on what you like to do, it might not be in your best interest to move up! It is important to know what additional tasks are likely to be added to what you are doing as well as to know what tasks you have been doing that you will need to give up.

Notes from the March, 2018 HSE Superintendent Advisory Council

Bradley Jones

On March 20th, the Hamilton Southeastern Schools superintendent, Mr. Bourff, met with an advisory council that consisted of members of the community including numerous PTO board members, parent representatives for school board members, and others. This small group was presented with information and given time to interact directly with Mr. Bourff. In this meeting, there were four core topics covered.

HSE School Safety

The first topic was school safety and information on school safety plans. With the recent activities in the news, which included the shootings in Florida and the recent school walk outs, it was no surprise that this was the leading topic to be covered. Dr. Bourff indicated that there had been a lot of requests for information on the school safety plans and what was being done. While he indicated that he could not share all the details of the school’s continually evolving plan for security reasons, he did take time to discuss a number of key points.

“One of the best remedies [for school safety] is a good relationship between teachers and students,” was one of the initial comments made by Dr. Bourff. Creating an environment where students, parents, and teachers can openly communicate is the first line of defense for schools. It was stated, that creating an environment where students are able to feel comfortable sharing information they overhear or things they see is key for the staff and administration to become aware of possible issues.

Also important is having certified, trained school staff. Within HSE, Dr. Beresford is the point person for insuring all staff is certified and trained on safety. The district also has a number of visible security resource officers (SROs) that are within the various schools. Other parts of the security plan include continued improvements with the mental health initiatives. It was noted that while the mental health initiatives only partially address school safety, they have helped in at least six “at home” issues that have occurred within the HSE district.

Several other topics around safety were also discussed ranging from the unproven use of metal detectors to feedback on the walkout of students at HSE. A separate meeting was scheduled with an invitee audience to specifically discuss the school’s safety plan and to get feedback.

HSE Student Walkout

Another discussion point was a report on the student walkout that occurred. It was reported that roughly 700 students participated in the event out of approximately 21,000 students even though the district reported that standard disciplinary action would happen. Roughly 350 of the students were from Hamilton Southeastern High School. A little less than that were from Fishers High School. The few remaining were from the Junior Highs.

The students and administration in the high schools worked together to insure safety. In the case of HSE, most of the students gathered in the gymnasium. At Fishers High School, most of the students gathered in an internal court yard. As such, the majority of the students remained within the school’s internal safety parameter. There were a few students that were reported to have gone outside of the school buildings; however, that was recommended against.

It was indicated that disciplinary action would be occurring. In most cases, for students with no prior issues this would likely be a meeting with a counselor and a note in the school file. For students with past issues, further action was likely to occur.

Dr. Bourff also addressed the reasoning behind why the administration took its controversial action of stating they would not endorse the walkout. While the walk seemed to be initiated by students in Florida, it was indicated that the real organizers were a national organization outside of the schools. As such, if the walkout were to be endorsed by our school administration, then the school administration would have to allow any other national organization to have similar walkouts.

eLearning at HSE

On a much lighter topic, an eLearning plan was also discussed. eLearning centers on the idea of having a plan in place to allow students to be do work at home on those days when the weather prevents them from getting to school. By having an eLearning program in place, a district can remove the need to have make-up dates when snow days occur.

HSE had one flex day built into the schedule that was used to make up one of two snow days that had occurred. To avoid having to come back after Memorial Day, the school was going to roll out an eLearning day to make up the time. Having the single date after the long week-end wasn’t likely to lead to any additional teaching, plus it was indicated that there was an expectation that a number of students would have missed the date due to planned vacations and other activities.

To do eLearning, a school needs to have a plan in place for how it will be executed. While it was indicated that there are state regulations on having a practice date before a school can do eLearning, because HSE is a high-performance school, the need to do a practice day was waived. Even so, a school does need to have in place how the eLearning will occur. Prior to the advisor meeting, an email had been sent to all parents with the details of how HSE would be doing the first eLearning date. For future eLearning days, the hope was to have a repository in place to make things better.

While there were more details on eLearning, I’ll simply provide a few key details here:

  • In the future, eLearning dates are likely to happen on the snow day itself.
  • eLearning is to make up a day; however, what is being made up is a number of minutes of learning. As such, the makeup can be done over a period of time.
  • Teachers have been asked to make sure that the eLearning work be relevant to the current teaching. It should not just be busy work.
  • eLearning does not have to be done on a computer.
  • At the higher grade levels, teachers will be asked to be aware that students have multiple classes. A high school student with seven different teachers should not be overloaded with seven different assignments that total more than the makeup day’s amount of time.

Overall, it is expected that the eLearning process will evolve as the district works to get to something that works and is manageable. In the meantime, the email has already gone out for the first attempt at trying something to make up the remaining snow day.

Neighborhood Conversations and Listening Tours

A fourth topic that was discussed related to improving communication. The idea of having meetings at the neighbor level would be beneficial for engaging the community. There was a bit of push-back on how this would be executed and whether they would be effective. It was indicated that it would require people to open their homes for the meetings. It would also require organization. PTO members indicated there was already a lack of participation at the PTO meetings, so there was concern that this could be more effort to create more meetings that are not attended.

An alternative suggestion was for the central office administration, especially Dr. Bourff, to come back to the individual schools in the same manner that was done for the referendum listening tours. The listening tours in the past were indicated to be some of the highest attended meetings, so the suggestion was to have open Q&A sessions at individual schools (aka meetups). With the number of schools in the district, it was indicated that it would be great if the administration could schedule to get to each school at a minimum of once every two years if not more often. Dr. Bourff indicated that this was an idea that would be looked into and agreed to get a meeting scheduled with Durbin elementary as a way to get things rolling.

Redistricting…

The previous mentioned items were the core of the discussions for the advisory committee. While there were a lot more details, this was the heart of the discussions.

One other tidbit that was dropped as a comment at the end of the meeting centered on redistricting HSE. With a new elementary school in the works, it should not surprise anyone that redistricting is going to happen again. Dr. Bourff indicated that a redistricting committee was likely to be formed in late May or early June of this year. He indicated redistricting was coming…

Conclusion

This post is based on my notes from the meeting. My notes are not always perfect, so if there are questions or concerns on anything posted here, feel free to let me know or talk to one of our school administrators.

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Down, Down, Down: HSE Schools and the ISTEP+ Tests

Bradley Jones

As we pump more dollars into our schools, we expect that the impact will be positive on our kids. With that in mind, along with the next round of ISTEP tests getting ready to happen, I took a quick look at the ISTEP scores over the last few years to see how the  increased investments in Hamilton Southeastern Schools are paying off.

For the 2016-17 school year, Hamilton Southeaster Schools had an overall passing grade on the ISTEP of 72.5%. This is the result of 7,169 students passing. That left 2,726 kids that did not pass, or 27.5%. Compared to the scores for the entire state, 51.4%, the pass percentage was great.

Stepping back to the 2015-16 school year, you might expect that the overall passing scores were lower; however, you’d be wrong. The passing score for that year was slightly less at 72.5% or 7,237 students. There were 2,686 students that did not pass.

Although the trend was towards poorer performance, the numbers were very close. As such, you’d hope that we saw an increase from the previous year, 2014-15. Your hopes, however, would again be dashed. In 2014-15, HSE had 7,135 students pass, which was 73.6%, a full percentage point higher. That left 2,556 students that did not pass ISTEP.

When you put the three years together, the trend is not the one you want to see:

HSE ISTEP Trend

The downward trend is for all the HSE schools combined and for all grades. You can dig into the data on the Department of Education site and see how each of the individual schools performed. For example, Geist Elementary had a passing score of 87.8% in 2014-15, which helped raise the overall HSE score. Unfortunately, they dropped to 85.4% in 2015-6 and then dropped further to 77.5% in 2016-17.

Riverside Junior High was at 75% in 2014-15. They went to 74.1% in 2015-16 and then dropped further to 69.3% in 2016-17. Riverside Intermediate School, on the other hand, bucked the trend. They were at a passing rate of 71.8% in 2014-15. They increased to 74.2% in 2015-16, and then further increased to 75.4% in 2016-17.

While I’ve painted a bit of doom and gloom on the downward trend, it is worth noting that the scores across the state dropped as well. They went from 53.5% in 2014-15 to 51.6% in 2015-16. In 2016-17 they dropped further to 51.4%. As such, the overall state drop is slightly greater than HSE.

Indiana ISTEP Trend

In 2014-15, the ISTEP test was updated. The result was that you can’t compare earlier scores. A new test is also going to replace the ISTEP in the near future. This will also make year-over-year comparisons going forward harder as well. I should disclose that I’m not a fan of the ISTEP test or how it’s the state is using the scores. That, however, is a topic for another post.

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Up, Up, and Away…. School Tax Increases Continue After Major Referendum

Bradley Jones

In 2016 a referendum was passed for Hamilton Southeastern Schools, so it was not surprise to see an increase in property taxes for 2017. In fact, taxes increased by 11.23% from 2016 to 2017 as a result of the referendum. What might surprise you is that tax increases didn’t stop in 2017 with the big referendum. In 2018, the tax rate has increased again by almost another percentage point to a total rate of 1.274.

What should raise a few eyebrows on this continued upward trend for taxes is the fact that the Indiana state government also made changes to school fund allocations recently. The state changes adjusted school allocations so that they would be more balanced. In the case of HSE Schools, this meant that the per student funding increased. The result was more state dollars were coming to our schools.

The net is that the HSE School coffers in 2017 benefited by more tax dollars at both the state and local levels. As the school board continues to increase taxes through referendums, you should be watching and asking why that is needed as well as watching how the millions of additional dollars are being spent. After all, in 2016 the HSE community was told that 100s of staff members could be laid off if a referendum wasn’t passed. In 2017, after passing the referendum, an unplanned multi-million dollar renovation to the administration building was approved and moved to the front of the capital improvements list. That’s a big change in a very short time.