OSHKOSH, WI — Oshkosh school officials say they are taking steps to improve classroom behavior. Last month, a group of para-professionals came to the Oshkosh School Board with a petition demanding safer working conditions and better pay–following a rash of violent attacks. Superintendent Bryan Davis says their newly-developed Equity Plan will look to address the root causes of student violence and misbehavior–while still requiring accountability.
“We need to hold students accountable for their actions,” Davis says. “We want to make sure we’re not undercutting anybody’s ability to have structured classrooms and have clear expectations as we’re moving forward. And we also want to make sure we’re reporting out to the community the transparency of our out of school suspensions. And if there’s a disproportionate of students that are suspended, as we currently have in our system, that we also address that as an inequity. And we do that inside of the equity plan which calls for strong engagement and communication.”
The district will no longer use out of school suspensions as a key performance indicator. Suspensions had been among 20-metrics the district used to grade itself on its performance. Superintendent Davis says that just looking at raw numbers failed to address the root causes of student violence and misbehavior.
“Focusing on how the reporting is on our out of school suspension and not necessarily getting in to as deep of conversations that we wanted to around the adult and student behaviors that are going on to be able to help support and get students more engaged,” he says.
Out of school suspensions will now be moved into the district’s Equity Plan–as a disproportionate percentage of suspensions involve students of color.
