Reports of violent incidents fall in D.C. schools

Metropolitan Police officers and investigators document evidence where three students were shot a block away from Ballou High School in 2008. (Examiner file)

The number of violent incidents in D.C. Public Schools declined over the past year, but some observers blame a lack of reporting for the drop.

Serious incidents, defined as fights, abuse, assault, robbery, weapon possession, drugs or fires, fell to 1,117 between August 2008 and April 2009, according to the school system. That’s down 17 percent from 1,353 serious incidents during the same period last year.

The numbers reveal an average of about seven reports per school day for the system’s 40,000 students. The majority of incidents occur at the system’s about 50 middle and high schools, but the district did not provide a school-by-school breakdown of the violence.
District officials attribute the declines to new efforts aimed at engaging students.

“We have expanded out-of-school time with after-school, summer and Saturday options,” said spokeswoman Jennifer Calloway, adding that many options are newly available at the middle and high school level.

In addition, Chancellor Michelle Rhee has taken on major revisions of the school system’s disciplinary policies to focus on early intervention.

But Washington Teachers Union President George Parker doesn’t believe the news is quite as good as it sounds.
“Overall, based on the number of calls we receive, teachers feel discipline is worse this year,” Parker said. “I don’t feel the incidences have gone down, but that maybe the reporting of incidents has gone down.”

Parker stressed the need for a good alternative school for chronic behavior problems and adequate staffing for in-school suspensions.

Rhee has removed the language of “zero-tolerance policies” from the new disciplinary plan in favor of more flexible options. The new policies are about twice as long, as well, in the hope that more details will lead to citywide consistency.

And while the old plan had only 13 options for behavior prevention, intervention and remediation, the new policy has 28. Additions include “community service,” “anger management,” “parent observation of student” and “social skills instruction.”

“Keeping flexibility is one way we can ensure that the right balance is met,” Rhee said at a January community forum about discipline.

“There needs to be some flexibility in consequences for a parent whose child is an honor roll, stellar student who brought a weapon to school.”

lfabel@washingtonexaminer.com