School Discipline Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Lawmakers Tackle FAFSA, School Discipline And More Education Topics At August Interims

Fall classes are well under way across the state. But state lawmakers meeting at the Capitol in Charleston over the weekend learned about lingering issues with a federal form from last year.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as the FAFSA, unlocks both federal and state financial aid for students. An update to the form released late last year has been plagued with issues that continue to this day.

Sarah Armstrong Tucker, Chancellor of the Higher Education Policy Commission (HEPC), told the Legislative Oversight Commission on Education Accountability (LOCEA) Sunday that paper FAFSAs are still being processed. She also warned the U.S. Department of Education has already announced the release of the form will be delayed again this year for next year’s students.

“Typically, the FAFSA is ready October 1,” Tucker said. “The department has come out and said that it will not be ready October 1. They are shooting for December 1.”

Tucker said she’s also concerned the change of administration after the November election will cause further delays.

“One of the things that happened with this FAFSA rollout was that nobody was paying enough attention to the vendor who was trying to build this form,” she said. “So as people are starting to leave now, and may not get higher leadership until January, February, what happens to the FAFSA? Who’s minding the shop to make sure that it actually comes out December 1? I have a lot of concerns about that, and I’ve asked a lot of questions about that. I’m not getting great answers about those questions.“

In late April, Gov. Jim Justice declared a state of emergency in higher education, opening a path for the state to circumvent its own FAFSA completion requirement for state education awards. During a special session in May, the West Virginia Legislature formally extended the state of emergency to October via Senate Concurrent Resolution 102.

Sen. Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia, asked Tucker about the $83 million loan package the legislature approved during the May special session to backfill federal monies delayed by issues with FAFSA. That package included some $32 million for colleges and institutions to help with some of their operation costs.

“The institutional dollars that were to help offset some other costs, that has all been deployed,” Tucker said. “The institutions have that money, and they’re using it okay in the way that it was intended.”

Tucker also said students are using the other portion of the package, $40 million, to supplement their financial aid awards.

“As far as emergency grants are concerned, most are helping students meet whatever that sort of gap is between what their state aid is, their federal funding is, and what their tuition and fees are,” she said.

Health Policy Changes

Hank Hager, counsel to the Senate Education Committee, told LOCEA about the proposed replacement and repeal of West Virginia Board of Education (WVBOE) Policy 2423 – Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.

The changes would remove several existing health requirements including health and oral health checks for students in grades two, seven and 12. Requirements for those entering pre kindergarten or kindergarten are maintained. Similarly, a requirement that all students to receive a Tdap (Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis) vaccine before grade 12 is also removed for students who have completed the primary DTaP (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis) series.

The policy is open for public comment until Sept. 16.

In response to questioning from Sen. Rolland Roberts, R-Raleigh, state deputy superintendent Sonia White said the policy change was largely cleanup.

“This policy had not been touched since 2015, and since 2015 we’ve had a global pandemic and some other things, changes in state code,” White said. “So we just cleaned up the policy and added new pieces of code that had been put in there, cleaned up the language so that if, say, federal code changes, it’ll refer back to the most current federal code, and we wouldn’t have to open the policy over and over again.”

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School Discipline Data

State lawmakers also got a chance Sunday to see the direct impact of their work on the issue of school discipline. Passed in 2023, House Bill 2890 allows a teacher to remove a disruptive student to a different environment to protect the integrity of the class for the duration of that class period.

Jeff Kelly, assistant superintendent of accountability programs for the Department of Education presented LOCEA with disciplinary data for the 2023-2024 school year, the law’s first year of implementation.

“Per that code, which reads, ‘Students who are removed from the classroom three times in one month are required to be suspended,’ that number was 204,” Kelly said.

HB 2890 suspensions represent a fraction of the more than 29,000 students that were suspended more than 35,000 times across the state in the 2023-24 school year.

Kelly also pointed out that kids who have no discipline referrals represent about 80 percent to 82 percent of the student population.

More in-depth analysis of the data is expected to be presented at the upcoming WVBOE meeting Sept. 11.

“You’re talking about 60,000-plus pages of discipline data,” Kelly said. “Trying to get that down to a level where we can give you guys something to work with is kind of a hard place to get. We spent a lot of time talking about that very thing.”

Communities In Schools And School Discipline, This West Virginia Morning

While educators across the nation are getting ready for the start of another school year, coordinators for an innovative school support program are meeting in Morgantown this week. As Chris Schulz reports, they’re gathering to learn how best to help their most vulnerable students.

On this West Virginia Morning, while educators across the nation are getting ready for the start of another school year, coordinators for an innovative school support program are meeting in Morgantown this week. As Chris Schulz reports, they’re gathering to learn how best to help their most vulnerable students.

Plus, Black and brown students across America are disciplined at twice the rate of white students. Students from poor families get suspended from school for bad behavior more often. West Virginia reflects this national trend.

In this episode, we hear an excerpt from the Us & Them episode called “The ‘Toxic Stew’ of School Discipline,” which was recently honored with a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Reporting on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.

Maria Young produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

Student Discipline, Financial Literacy Discussed At State Board Of Education Meeting

For the past several years, educators have identified worsening classroom behavior and discipline as key issues in state school systems.

For the past several years, educators have identified worsening classroom behavior and discipline as key issues in state school systems. A recent Senate bill aimed to address discipline in elementary grades but failed to pass the House of Delegates during the recent regular legislative session.

Jim Brown, executive director of the West Virginia School Board Association, told the state Board of Education Tuesday the bill was focused on punishment and does not deal with typical discipline matters.

“Having served as an elementary principal and a school district superintendent, I can attest this punitive approach fails to address the underlying issues and provide these students with the supports they need to succeed,” he said.

Brown said elementary schools are ill-equipped to manage, let alone address, the mental health issues students are dealing with and that schools should “not attack the child, but attack the behavior.”

“Only a small percentage of school districts in our state have an established alternative learning environment for elementary age students,” he said. “We need to acknowledge the reality of mental health challenges faced by our school-aged children, and the varying degrees of crisis they experience. It is imperative that we conduct an honest review of the supports available across our state, from urban communities to the most rural settings. To have that effectively address this pressing issue.”

Brown finished his statement by calling for the establishment of a statewide task force that brings together educators, mental health professionals, community leaders, parents, and policymakers to develop a holistic strategy to tackle the mental health crisis in schools.

His sentiments were echoed by others addressing the board, including West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee, as well as West Virginia Professional Educators Executive Director David Gladkosky. They discussed the possibility the bill could be brought back up in a proposed special session this month or in May.

Financial Literacy

Several West Virginia Board of Education policies were placed on public comment during the April meeting, including Policy 2520.4, relating to West Virginia College and Career Readiness Standards for Social Studies. The proposed changes would separate personal finance, which is currently taught as part of required civics courses, out to its own standalone requirement and course

Board member Debra Sullivan questioned the wisdom of splitting the two subjects. Joey Wiseman, director of West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) Office of Student Enrichment, said the intent of the personal finance was always to have it be a separate course, and doing so allows educators and students to better focus on each subject.

“Now those standards look the same as a personal finance [course] they’re teaching in CTE (career and technical education), it’s the same all the way across,” Wiseman said. “It’s a very rigorous set of standards.“

He also pointed out that personal finance will not become a required credit for another two years, giving teachers and schools time to fit the new course into schedules.

WVDE Regional School Safety Meetings

During last month’s board meeting, the West Virginia Department of Education announced a series of school safety conferences across the state this spring. Dates have now been scheduled for the 2024 Regional School Safety meetings. The meetings will bring together county and school administrators as well as school safety personnel to share administrative updates that are important during a crisis event. Topics include updates on how to submit plans and code student data. Dates and locations include:

May 7, Embassy Suites, Charleston
May 10, White Palace at Wheeling Park
May 13, West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine
May 16, West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind (WVSDB)

State Board Of Education Discusses Effects Of Recent Legislation

Education leaders are taking stock of what the state legislature did and didn’t do for schools in the regular session.

Fred Albert, president of American Federation of Teachers-WV, expressed his concern over the passage of House Bill 5105 to the West Virginia Board of Education Wednesday morning. The bill removes private, parochial and virtual schools from state vaccine requirements.

“I’m all for people having freedom and choice, that’s the American way of life, but when someone’s freedom then infringes upon the safety of others, I think we have a real concern,” he said. “Why would we want to go back to the days of measles and mumps and rubella? Chickenpox, polio?”

Albert said he is signing a public letter to Gov. Jim Justice urging him to veto the bill, and asked board members and listeners to contact the governor in opposition as well.

“I have a colleague that told me in Florida in one elementary classroom, they’ve had six cases of measles in one elementary classroom,” he said. “In Ohio, there are outbreaks of measles. Why would we want to go there? I just don’t understand it.”

Albert also expressed regret that Senate Bill 614, which would have allowed elementary teachers to remove disruptive students from their classroom, did not pass and told the board school discipline issues must be addressed.

“It was not a perfect deal. It had things in there that I didn’t like, but I think it was a start,” he said. “We’ve talked about the cry of our educators needing help with discipline in the classroom. So while that bill wasn’t perfect, it maybe was a beginning. But this looks like we educators have just been shut out, they’re not being heard.”

Policy Changes

The WVBE also approved withdrawing Policy 2322 from public comment. The policy was originally amended to clarify language related to the identification of school districts in need of support for student academic achievement and success and the required actions of the districts based on the level of support needed. In addition, the responsibilities of county board members and the requirements for each level of support were clarified.

Two bills passed during the regular session of the state legislature that ended Saturday make changes to the code the policy refers to, and are currently awaiting Gov. Jim Justice’s signature. Senate Bill 172 revises requirements of local school improvement councils, while House Bill 5514 enhances training requirements for county boards of education members. This requires the policy be withdrawn, revised and presented for placement on public comment at a future board meeting, inclusive of legislative amendments.

Meeting Date Change

The next regularly scheduled WVBE meeting was changed. It will be held on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, at 9 a.m.

School Discipline Bill Stumbles In House Education Committee

School discipline was identified as a key issue coming into this year’s legislative session. But with the session’s end just days away, a key school discipline bill is in question after a contentious committee meeting Monday afternoon.

Senate Bill 614 aims to expand teachers’ ability to remove disruptive students to the elementary level from grades kindergarten through six. But the bill also has further requirements including suspension of the unruly student and placement in alternative education.

Lindsey McIntosh, general counsel for Kanawha County Schools, brought up several concerns when the Senate Education Committee discussed the bill in February. She was on hand again Monday afternoon in the House Education Committee, and told lawmakers that the bill will create more work for schools and school districts. According to McIntosh, the bill requires a student that has been removed to undergo a risk assessment, a step above what Kanawha County Schools already does.

“What we typically do, unless we’re talking about an expulsion, is we do a Threat Report, which is based on the Virginia model of threat reports,” she said. “It is a scientifically proven model that we evaluate whether or not that threat is transient, meaning it was just language used or if it was something that was substantive, meaning they have an intent to actually do what they stated that they were going to do. Once that threat report comes back as substantive, then we do the risk assessment.”

McIntosh said the county does far more threat reports than risk assessments.

She further warned legislators that as written, the bill’s required assessment could spell federal legal trouble for schools. McIntosh said the requirement triggers special education protections under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, also known as IDEA. Those federal protections are incongruous with the bill’s requirement to remove students from their classroom.

“It’s going to create an ambiguity that is going to lead to litigation, there is no way above that or beyond that,” McIntosh said. “If we have teachers that are asking for these students to be removed, and the law says technically they are protected students under the IDEA, which all of these kids would be because they’re all now triggering ChildFind under this language, then we as a school system have to figure out how to litigate – are we under the IDEA? Or are we complying with the law?”

SB 614’s lead sponsor and Senate Education Chair Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, was on hand to defend the bill. She said the bill’s requirements raise the standard for all counties.

“The whole purpose is to remove that child immediately, one to three days, and there have been school systems who say we can’t do a risk assessment, or we can’t do analysis in three days,” Grady said. “Well, you can, you’re just not doing it right now because there’s nobody forcing your hand to get it done right away. And this is kind of what we want to do is make sure we get that done quickly, rather than them dragging their feet for two weeks at a time and saying we don’t have that ready.”

Grady, a teacher, has consistently said that discipline is the number one issue for teachers, driving them away from the profession and robbing other students of their right to learn. She said SB 614 isn’t perfect, but something needs to be done to help the situation.

“You need more people to help with risk assessments, then so be it. That’s what you do,” Grady said. “You rearrange things. That’s what we do in education, we make do with what we have. And so I think that, that’s the best way we would do it now. And if it seems like there are a lot of referrals and specific counties or specific areas, then we have to revisit that and see what needs to be done.”

Grady said the law can be reassessed moving forward as needed, acknowledging it will not fit every situation.

“We don’t have an answer for everything. I wish we did,” she said. “And I wish that this bill solved every problem we have, it would be so great. I worked so hard to try to make this perfect. And I realized that it’s not perfect, and it’s never going to be perfect. Because let’s face it, every kid is different. Every county is different. Every school is different, every teacher is different. And so it’s not a one size fits all.”

After more than an hour of discussion over the bill’s language and potential changes to ensure compliance with federal requirements, the committee adjourned without taking further action on SB 614. With only four days left in the regular session, the bill’s future is unclear.

Language similar to, but less stringent than, SB 614 is included in House Bill 5262, also known as the Teacher’s Bill of Rights, which has cleared both education committees and is now pending in Senate Finance.

Senate Takes On School Discipline, Other Bills

Teachers may have the ability to remove troubled children from elementary school classrooms if Senate Bill 614 becomes law. The bill sparked a lot of debate on the chamber floor. It gives kindergarten through sixth grade teachers the ability to remove children from classes or from school if they are exhibiting certain behavior like threatening teachers or classmates or otherwise creating an unsafe learning environment.

Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, is the lead sponsor of this bill and a school teacher herself. She said the bill is to help address the teacher shortage in the state.

“One of the major issues that we are seeing is that teachers are leaving the profession in droves,” Grady said.

She said the number one reason they are leaving is teachers don’t feel they are given the authority in addressing disturbances in the classroom.

“We’re seeing violent and threatening behaviors in students as young as kindergarten that we’ve never seen before. How will this address it? This helps give the teacher a voice,” Grady said.

She said that often an administrator will remove the child from the class, and then put them right back.

“This gives teachers more of a voice to say, I feel unsafe, this child is being violent, my other students are unsafe, and they need to be removed from the classroom for today,” Grady said.

However, some opponents of the bill, like state school board members and the Kanawha County Schools General Counsel, say that this bill takes students out of the best environment for them – the learning environment – where they are surrounded by people trained to help children.

Others like Sen. Mike Woeflel, D-Cabell, questioned why this bill is not accompanied with funding or other initiatives to help children who are being disruptive in the classroom.

“If you have a child that’s misbehaving to this point,” Woeflel said. “He or she has other issues that are giving rise to this behavior and needs resources to address those issues. So it seems to me there would be funding here for counseling or intervention within the family or there’s no funding that goes to implement this bill.”

There is a shortage of school counselors in the state. Currently, there are 306 students for every one counselor in West Virginia public school systems.

Senate Bill 378

Another notable bill before the full Senate was Senate Bill 378, which would fine anyone smoking in the car in the presence of someone under the age of 16.

Lead sponsor of the bill, Sen. Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, and a pulmonologist, said he has received letters in support of the bill. He read excerpts from a letter on the Senate floor from a man in Mingo County whose parents smoked in the car with him.

“He too, grew up in a car full of that heavy smoke,” Takubo said. “It made him so short of breath, so constricted, that it made him cough to the point of vomiting, amongst other things. Then [he] went on to say his brother died of lung cancer. Another sister with brain cancer died of emphysema.”

The bill states the fine for smoking in the car with a minor would be $25.

He said the bill will double as a public service announcement to parents so they rethink smoking in the car with their children present.

However, Mike Azinger, R-Wood, said this is a violation of parental rights.

“Parents make this decision over their children, in their vehicle,” Azinger said. “This is where the state has no business going. So I would urge a no vote.”

The bill passed with 25 – 8. .

Senate Bill 590

Currently a city, county, or municipality could set a minimum wage higher than the state minimum wage of $8.75. A bill passed by the Senate Monday seeks to change that.

Sen. Charles Trump, R-Morgan, voted for the bill. He said because there are currently no municipalities in the state that have their own minimum wage, this is a preventative measure. He said the bill protects both business and low income earners.

“If you have a state minimum wage, and some municipality says, ‘nope, the minimum wage here is twice that’,” Trump said. “It hurts the people in that municipality, because jobs go away. It eliminates jobs. And that’s what we want to prevent, make sure nothing like that ever happens.”