Warren board to review policy on fighting

By Tim Yovich

A minister wants the school leadership to undergo sensitivity and diversity training.

WARREN — The board of education will take another look at its zero-tolerance policy for those students caught fighting in school.

Robert Faulkner, board president, said the board will discuss the policy, along with other issues, when it has a daylong retreat April 18.

Faulkner said he wants to be assured that all students are in a safe learning atmosphere.

His comments came Tuesday after hearing from ministers and community members during regular and special meetings at the YWCA. The meetings were moved from the board offices to the YWCA to accommodate more people.

The group of predominantly black ministers, who say they represent the majority of blacks in the district, and residents have been complaining since Kayla Sparks, a Warren G. Harding High School senior, was expelled for fighting.

The ministers, primarily through their spokesman, the Rev. Alton Merrell Sr., pastor of New Jerusalem Fellowship, have said they aren’t against disciplining students for fighting. He added, however, that Kayla was a good student who was merely defending herself when attacked by two other girls in the school.

The mothers of the two other students who were suspended for the fight enrolled their daughters in another school after their suspensions but before they were expelled.

Kayla, who didn’t start the fight, the ministers argue, won’t be able to graduate, although her appeal hearing was last week.

The Rev. Orneil Heller of New Jerusalem called on the board to immediately return Kayla to the classroom, allow the time she has spent during expulsion to be her punishment, have the board begin reviewing the zero-tolerance policy within 30 days, and have all board members, administrators, teachers and staff undergo sensitivity and diversity training within two years.

The Rev. Mr. Heller termed Kayla’s expulsion as extreme discipline, and that discipline should be discretionary and progressive, noting that students shouldn’t be expelled immediately for fighting.

That punishment, he explained, should be left for those who bring weapons into school or make bomb threats.

At one point during the special meeting, board members were asked if students should be suspended for defending themselves. Board members Kevin Stringer and Patricia Limperos responded that they shouldn’t be expelled, while members Shari Harrell and Edward Belino said they shouldn’t be if it’s clear they had defended themselves. Faulkner said the board policy should be upheld.

The Rev. Frank Hearns, pastor of Second Baptist Church, said the ministers don’t condone fighting, and discipline should be designed to change student behavior.

During the meetings, some people said that taking the Rev. Mr. Merrell off the district’s substitute list was done because of his position on Kayla’s expulsion.

Mr. Merrell learned last week that the district had sent out a memo saying that he should not be used. No reason for eliminating his name was given, and Dawn Marzano, district spokeswoman, added that Superintendent Kathryn Hellweg wasn’t commenting.

Mr. Merrell was a teacher and principal in the district for nearly 30 years and substituted, he said, three to five days a week for the past three years.

Councilman James “Doc” Pugh, D-6th, said the board “needs to step up and represent the community. I hope you step up and do the right thing.”

Substitute teachers don’t work for the money but because they want to teach, Pugh told the board.

Another person coming to Mr. Merrell’s defense was Larry Dueber of Warren, a retired teacher who substitutes in another district.

Dueber said that if Mr. Merrell doesn’t get his substitute teaching position back, “that is dead wrong.”

yovich@vindy.com