Panel working on alternative-school plan

By Harold Gwin

YOUNGSTOWN — Persistently disruptive students in the city schools could find themselves removed from their classrooms and placed in a more-controlled environment where they will learn to improve their behavior.

An ad-hoc committee on student discipline and procedures is looking at the creation of an alternative- school situation for discipline problems, said Anthony Catale, school board president.

“I have been a proponent of that from the get-go,” he said.

The committee, appointed by Superintendent Wendy Webb, is just starting its work, but Catale, who asked that the committee be created, said the alternative-school concept could be one of the group’s recommendations to the school board.

“Every student has the right to a quality education,” he said, explaining that getting chronically disruptive students out of the classroom allows those who want to pursue their education to do so uninterrupted.

Webb said the committee is looking at designing a program for repeat offenders, likely targeting those students who have accumulated two or more suspensions. About 24 percent of those who get suspended are repeat offenders, she said.

The district has to determine if it can set up a program equipped to give those students the required curriculum while also providing conflict-anger management and other counseling services, she said. These children need some additional life skills, Webb added.

Just where an alternative-school program would be established is an issue that will be decided by finances, Catale said.

Students could remain in their own building but in a special classroom, or, if funding permits, a central location could be arranged, he said.

There are perhaps a handful of repeat offenders in every building who could be pulled out of their classrooms and assigned to the alternative school, he said. The district would need to be sure they get the proper intervention — rather than suspension — and keep up with their school work, he said.

There are building administrators, board members, parents and students on the committee, which has about two dozen members.

“We want the input of everybody,” Catale said.

The idea behind the committee’s creation is to get an independent look at student disciplinary policies and procedures and to ask for any recommendations the committee feels are necessary to ensure that policy is enforced and that the enforcement is consistent at all levels, from the classroom to the highest level of administration, he said.

Creating an alternative-school setting is a project that will take a lot of planning, Webb said, adding that it is unlikely such a program could be launched before next school year.

gwin@vindy.com