CEO Mohip's new conduct code reduces lost days due to discipline 42%

By AMANDA TONOLI

atonoli@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

A 42-percent decrease in high school students’ days missed due to disciplinary issues is a result Youngstown City Schools CEO Krish Mohip is happy to boast about.

Mohip unveiled a new student code of conduct in March that implemented Positive Behavioral and Intervention Supports and restorative practices. The process allows all students to receive education rather than exclusion for wrongdoing.

In the 2015-16 school year, high school students missed 7,424 days over disciplinary practices. After Mohip implemented the system, in 2016-17, students missed 4,324 days, a 42-percent decline.

Behaviors that resulted in suspension in the old conduct code included fighting, sexual misconduct, theft, damage to property, cellphone use, arson, assault, bullying, bomb threats, possession of weapons and more.

The previous code didn’t provide intervention alternatives. If a student was accused of an offense, the code spelled out exactly what the discipline would be.

“It’s not that teachers and administrators aren’t permitted to suspend students, but it should be rare,” Mohip said. “The new code of conduct follows restorative justice and restorative practices as well as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports.”

Suspending a student should be a last resort, Mohip added.

“Aside from suspensions not being an effective deterrent, a child can’t learn if he or she isn’t in school,” he said.

With PBIS, parties involved in a dispute come together and talk about how and why the incident occurred and how the parties’ actions affected other people. The administration pulls parents in to this process when it sees fit.

“This new code of conduct allows teachers and administrators to tailor discipline to the individual student and incident involved,” Mohip said.

“The consequence doled out is more than a punishment. It allows a student to see not only that his or her behavior affects others but how it affects them, as well as gives them an opportunity to learn how to respond in a positive manner if presented with the same situation in the future. That allows the discipline to have more of an impact.”

Debbie DiFrancesco, Rayen Early College principal, told the story of two seventh-graders who got into what she called a “hair-pulling, drag-out fight.”

“They told me the basic story, they were playing and then someone got too rough and whatever,” she said. “But after they explained to me what happened, we talked about how their actions affected the rest of the school and the community and not just them.

“We talked about how they made me and the other kids in their class feel bad and how they set a bad example for sixth-graders. It had a lot of impact which really had me taken aback.”

When DiFrancesco told the students she was not going to suspend them, “their mouths just hit the floor.”

“I explained Mr. Mohip introduced [administrators to] a new concept that being out of school doesn’t really help you. We had a discussion that they were very attentive to and as a part of their restorative justice, the students had to research restorative justice and do a presentation for sixth-graders.”

After the students had their scuffle, some family members who attend the Chaney campus wanted to carry out their own justice – in another fight.

But DiFrancesco’s students put it to an end.

“They asked these other students to please respect their decision not to fight anymore,” DiFrancesco said. “When I went home, I just cried. I could not believe how well this worked.”

In Ohio, there were 12 out-of-school suspensions per 100 students for 2015-16, according to the Ohio Department of Education. In Youngstown City Schools that average was 49.7 out-of-school suspensions per 100 students per year in 2015-16.

As far as days missed for all district students due to discipline, there was a 52 percent decrease between 2015-16 and 2016-17, from 12,867 days to 6,682.

For each item, there was a decrease in days missed from 2015-16 to 2016-17 because of: emergency removal, from 436 to 415 days; out-of-school suspension, from 9,256 to 4,155 days; and in-school suspension from 3,175 to 2,112 days.

This results in an average of about 2.4 infractions per student in 2015-16 and 1.3 infractions per student in 2016-17. The infractions are those that take students out of school.

Lorain City Schools, a school district also undergoing a state takeover to improve academic performance, has also had improving discipline results, decreasing from 2015-16’s 0.3 to 2016-17’s 0.2 infractions per student.

Lorain, however, has been on a steady disciplinary decline since 2012 and Youngstown has not.

Since the 2012-13 school year, Youngstown City Schools have been on a bumpy ride with disciplinary action resulting in 1.6, 2.4 and 1.3 infractions per student in 2012, 2013 and 2016.

Board of education member Ronald Shadd said he wishes the report on discipline told the whole story.

“You can make numbers look any way you want,” Shadd said. “[With those results] you don’t know the number of kids referred for disciplinary action and that’s important, too.”

Board member Jackie Adair agreed.

“The discipline is not down,” she said. “Kids are still misbehaving at the same pace, maybe more so. Just the consequences have changed.”

Adair said discipline methods need to be more concise.

“My concern is simply the fact that classroom management is almost unrecognizable,” she said. “Mohip is looking at rehabilitative kinds of discipline and I’m OK, to a small extent, with that. But what I’m hearing from the teachers is, ‘We don’t have time to go through [the steps] they want us to go through.”

During her time as a middle school math teacher, Adair said she believed and continues to believe in “a firm hand.”

“I mean what I say,” she said. “And you better do what I say. These are my classroom rules. Don’t step on the

crack

because if you break my back,

you’re out of here. When I did this, those children responded positively. I walked around the classroom and I stood next to someone who was getting ready to start some dumb stuff. I’m not saying I’m the greatest, but I know how I handled my classes, and they were under control. ... By doing this, I avoided the need to write up a lot of discipline referrals [resulting in less suspensions].”

She said simply, it’s about finding a technique that works.

Regardless of criticism, Mohip plans to continue his code of conduct.

“We expect to reduce the number again this upcoming school year,” Mohip said.

The first day of the school year for Youngstown City Schools students is Sept. 5.