A group of about 150 parents and students gathered Thursday evening at Columbus Middle School to listen to school and city officials share information on a topic important to every parent in the district: school safety.
During the hour-long meeting, called Parent Awareness for School-Aged Students, parents heard from Columbus Municipal School District Superintendent Cherie Labat, CMSD Chief Resource Officer Doran Johnson, Columbus Police Department Chief Fred Shelton and other CMSD personnel on topics ranging from the monitoring of students and school property, disciplinary policies, the role of resource officers and school safety plans.
While reviewing safety policies, Labat emphasized the role of the district’s disciplinary policies.
“What’s important to understand is that the our policies are designed to be a method of enlightened self-control,” Labat told her audience. “Ultimately, discipline is a shared responsibility. Students, parents and school officials all have a role to play. That’s why it’s important for parents to read and understand the code of conduct we provide every student at the beginning of the school year. It’s not about punishment. It’s about safety.”
Johnson, one of three resource officers, explained their role in achieving that.
“We are our own police department inside the school,” Johnson said. “While we do work with the city police department, they are there to assist us in our job.
“Our role is to move throughout the school and its property to ensure the (safety) of the students and school property,” he added. “We are there to assess situations to keep everyone safe. Every now and then, when an incident rises to the level of being a crime, we’ll perform our duties as law enforcement officers. But our primary duty is safety. That’s what we spend the majority of our time dealing with.”
During each regular board meeting, Labat releases a monthly student disciplinary report. So far, the district has 3,646 discipline referrals through January. Last year, the district had a little less than 3,400 in the same time frame. The majority of referrals district-wide are classified as disruptive behavior.
At the CMS, there have been nearly 900 discipline referrals, about 100 more than last school year. The majority of those student discipline issues have been considered disruptive behavior or horseplay.
Labat said by next year, CMSD plans to host meetings throughout the year at each school, in an effort to combat disciplinary issues.
“The most impressive obersvation I had (at the meeting), it was a very diverse group of parents,” Labat said. “The parent participation continues to move upward. There’s a strong correlation between parent participation and student achievement. I commend my principals on being able to get all those parents to come out.”
Audience members posed questions during a short panel discussion comprised of Labat, Johnson, Shelton and school board members with questions ranging from the progress of the search for a new football coach at Columbus High to a perception of special treatment for some students, and from accessibility to the superintendent to bullying.
“We take bullying very seriously,” Johnson said. “When there is a report of bullying, we investigate every report as we are required to do by law. But I think sometimes people misunderstand what bullying really is and what it isn’t. Every time two kids have it in for other and can’t get along, that isn’t necessarily bullying. That’s not to say we won’t intervene in those situations, but we do not use the same procedures as we do with bullying. Bullying is something that happens over a period of time where one kid is targeting another kid who feels helpless to respond. When we get reports of that happening from the administration, we investigate those reports every time.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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A group of about 150 students and parents turned out for Thursday evening's parent awareness meeting at the Columbus Middle School auditorium. In addition to hearing from school and city officials, parents submitted questions as part of a panel discussion. Photo by: Slim Smith/Dispatch Staff
