Bob Duffy? WTF?

Wow. I’m a bit shocked.

https://eastlansinginfo.news/east-lansing-high-school-teachers-and-students-describe-fear-and-exhaustion-from-ongoing-violence/

I took a gun from a kid once. Wasn’t loaded but we had our informants. Walked him to his locker asked him for it. Kid said c’mon wags. Anyway, the kid was back in school in 10 days. That’s when I decided to make retirement plans. I didn’t want the kids life ruined but I got some of the outrage also. As I didn’t have an answer I started to figure maybe I’m getting too old and separated from modern kids and families. Side note: I liked the kid. But wtf? ( I was explained the reason for his return but I still didn’t understand it).

Nm

How does a school system become a "safe zone" when a significant portion of the community believes the only way to be safe is to carry a gun?

Going back 50 years, to when I graduated from high school, there were always kids which you avoided because they were physically abusive. Of course, back in the day we didn't have to worry all that much about guns.

Floyd Robertson wrote:You were explained the reason for his return, but were you ever explained why the gun was in his locker? In that district it seems mind-bottling.

So, when you discipline kids in public schools rules change if a student is diagnosed special Ed. But there are differing levels of special Ed and some students and families play every angle like pros. It’s like they’re there to make trouble because they can. I say that with my daughter teaching special Ed right now. I know different rules are needed. However I was old enough and cranky enough to think we should draw the line at guns.

DWags wrote:

Floyd Robertson wrote:You were explained the reason for his return, but were you ever explained why the gun was in his locker? In that district it seems mind-bottling.

So, when you discipline kids in public schools rules change if a student is diagnosed special Ed. But there are differing levels of special Ed and some students and families play every angle like pros. It’s like they’re there to make trouble because they can. I say that with my daughter teaching special Ed right now. I know different rules are needed. However I was old enough and cranky enough to think we should draw the line at guns.

Another burden we ask teachers to carry without much thought, and either it is being reported more, or it is getting worse, or both.

Not really impressed with the defensiveness of the East Lansing board chairperson, but that is why many elected officials never make it farther than the school boards. Can see her point about uneven justice in the schools, (why would they be different than anywhere else), not convinced that less justice is a totally workable solution.

DWags wrote:Wow. I’m a bit shocked.

https://eastlansinginfo.news/east-lansing-high-school-teachers-and-students-describe-fear-and-exhaustion-from-ongoing-violence/

it's been a mess, from what I can tell.

you (might) know how it is. Our daughter graduated from ELHS in 2018, I haven't set a foot on campus (other than the track in the summer) since, no contact with staff/faculty from there in a while, no friends with kids there anymore, etc - so we feel completely disengaged from EL public schools, really.

Kid texted yesterday, as she had heard something about this. Sent me a video of the board meeting from Monday night (I believe) - I knew a lot of the teachers who spoke, a handful of the parents who spoke. Nearly 3 hours of public comments.

Sounds like the administration/board has had a hard time holding students accountable for actions, behaviors. It's obviously escalated from there and now they're at the point where you can't put toothpaste back in the tube.

The initial stage of handling a problem is acknowledging that there is one. At the school board meeting, some of the board members were in tears. I think they heard concerns and had a difficult time processing it (except for one board member.. who needs to resign immediately) - but there was a snow day today and I suspect they're using it as an emergency strategic planning session.

Holding kids accountable, while not easy, is one of the most profound acts of love one can engage in. Something needs to be done immediately or, it sounds like, things could get really bad.

Trapper Gus wrote:

DWags wrote:

So, when you discipline kids in public schools rules change if a student is diagnosed special Ed. But there are differing levels of special Ed and some students and families play every angle like pros. It’s like they’re there to make trouble because they can. I say that with my daughter teaching special Ed right now. I know different rules are needed. However I was old enough and cranky enough to think we should draw the line at guns.

Another burden we ask teachers to carry without much thought, and either it is being reported more, or it is getting worse, or both.

Not really impressed with the defensiveness of the East Lansing board chairperson, but that is why many elected officials never make it farther than the school boards. Can see her point about uneven justice in the schools, (why would they be different than anywhere else), not convinced that less justice is a totally workable solution.

yep - they need to go. Now.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

Another burden we ask teachers to carry without much thought, and either it is being reported more, or it is getting worse, or both.

Not really impressed with the defensiveness of the East Lansing board chairperson, but that is why many elected officials never make it farther than the school boards. Can see her point about uneven justice in the schools, (why would they be different than anywhere else), not convinced that less justice is a totally workable solution.

yep - they need to go. Now.

Assuming you know much more than I do, however, I am not in favor of pushing elected officials out before their term is over unless there is clear corruption.

Anyone can make choices which boomerang, and her point about racial issues with the former system, if true, means the change was made to make that better. The "law" of unintended consequences holds, and the board also has to be concerned with the law and lawsuits as part of their job. Vote her out, if she runs again, or wait to see what she does before calling for her head.

If there are other corruption issues then have at it.

I lived the life of a district that declined for many reasons. This topic being only one. Another administrator and I wanted to write a book on the mistakes we made as a district.

I sincerely hope East Lansing figures this out. I have no advice, but only a warning. This is one leg of a three leg table that puts a cloud over a district. I only hope this can be handled. It always was and is a good district. It’s time for good leadership.

Trapper Gus wrote:

Robert J Sakimano wrote:
yep - they need to go. Now.

Assuming you know much more than I do, however, I am not in favor of pushing elected officials out before their term is over unless there is clear corruption.  

Anyone can make choices which boomerang, and her point about racial issues with the former system, if true, means the change was made to make that better.  The "law" of unintended consequences holds, and the board also has to be concerned with the law and lawsuits as part of their job.  Vote her out, if she runs again, or wait to see what she does before calling for her head.

If there are other corruption issues then have at it.

I have no reason to believe there's any corruption at all.

But to hear the president of the school board, after listening to nearly 3 hours of students, parents and teachers speaking through tears, some literally sobbing and two board members beside her crying, after fights, one of which occurred in the parking lot in which a gun was involved, say she needs more than "I don't feel safe" from students, staff, faculty and parents to take action, some changes are needed.

if she refuses to lead, that's cool - but she needs to respect the community enough to step down and allow someone else to. Her riding the "I'm the enlightened liberal here and you can thank me later for bestowing my wisdom upon you" vibe isn't working.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

Assuming you know much more than I do, however, I am not in favor of pushing elected officials out before their term is over unless there is clear corruption.  

Anyone can make choices which boomerang, and her point about racial issues with the former system, if true, means the change was made to make that better.  The "law" of unintended consequences holds, and the board also has to be concerned with the law and lawsuits as part of their job.  Vote her out, if she runs again, or wait to see what she does before calling for her head.

If there are other corruption issues then have at it.

I have no reason to believe there's any corruption at all.

But to hear the president of the school board, after listening to nearly 3 hours of students, parents and teachers speaking through tears, some literally sobbing and two board members beside her crying, after fights, one of which occurred in the parking lot in which a gun was involved, say she needs more than "I don't feel safe" from students, staff, faculty and parents to take action, some changes are needed.

if she refuses to lead, that's cool - but she needs to respect the community enough to step down and allow someone else to. Her riding the "I'm the enlightened liberal here and you can thank me later for bestowing my wisdom upon you" vibe isn't working.

Agree she isn't empathetic or politically astute, but hoping the board will take some actions over what seems like a shitty situation. She sounds like she wasn't ready to present a plan at the meeting and was searching for concrete input from someone else.

As Dwags said, the rules seem to be creating the wrong environment for a formal education in many schools, not just in East Lensing.

Trapper Gus wrote:

Robert J Sakimano wrote:
I have no reason to believe there's any corruption at all.

But to hear the president of the school board, after listening to nearly 3 hours of students, parents and teachers speaking through tears, some literally sobbing and two board members beside her crying, after fights, one of which occurred in the parking lot in which a gun was involved, say she needs more than "I don't feel safe" from students, staff, faculty and parents to take action, some changes are needed.

if she refuses to lead, that's cool - but she needs to respect the community enough to step down and allow someone else to. Her riding the "I'm the enlightened liberal here and you can thank me later for bestowing my wisdom upon you" vibe isn't working.

Agree she isn't empathetic or politically astute, but hoping the board will take some actions over what seems like a shitty situation.  She sounds like she wasn't ready to present a plan at the meeting and was searching for concrete input from someone else.

As Dwags said, the rules seem to be creating the wrong environment for a formal education in many schools, not just in East Lensing.

Dori Leyko's statement (she's the superintendent) was heartfelt. She was very upset, struggled through tears and really acknowledged some failures and pledged to rectify them.

Lots of students spoke but two adults that, to me, had the most impact (maybe 'cause I now them both) are at 39:00 and 54:00 of the video. Kevin Mayes is a longtime teacher, basketball coach. To see him shaken was hard for me to watch.

The mom from the 39 minute mark has had (I believe) 4 kids go through EL schools and her daughter is now a teacher there, along with swim/water polo coach. She was in the parking lot - one of the first adults to get there - when the big fight broke out involving the gun.

If you (anyone) haven't, it's worth watching these two statements.

Link

tGreenWay wrote:

Robert J Sakimano wrote:
I have no reason to believe there's any corruption at all.

But to hear the president of the school board, after listening to nearly 3 hours of students, parents and teachers speaking through tears, some literally sobbing and two board members beside her crying, after fights, one of which occurred in the parking lot in which a gun was involved, say she needs more than "I don't feel safe" from students, staff, faculty and parents to take action, some changes are needed.

if she refuses to lead, that's cool - but she needs to respect the community enough to step down and allow someone else to. Her riding the "I'm the enlightened liberal here and you can thank me later for bestowing my wisdom upon you" vibe isn't working.

Friends in the neighborhood who had kids in school at the time have supported the current president in her previous campaigns, but I couldn’t do it. She’s always seemed off to me. One friend conceded she’s strange but a good person. Nope, sorry, that’s not going to cut it for me. I love strange. I welcome it, but not when you want a seat on a board deciding the educational futures of students. Her dismissive comments at that meeting confirmed all I ever need to know about her and why it was good I voted for others.

I can’t imagine being on the school board because I couldn’t tolerate pinheads like myself with our nonstop complaining. But if you want the job, you can’t ever let your empathy run out.  You can and should encourage those in attendance to offer suggestions, but it’s up to you and the rest of the Board to come up with strategies, too. She seems to have stopped listening because she felt she was being attacked.

Agree with 95% - most School Boards look to the Superintendent for policy direction ideas and most Superintendents try to steer the School Boards to go in the direction the Superintendents want them to go.

tGreenWay wrote:

Robert J Sakimano wrote:
I have no reason to believe there's any corruption at all.

But to hear the president of the school board, after listening to nearly 3 hours of students, parents and teachers speaking through tears, some literally sobbing and two board members beside her crying, after fights, one of which occurred in the parking lot in which a gun was involved, say she needs more than "I don't feel safe" from students, staff, faculty and parents to take action, some changes are needed.

if she refuses to lead, that's cool - but she needs to respect the community enough to step down and allow someone else to. Her riding the "I'm the enlightened liberal here and you can thank me later for bestowing my wisdom upon you" vibe isn't working.

Friends in the neighborhood who had kids in school at the time have supported the current president in her previous campaigns, but I couldn’t do it. She’s always seemed off to me. One friend conceded she’s strange but a good person. Nope, sorry, that’s not going to cut it for me. I love strange. I welcome it, but not when you want a seat on a board deciding the educational futures of students. Her dismissive comments at that meeting confirmed all I ever need to know about her and why it was good I voted for others.

I can’t imagine being on the school board because I couldn’t tolerate pinheads like myself with our nonstop complaining. But if you want the job, you can’t ever let your empathy run out.  You can and should encourage those in attendance to offer suggestions, but it’s up to you and the rest of the Board to come up with strategies, too. She seems to have stopped listening because she felt she was being attacked.

100%

Cameron wrote:

Robert J Sakimano wrote: Her riding the "I'm the enlightened liberal here and you can thank me later for bestowing my wisdom upon you" vibe isn't working.

Pretty obnoxious vibe, isn't it?

yep - "accountability" and "right and wrong" isn't a political issue. The president of the school board would disagree and it's a large part of how ELHS got to where it is now.

AvgMSUJoe wrote:I've heard teachers moving from middle school to high school at my local berg due to the amount of violence they have to deal with. I was surprised, but it was from 2 adult male teachers... Wondering if it has some weird effect from the pandemic since it seems like it's not only my local school.

it's pretty clear that the pandemic and surrounding political climate which, of course, was firmly in place leading up to the pandemic, seems to have fundamentally changed how people simply conduct themselves on a daily basis.

there is a fairly well-established theory that trauma can alter a person's DNA makeup. Of course, that is for chemists, biochemists and geneticists to research, but I do strongly believe that psychosocial trauma (a pandemic surrounded by a political climate that makes us question if anyone really cares about us, our lives, and our futures) can, and does, impact our mental health in a way that settles into that same biochemical response in our day-to-day lives.

people aren't okay.

now combine that with the developmental impact of the onset of this psychosocial trauma and it's a perfect storm for the mental collapse of a lot of already vulnerable people. Being 13-14 years old isn't easy for anyone.. and the kids that are in high school now were 13-14 years old when they all got sent home in March of 2020 to tune into a society where they wondered if anyone cared about them.

it takes a village, folks.

duffy munn wrote:

Robert J Sakimano wrote: it's been a mess, from what I can tell.

you (might) know how it is. Our daughter graduated from ELHS in 2018, I haven't set a foot on campus (other than the track in the summer) since, no contact with staff/faculty from there in a while, no friends with kids there anymore, etc - so we feel completely disengaged from EL public schools, really.

Kid texted yesterday, as she had heard something about this. Sent me a video of the board meeting from Monday night (I believe) - I knew a lot of the teachers who spoke, a handful of the parents who spoke. Nearly 3 hours of public comments.

Sounds like the administration/board has had a hard time holding students accountable for actions, behaviors. It's obviously escalated from there and now they're at the point where you can't put toothpaste back in the tube.

The initial stage of handling a problem is acknowledging that there is one. At the school board meeting, some of the board members were in tears. I think they heard concerns and had a difficult time processing it (except for one board member.. who needs to resign immediately) - but there was a snow day today and I suspect they're using it as an emergency strategic planning session.

Holding kids accountable, while not easy, is one of the most profound acts of love one can engage in. Something needs to be done immediately or, it sounds like, things could get really bad.

To me it's unreal the kids that got in the fight broken up by teachers were not immediately suspended.

I think if I was a parent of a current student I would pull my kid. And I've heard from a few parents that they will. Really sad.

it is pretty mind-boggling and Dori addressed that, through tears, at the opening of the board meeting. As I mentioned, she seemed to be genuinely impacted by it, sincerely apologized, and pledged reform.

I can live with that (vs. the president of the school board who appeared to emotionally shut down after she felt like the community she was elected to serve demanded answers).

tGreenWay wrote:If I was still in the news biz, I’d try to get as much info on the two groups blamed for the fights. Talk to both sides to see what’s going on. That’s the story. As it is, in my mind, it’s just the greasers vs. the socs.

without Diane Lane.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

Agree she isn't empathetic or politically astute, but hoping the board will take some actions over what seems like a shitty situation.  She sounds like she wasn't ready to present a plan at the meeting and was searching for concrete input from someone else.

As Dwags said, the rules seem to be creating the wrong environment for a formal education in many schools, not just in East Lensing.

Dori Leyko's statement (she's the superintendent) was heartfelt. She was very upset, struggled through tears and really acknowledged some failures and pledged to rectify them.

Lots of students spoke but two adults that, to me, had the most impact (maybe 'cause I now them both) are at 39:00 and 54:00 of the video. Kevin Mayes is a longtime teacher, basketball coach. To see him shaken was hard for me to watch.

The mom from the 39 minute mark has had (I believe) 4 kids go through EL schools and her daughter is now a teacher there, along with swim/water polo coach. She was in the parking lot - one of the first adults to get there - when the big fight broke out involving the gun.

If you (anyone) haven't, it's worth watching these two statements.

Link

That video is heartbreaking. I’ve been there exactly, and I have a 22 year old who is finishing student teaching with special needs students and she lives what she’s doing. She’s 5’3” 110 lbs. we have a generation of students, a decent portion of them, are raising themselves.

I don’t know the answer. I hope someone smarter than me can figure this out. The guy at 54 minutes is right. We have only two buckets suspension or expulsion. There has to be interventions. But as I say that most people will grab their wallet and say but not at my expense. If we’re not willing to invest in our kids, we deserve what’s coming.

Also, the supe crying and saying they’ll do better. I’m not as moved by her as maybe some are. Her first job in bold thick letters is student safety. So is her 2nd,3rd4th5th. After 20, she should think about budgets quality of staff etc. she fucked up. And I mean fucked up. I’m not trying to be a Monday morning quarterback, but to have school with no precautions the next day was beyond bad. Anyway, just my opinion.

DWags wrote:Also, the supe crying and saying they’ll do better. I’m not as moved by her as maybe some are. Her first job in bold thick letters is student safety. So is her 2nd,3rd4th5th. After 20, she should think about budgets quality of staff etc. she fucked up. And I mean fucked up. I’m not trying to be a Monday morning quarterback, but to have school with no precautions the next day was beyond bad. Anyway, just my opinion.

I hear ya, man..

and, as I mentioned earlier, it's tough to put toothpaste back in the tube, but someone needs to take the reins and make the tough decisions, stand up and say 'enough'. By texting friends (granted, all of our kids have moved on), talking with our daughter, etc., I get the feeling that the EL community is starving for that.

it might sound obnoxious, but as Kevin Mayes (the teacher/coach you referred to) said, East Lansing is better than this. We, as a community, are thirsty for intervention and taking a hard line.

As I mentioned in a previous post, accountability and discipline is one of the highest forms of love. It's time to show some love.