On Tuesday, June 20th at 8am, Chad Johnson, Erin Kuchler, and Lilly Phung of Student Council met

with Superintendent Dr. Marseille to discuss the upcoming school year regarding school climate and

other related topics.

How are restorative practices going to be implemented beyond just the youth court?

Restorative practices are implemented for all infractions. Teachers will be given multiple

opportunities to learn the principles of PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention System), which Youth

Court is a component of.

Are there plans to allocate more resources to existing programs that have been proven

effective in helping students and bettering the school climate such as freshman seminar?

Freshman Seminar is extremely challenging with all the components that come to play when

creating a master schedule. . Were going to improve on the seminar in the upcoming school year,

based off of the data gained from last year. Were looking to increase student participation in the

program.

Will you or have you hired a specialist or specialists concerning specifically the mental

health of our students?

Yes. At the last legislative board meeting the board approved on a number of positions from the

feedback that weve received from StuCo, the community, and staff. We will have a full-time mental

wellness counselor and an additional social worker who will work for both middle and high school.

They will widely publicize themselves and make themselves accessible to the students. In the

previous school year, there was a large misunderstanding of the school psychologist: the

psychologist is for analyzing rather than for clinical work. We also brought in two additional safety
officers.. We have an administrator who support administration and staff with not only discipline

but also help to establish and promote a healthy climate and culture and be more proactive with

families.. We will also have a full-time In-School Suspension (ISS) coordinator to ensure that ISS is

more meaningful and supports both academic and social emotional outcomes.. The students will

have to submit a letter of reflection to recognize what theyve done wrong and why, and what they

should say to the person/people theyve impacted negatively. Detentions will follow a similar

model. . For any new position added regarding staff, we will ensure that the students know who

they are, where theyre located, and when you can come and talk to them. Thus, the first few days of

school will be a little bit different due to these introductions.

Is there anything being done to incorporate teacher voices in policy making?

Yes. There will be more opportunities for staff to to voice how theyre feeling throughout the school

year.

Do we have an efficient plan for the of the 8th grade move-in considering we are removing

science teachers away from classes with labs?

Yes, we have a plan. All the rooms, students, teachers have been identified. We will run the program

identical to how it was run in the last 2 years. However, we will have 216 additional students so we

will need extra supervision. They will have their own lunch periods. Were hoping that they will

move into their new building in January.

A lot of students were complaining about the scheduling conflicts brought on this year and

more than other years, presumably because of the 30 minute lunches, especially dealing

with the music and arts departments which seem to be mostly suffering from the change. Are
you considering modifying this process in the future so that less schedule conflicts will

occur, specifically with the music and arts classes?

Not a lot of students have lost their music/arts classes. We have largely corrected the issue.

Additionally, the conflict is not just about the 30 minute lunches. The conflict is also raised through

freshman seminar scheduling issues, project-based learning, and 8th grade teachers who also teach

high school students. Additionally, itll be more challenging if we add more students in freshman

seminar. Creating a master schedule is very complex and involve a lot of moving parts. The

counselors and administrators work every year to fill student request and when that is possible

alternative options are provided.

Were teachers complaining about the lack of class time or is the extra twelve hours being

used to try and combat the achievement gap in our school?

There are a multitude of reasons for the 30 minute lunches. The primary reason for the shift was

that in our strategic plan, we wanted to think of innovative means of scheduling. The 30 minute

lunches are the first step in knocking down a barrier in order for us to adopt a much more flexible

structure for classes, such a block scheduling, hybrid between block and traditional, etc.

What if the 30 minute lunches just dont work?

Wed have to go back and figure out what tweaks we can do to make it better. The configuration of

the cafeteria makes a 30 minute lunch challenging particularly at this school. I know that the first

30 days will be challenging and I accept that its the natural process of change; Ill give it time. I will

work over the summer to maximize the 30 minute lunches experience and process. 30 minute

lunches have worked in every district that I have been part of. Change is hard and changing
behaviors is even harder. I hope that people will give the prototype a chance to succeed. I will be

meeting with McFall next week to discuss how to improve the senior cafeteria as well.

Do you plan to regularly refill the female hygiene dispensers, because this past year they

were empty since the first marking period?

Yes. We will do that.

How does the school plan to be more consistent in enforcing its rules? Oftentimes rules may

be enforced for a period of time until it is forgotten and students already assume that it

wont stay consistent.

There are mitigating factors for certain students that are confidential, thus it may seem unfair to

others who see that the punishment that student has received is seemingly unfair. At the beginning

of the year, we will ensure that students know what exactly these mitigating factors are. Over the

summer we will meet with teachers K-12 with what language to use with these students and how to

consistently handle them. Over the summer we will also meet with families whose students have

struggled in discipline, academics, attendance, etc. We will talk about our expectations and develop

an academic and behavioral academic plan for the first 30-40 school days for those students.

Additionally, when theres a physical altercation, we will have language that distinguishes between

the aggressor and someone defending themselves.

The Womens Student Unions dress code is officially updated and will be in the upcoming

DAB right? Will it be enforced for teachers to read the new dress code to avoid any issues?

We will continue to ensure that our dress code policies are enforced and that they do not

disproportionately impact or marginalize any group of students.

Do you have any further plans for the upcoming school year?

We will have more conversations about how we use social media to disparage others. We will

create boundaries and a safe space emotionally and physically. We will delineate these also for

relationships between teachers and students. We will try to be a lot more proactive concerning this.

We will holistically focus on engagement and environment.

Is there anything youd like Student Council to do?

Id like to think Student Council as a voice for the entire student population. I think we need to find

opportunities to bring students together more that are more socially based than assemblies. I want

Student Councils help in building a community. Im hoping to work with Student Council to

distinguish what the non-negotiables are and when we meet, it should be a hybrid of discussing

concerns and having a work session. Id like to have a product: heres what we tasked ourselves to

do, and whats the outcome of that?