St. Paul school pilot programs to key on safety, behavior improvements

Efforts to curb student misbehavior and school violence could make for a busy summer this year in St. Paul.

Last week, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi took the wraps off a task force that will map out community strategies to combat school violence in the city and its suburbs.

His move came as six St. Paul schools prepare to test methods to improve school safety beginning in the fall.

Plans for the six "restorative practices pilot sites" came about as the result of a new teachers' contract that sought to address, among other things, student-on-staff violence. The winning proposals seek alternatives to suspensions and signal the challenges in easing the concerns that contributed to a difficult year and the ouster of Superintendent Valeria Silva in late June.

Budgets are tight, and while teachers had to sign on to the proposals, separate surveys of teachers overseen by a University of Chicago nonprofit group show that their commitment to their respective schools varies.

Here are the six schools that each secured up to $150,000 to implement new behavior strategies, and their plans:

Neighborhood: Dayton's Bluff

Proposed fixes: Add two staff members to build on the practice of holding morning meetings with students, as well as community circles with elders who share stories and lessons on culture. Track whether students who chronically misbehave improve when given leadership opportunities.

Teacher commitment to school: Weak

School budget: $4.5 million, a 3.2 percent decrease

Neighborhood: Payne-Phalen

Challenges: Physical aggression toward staff is on the rise despite focused efforts to improve behavior by special education students in 2014-15 and the general population in 2015-16. A need was cited to train more staff members to de-escalate problem behavior.

Teacher commitment to school: Weak

School budget: $3.9 million, a 0.2 percent decrease

Incidents of student-on-staff violence (September 2014-March 2016): 5

Neighborhood: Payne-Phalen

Challenges: Mistrust of adults and institutions by students grappling with pressures at home and in the community. A minority of students are causing the majority of problems. A majority of fights are between girls and occur on Mondays due to weekend conflicts via social media.

Teacher commitment to school: Strong

School budget: $8.3 million, a 5.1 percent increase

Neighborhood: Summit-University

Challenges: Defiance, aggression and fighting, with causes said to be the "trauma and toxic stress" faced by students and their families. Test scores suffer due to student concerns over classroom safety. More than 80 students per year have been identified as homeless over the past three years.

Proposed fixes: Additional training for teachers and staff members to help students with self-control, mindfulness and other skills. Help students become leaders by developing a peer mediation and mentoring program.

School budget: $2.6 million, an 11.5 percent decrease

Neighborhood: St. Anthony Park

Challenges: Lack of consistency among teachers in referring students for discipline. Persistent achievement gap. While discipline referrals have declined overall, black students still are six times more likely than white peers to be labeled as defiant.

Proposed fixes: Build on work highlighting positive behavior and intervention efforts by training sixth-grade staff and students in the use of problem-solving circles and restorative conversations.

Teacher commitment to school: Neutral

Incidents of student-on-staff violence (September 2014 to March 2016): 4

Neighborhood: West Side

Challenges: Black students account for 49 percent of office referrals in discipline matters — yet black students account for only 19 percent of the enrollment. Staff members inconsistent in referring students for discipline.

Proposed fixes: Staff members to be trained monthly in restorative practices, and intervention strategies to be tried before students are removed from classrooms. If they are removed, a process is to be put in place by which students reflect in writing about their behavior and answers are shared with teachers before students return to class.

Teacher commitment to school: Very weak