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November 9, 2000 Superintendent’s Remarks at the Middle School Parent Meeting Good evening. Thank you for coming. I have spent a great deal of time at the Middle School this week, walking the halls, visiting classrooms, and talking with parents and students and teachers. As some of you know, I had to miss the parent meeting on Monday night because I had a longstanding speaking engagement at the national conference of foundations that grant money to address education issues. At this particular session, the topic was the minority achievement gap, which of course is an issue of utmost concern to us in Shaker Heights. But I have had a full report on the parent meeting and the concerns you have expressed are clear. I don’t think I need to rehash the events of the past week. You have been sent two letters that outline what has happened. Copies of those letters will be available at the end of the meeting for anyone who wants one. What I do want to do is set this series of incidents in a context so that we can make sense of it, learn from it, and move into action to make life better for the young people here at the Middle School and the young people who will follow them. First, it’s important that we keep in mind the nature of young adolescents. Students this age are delightful, energetic, and refreshing. They can also be perplexing. They are exciting and excitable. They are confused and confusing. As a colleague of mine often says, they have one foot in childhood and one foot in adulthood . . . and both feet are on banana peels. Young adolescents may look and act as if they don’t need you around much anymore. They may even say so. Don’t believe it. They need your unconditional love and active guidance as much now as they did when they were toddlers. They need for you to be attentive in ways that are sensitive to their internal struggle for independence and acceptance. Students this age sometimes have poor judgment. They are often moody, making it difficult even for professionals to distinguish normal mood swings from bona fide mental health problems. They often do not understand the consequences of their words and actions. Most of the difficulties parents, teachers, and peers experience with young adolescents result from poor judgment, not pathology. That is very important to keep in mind as we try to make sense of these incidents and move forward. The young person whose initial note precipitated all this furor may or may not be a “troubled child.” It may be a youngster whose emotional health is within the normal range, but whose judgment is poor. Perhaps he or she wanted attention, and chose a really lousy way to get it. The copycats who emerged after the initial notes may or may not be “troubled children.” We should not necessarily assume that they are, but of course we should make every effort to find out and help. It is also in the nature of young adolescents that they don’t always say, or even know, what they are feeling. How they behave and how they really feel may not match. Some are highly dramatic, some are stoically silent, some laugh, and some have nightmares. I guarantee you, though, that regardless of external appearances there is not a child in this school who does not need to be reassured and given opportunities to talk about these incidents. Most will rebound quickly if they are given calm reassurance, guidance, and a chance to be listened to. Some, however, might need professional help, and I hope that parents will feel free to ask our counselors and psychologists for assistance. This vast range of student reactions is attributable both to the volatile nature of their age, and to this particular generation’s loss of innocence at an early age. They are growing up in a culture in which violence is glorified and ubiquitous. And at the impressionable ages of 10, 11, and 12, they were acutely aware of very public, very traumatic events. Many of us can remember defining moments in our own lives. For my generation, the Kennedy, King, and Kennedy assassinations were those moments. We all remember where we were when we heard the news. And although we didn’t necessarily realize it at the time, we lost our innocence. For this generation of Shaker Heights children, the Columbine rampage and Penny Chang’s murder are certain to be similar defining moments. Imagine what it has been like for these children. They were able to watch on live television as law enforcement officers stormed Columbine High School and paramedics carried out the bodies of students and teachers. And that dramatic footage was played over and over, 24 hours a day. Just a few weeks later, one of our own students was gunned down by a stalker at one of the busiest intersections in town. Many of these children knew Penny or her siblings. Everyone in our community was touched by that tragedy. You can restore mental health for those who are severely traumatized by these events, but you can never fully restore innocence. The young adolescents of today are forever changed by those events, and so are we as parents. I think we as an institution underestimated the extent to which the threatening notes that began to surface on Friday would incite panic among some students and parents. In hindsight, there were many reasons for that. Please understand that I am not making excuses, but trying to explain why we did what we did, when we did. One of the notes circulated among students for several hours last Friday before it got into the hands of an assistant principal. We immediately sought out assistance from the Shaker Heights police and began calling the parents of all the children on the lists, but we were acting on an incomplete picture. We simply did not know how widespread students’ knowledge of the lists was. A second factor was timing. The information came into our possession on Friday afternoon. Over the weekend, the rumor mill went wild, with students discussing the notes at their games and slumber parties, and parents hearing accounts that were in some cases embellished or completely inaccurate. A third factor was an undercurrent of parent concern over some behavior issues and a few truly troubling incidents at the Middle School. And a fourth factor, I think, was our failure to appreciate fully the lasting impact that Columbine and the Chang murder have had on students and parents. Consequently, our plan for Monday morning -- and we did have one -- was focused on two tasks: keeping students safe and investigating the notes. The plan was adequate to these tasks. It was not, in hindsight, adequate to the task of making all students and parents feel as confident about safety as we were. As soon as we realized that we had misjudged the level of anxiety, we went to the next level of our critical events plan, which included a continued visible law enforcement presence, a strong presence on the part of senior district staff, and the deployment of psychologists to work with youngsters. With their help, and extraordinary efforts by the Middle School faculty, things have begun to return to normal. Attendance today was normal, and school routines have been re-established. One student confessed to writing one of the copycat notes, and the investigation continued. We have learned from this, and as we continue to debrief, we will learn more. We know that building security is an important concern, and Mr. Moody will have more details in a moment on what we have done and what we are doing to make improvements in that regard. First, though, I want to tell you about some other steps we have taken, and are taking, that are equally important. This is a very good school with a highly qualified and dedicated faculty. It can be an even better school. We have been listening carefully to the concerns raised by parents, teachers, and students. We know that there are issues and concerns related to school climate, student behavior, and communication with parents. We will be addressing these in very concrete ways in the near future with the input of parents, faculty and students. But school improvement is hard work. I cannot mandate it, and you cannot demand it, without a commitment to work to make it happen. We are going to work on prevention of bullying and harassment. The High School PTO has done some very good work in this regard, and we will adapt that work to the Middle School. We are going to find ways and time to help youngsters work on issues of peer pressure and decision-making skills. We will review and update our critical events protocols to incorporate what we have learned from this experience. We do not have details on exactly how we are going to do these things -- that takes careful investigation of available programs and good planning. But I want to make clear that these are institutional priorities to which we are firmly committed. We are reviewing and considering any and all suggestions for improvement, including greater use of technology for both security and communication; alternatives for troubled students; security cameras and personnel; and constructive after-school activities for young adolescents. Mayor Rawson has affirmed that the School District and the City are as one in our commitment to children’s safety as our first priority. She assures me that we can continue to count on the City to provide whatever support we need in this regard. And I know that she and Council are committed to working with us and the Library to develop positive activities for children. We deeply appreciate that support. Please keep the good ideas coming, whether through informal conversations or structured discussion groups. Not every suggestion will turn out to be workable, but every suggestion will be considered and appreciated. We have asked for your suggestions for improving the Middle School in the long term. In closing, I would like to ask you to do a few things over the next few days to help our children and teachers get beyond this episode and move forward with learning. First, please take the opportunity during conferences tomorrow and Monday to thank the teachers. They have worked so hard this week to give our children continuity, stability, and routine. It has not been an easy week for them, but they have done a marvelous job. They take great pride in their school, their work, and their relationships with students. Like all of us, they want to have the best middle school possible. Second, please feel free to talk with teachers during conference time about the events of the past week as they relate to your child. We need to know of lingering concerns so we can help children. More generalized discussions, however, are not a good use of conference time. It’s important to keep the focus of the conference on your child. Members of the administrative staff will be available in the office to discuss broader concerns. Third, please be particularly attuned to any rumors or unusual level of excitement on the part of students over the weekend. They have a four-day weekend, and that cuts both ways. They need a breather from the tension of the past week, and we want to give them a fresh start on Tuesday. But the long weekend for students may also mean long stretches of unsupervised time. Please pay close and careful attention to your children’s whereabouts, companions, and concerns this weekend. If you learn of anything that might be of concern, give us a heads-up. The Middle School office will be open all day tomorrow and Monday, and the voicemail line at 295-4104 will be in service all weekend. We don’t want to be caught short on Tuesday, and with your help we won’t be. We have faced many difficult challenges as a community: integration, the tragic deaths of young people, student achievement, just to name a few. We have been and will be successful because we have a lot of talented, committed residents who refuse to accept anything less than excellence and who are willing to put their energy and expertise to work for the community’s sake. By tapping into these resources, we will meet the challenge of creating a safe, orderly, and productive school environment for all our children. I thank you so much for your concern. In the best Shaker Heights tradition, we will join together to turn adversity into action on behalf of our children.
November 7, 2000 Letter to Middle School Parents
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