FOLLOWUP
Altho' it's not part of the program, after the student has been in PRC
for 3 days, I send an printshop "invitation" to his/her homebase which
says, "Hey, Stranger, been a long time since you've been in class.
Isn't it about time to negotiate?  Mrs. Payne is available in Rm. 205
during homebase." If the student doesn't act on this, I call a parent &
explain the situation.  After taking informal surveys of kids I've sent,
kids need the first day to cool off, the second to get bored & wonder
what we're doing in class as well as miss their friends & the third to
work on the plan. The PRC teacher says that it's very important to let
the student know that s/he isn't forgotten & that there is a nearly open
invite from the teacher to return.
We treat the time spent in PRC as we would class time missed due to an
illness.  The student has a reasonable amount of time to make up the
work missed.  The student's grade is not affected unless the student
chooses not to complete work missed.
The faster they finish the plan (1 or 2 days,) the less likely it is to
be acceptable.  I've rejected plans for a variety of reasons---one
student vehemently claimed she "didn't do anything" even tho' I saw her
viciously kick another student, same student said her plan was to check
the corridor to make sure I wasn't around & argue loudly in the halls
then instead of going to class between bells, another student said he
would sit by his friends & get **them** to remind him when to pay
attention.  Most often, I rejected because the student wrote a promise
rather than a plan--… la "I will be good."  "I won't talk any more."  "I
will follow the rules."
One kid didn't want to do his plan & kept coming to my class hoping I
wouldn't notice.  The PRC teacher counted him as tardy to her room &
added a rider on his referral slip that meant he had to address that in
his plan.  I'd just wave & say "au revoir, Michael, I haven't seen your
plan yet" when I was taking roll then continue with starting class.  The
first time, he didn't leave right away & I finally had to say to him
nearly 10 min. later "Are you still here?  Where are you supposed to
be?"  He tried it a couple more times, was out absent a few days in
between & he kept thinking I would forget or let him off doing a plan.
Nuh, uh. He eventually did his plan & became quite a good student.
REACTION
Most of the teachers are happy because the kids are thinking for
themselves, thus the behavior documentation workload has been slashed
& detention has been eliminated for most teachers.  Several of us
still hold detentions for things not addressed by the program, such
as chewing gum or not being prepared for class.  The kids like the
program because they are treated like thinking people rather than dogs
or furniture (ordered to obey or talked at.)  They also feel it is more
fair than how we did it last year because "good" kids & "bad" kids are
treated the same (their words, not mine.)
Of the two or three teachers I heard criticizing the program negatively,
I know that they did not employ the questioning strategy.  For heaven's
sake...How can one expect to make a cake if one doesn't follow the
recipe & then act all surprised when the result is paste?  And of
course, you wouldn't want to display the end product to your friends.
Not everyone was entirely happy with every part of the program.  Many
didn't like the fact that the students could sleep in the PRC room, not
taking into account that some students were acting out in class because
they were tired.  Some live in a home where no one is getting them to
bed or is allowing them to roam the streets until 2 or 3 am.
There were two teachers who were "banned" from using PRC.  One, a
special ed teacher, had students who were EH & just couldn't be reached.
His kids were just so hostile that any attempt to talk them through the
process resulted in them acting out violenting.  The other was a Lang.
Arts teacher who was sending between 5 & 10 kids every period.  It
doesn't seem a great coincidence that his contract was not renewed in
April for other reasons, so he will not be back with us.
I must say that I really enjoyed teaching this year.  At the end of the
year, I was very relaxed & had had a much better relationship with my
students, even those who had graced the walls of PRC at my invitation.
We had three major school-wide changes in policy/philosophy this year, &
like a picture cut into a puzzle, I don't think any one of the pieces by
itself was responsible for the changes we saw in the kids' attitudes &
the overall decrease we saw in all discipline categories but one.
Working together, the Attendance Is Mandatory, Personal Responsibility &
the Mandatory Uniform Dress Code, got our students to school in a ready-
to-work frame of mind & taught them how to get along in the classroom.
It's also been exciting because this is a system which addresses
misbehavior for support staff such as bus drivers, custodians, nursing,
cafeteria & clerical staff as well as teach the kids that they don't
need to misbehave to get what they want.  In the past, our discipline
system failed to give these people as much back up as they needed.
Leona Payne
... What are you doing? What are the rules? What happens when you break them?
--- Via Silver Xpress V4.3P SW12194
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