The South Bend Community School Board passed a new student code of conduct at its meeting on Aug. 16. That’s after the U.S. Department of Justice asked the district to review its policy as part of its consent decree to desegregate.
The code of conduct –– which is now called “Shared Rights & Responsibilities” –– lays out behavior expectations and disciplinary responses for South Bend students and educators.
School corporation counsel Brian Kubicki said the new document is meant to focus less on punishment and more on correcting behavior through instruction and conversation.
“It incorporates, hopefully, a more educational and restorative approach to dealing with student behavior, one that responds to the behavior and does not seek to punish or correct the behavior,” Kubicki said. “It does represent a compromise, and there are things that I think we need to continue to have discussions about.”
However, Linda Lucy –– president of the NEA-South Bend teachers union –– said at the board meeting meeting Monday the 108-page document is not clear or concise enough for teachers to enforce or parents to understand.
“It’s your teachers that are going to spend the greatest amount of time making sure that this over 100-page document is implemented,” Lucy said. “And it’s your teachers that are saying, ‘No, not again.’”
Board members stressed that the new code is a living document subject to revisions, and asked that the union’s concerns be addressed in the future.
The new code ultimately passed with some amendments. The first allows the school board to make any changes “to eliminate discriminatory languages and policies” from the Shared Rights & Responsibilities, and makes any changes to the document subject to board approval. It also stipulates that changes can’t be overridden by guidelines from school administrators.
The second removes a “corrective response” for seventh and eighth graders –– previously, they could have been referred to the Juvenile Justice Center as a consequence for truancy or tardiness.
A third amendment proposed by board member Oletha Jones would have removed school resource officers from schools until the board approves an updated memorandum of understanding between the school corporation and the South Bend Police Department. The district’s current MOU is from 2012.
Other board members voted against the amendment, saying they would wait for the results of a community survey on school policing to make decisions about school resource officers.
Contact Gemma at gdicarlo@wvpe.org or follow her on Twitter at @gemma_dicarlo.
If you appreciate this kind of journalism on your local NPR station, please support it by donatinghere.
