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Supervisor Hudgins Explains 'Zero Tolerance' Remarks
"I am not seeking for the Board of Supervisors to commandeer the disciplinary process," says Hudgins.
On Feb. 8, 2011, at a regular meeting of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, along with Supervisor Penny Gross, I moved that our Board direct County staff to engage Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) and community organizations in a discussion about how to help students and parents turn a FCPS disciplinary action into a learning experience.
I believe that County and Schools working together, along with other community resources, can better help a student understand that while there are serious consequences to infractions of school rules, we are there as a community to help the student cope with the emotional response that may follow and provide an appropriate level of support for both the child and the family.
Disciplinary situations, if handled compassionately, can help a child develop a balanced understanding that should ultimately down the road translate into a mature, responsible adult. Lessons can be painful, but they need not result in either the child or family feeling alone in their ability to examine and address the situation, or see a path to a hopeful future.
I believe we can, working together as county government, schools and community, do a better job at that than we have done in the recent past. I am not seeking for the Board of Supervisors to commandeer the FCPS disciplinary process; that is not our role. But as with so many other aspects of the Board of Supervisor and FCPS partnership, the Board of Supervisors provides, supplements, or augments services outside of the $1.77 billion transfer to FCPS.
In addition to the direct transfer, the County’s FY 2011 budget provided nearly $55.8 million in additional support for programs such as the Comprehensive Services Act (CSA), Head Start, School‐Age Child Care (SACC), public health nurses and school health aides, School Resource Officers and school crossing guards, field maintenance, afterschool programming in middle schools, and services offered by the Fairfax‐Falls Church Community Services Board, including mental health and substance abuse prevention and intervention in the schools.
Clearly there is a role for Fairfax County Government in the development and safety of students in Fairfax County Public Schools. We demonstrated in the past how well we can work together when we the created our joint county-school-community based organization, Fairfax Partnership for Youth. We need to have a discussion of how we can work together on this issue before another precious life is lost.
Supervisor Cathy Hudgins
Hunter Mill District
Editor's Note: To read a response from FCPS Superintendent Jack Dale, click here.
Thanks. We'll email you the next time we update this story.
John Farrell
11:38 pm on Friday, February 11, 2011
Cathy
Congratulations on the unanimous passage of your & Penny Gross's Board matter. After the School Board recently stone-walled Tina Hone's attempt to get them to direct Mr. Dale to obtain data on their discipline system, we, who know it needs to be reformed, had lost hope.
As the County HR goes about it's efforts, I hope they won't forget the police officers, called School Resource Officers, that the County provides at each high school. They actively participate in the FCPS discipline process including violating the student's Miranda rights and dissuading students, who are minors, from contacting their parents prior to questioning by the principal and the police officer. That's contrary to School Board regulations also.
Mary Ellen Cole
5:50 am on Saturday, February 12, 2011
Thank you Supervisor Hudgins! FCPS, with Jack Dale at the helm, has a long history of steam rolling students and their families into their expulsion process. If he is sincere about working together, why object to this resolution? And why lobby against Kaye Kory's HB 1548? If Jack Dale is not interested in the welfare of students and their families, whose welfare is at stake?
Greg Brandon
8:58 pm on Sunday, February 13, 2011
Thank you, Supervisor Hudgins. I venture to Richmond tomorrow to speak in favor Kaye Kory's HB 1548, Parental notification of school board policy violations in front of the Senate Public Education Committee, of which Senator Janet Howell is a member. HB 1548 was passed in the House by a vote of 98 Yea and ZERO Nays.
By the way, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires that States "disaggregate data on suspension and expulsion rates by race and ethnicity. The State educational agency must examine data, including data disaggregated by race and ethnicity, to determine if significant discrepancies are occurring in the rate of long-term suspensions and expulsions of children with disabilities:
•Among LEA's in the State; or
•Compared to the rates for nondisabled children within those agencies."
This means that FCPS must collect data for ALL students caught in the maul of the FCPS disciplinary system.
Elizabeth Schultz
1:03 pm on Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Supervisor Hudgins:
Thank you for leadership with Supervisor Gross on this issue.
The fact that the Board of Supervisors entertained and passed this motion emphasizes that there is an understanding of the profound culmination of events which led to its passage.
Notably, your comment that "Disciplinary situations, if handled compassionately, can help a child develop a balanced understanding that should ultimately down the road translate into a mature, responsible adult" conveys that the goal of a school system's disciplinary process is not to criminalize children, particularly those most as risk, but create opportunities for their ultimate success while maintaining an environment that provides a safe education for all.
It is truly unfortunate that those of us who travelled to Richmond to testify on behalf of Delegate Kory's Parental Notification bill were unsuccessful in swaying the Senate Subcommitte on Public Education of the essential need of the school system to work with parents. Despite the House's unanimous support, the Senate Subcommittee supported the school system's and various professional associations' position that it is "too difficult" to notify parents when their student has an infraction "which would likely" lead to suspension or even referral to the legal system. When parents are not seen as primary in educational and disciplinary issues with their own children, we have failed to cultivate positive collaboration.
Thank you for working on this issue.
Phyllis Payne
3:34 pm on Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Thanks to Supervisors Hudgins and Gross -- their statement was compassionate and its purpose appropriate -- to encourage collaboration between county services and FCPS as well as to invite the Partnership for Youth, parents and other community stakeholders to work together on how the disciplinary system could be improved. What I find sad is that we have a Superintendent who responds with objections.