How do Gilroy teachers discipline students when they act up in
the classroom?
Gilroy – Four years have passed but the incident remains fresh in Kimberly Johnson’s memory.
One day her former classmate, a fellow sixth-grader at Brownell Middle School, walked up to their teacher, kicked her and then asked ” ‘did that hurt?’ ”
Johnson, 14, remembers watching a stunned teacher turn around and call the front office. When Johnson entered her freshman year at Gilroy High School she quickly learned that out-of-control teens weren’t limited to middle school.
Teachers had things under control in her honor’s periods but it was an entirely different story in mainstream classes.
“In history class everyone got away with everything,” said Johnson, who begins her sophomore year Thursday. “Unless the teacher has control of the class it can just get out of hand.”
In her history class, the problem students spent the period fashioning dart-like airplanes with Post-its and staples and then sent them flying into the soft ceiling. But in her honor’s classes students were well-behaved.
“Someone who’s willing to work isn’t going to be mouthing off,” she said.
Roger Cornia’s quite familiar with the stories. And after spending more than 20 years working with local teens he’s definitely noticed a disciplinary trend – and it’s not a positive one.
“Now, it’s like there’s a lack of accepting responsibility by the student and sometimes by the parent,” the Gilroy Unified School District safety officer said. “I think our society’s gone way overboard on that.”
Cornia blames the cultural shift on a MTV, profanity-laced society that has made vulgarity and disrespect more acceptable. Boundaries have widened on what’s tolerable behavior and that leaks into the classroom.
“The songs permeate the teen culture and the kids think they can do that at school because some of them are doing it at home,” Cornia said.
And when teachers ask a student to leave the classroom for disrespectful behavior “a lot of of kids want to play lawyer.”
The district employee has sat across from parents as they fervently claim that their child would never use such language or act in such a manner. And moments later the student will admit that he or she indeed committed the act.
It’s that lack of discipline from the home base that Cornia thinks contributes to the problems in the classroom.
Students who do act up face a long line of consequences that vary from site to site depending upon the severity of the offense. Certain transgressions – including weapon possession, selling drugs, sexual assault – result in an automatic recommendation for expulsion.
The school board reviews the incident and decides whether or not to issue an expulsion. Students who are expelled will not be allowed to attend any comprehensive school – such as GHS or Mt. Madonna high schools.
Instead they must enroll at the district’s Community Day School or San Martin’s South County Community Day School, which is run by the county office of education.
While technically a student may be expelled for anything they’re suspended for, suspensions are the first line of defense and are handled by site administrators. While the district tries to keep disciplinary actions as consistent as possible, “you’re always walking a tightrope because each case is individual,” Cornia said.
Some suspensions are clear-cut, such as fighting, which warrants a five-day suspension. For classroom disturbances, insubordination and other offenses, schools dole out various punishments from trash duty to Saturday school.
Rob Lawrence, who taught math at GHS last year and now teaches in Half Moon Bay, didn’t personally have problems but he heard the complaints from his colleagues.
“Almost every teacher I have ever talked to has made a point of saying it’s amazing how disrespectful these kids are,” he said. “The kids have no respect and it’s hard to teach kids like that.”
Lawrence said he figures his young age made him more hip and approachable, so the teens were more comfortable and didn’t act out. But he also said teachers must create an environment that feels safe and welcoming, that they have to make class enjoyable.
Johnson has some similar advice for Gilroy teachers who will be standing in front of a classroom of anxious teens on Thursday. The high schooler said she can tell within the first five minutes whether a teacher will be good or not.
“You have to still keep it (class) that fun thing because we are kids and our attention spans are only so long,” she said.
