The emergence of school violence as a potential teachers’-strike issue is an unfortunate complication as St. Paul confronts discipline problems in its schools.

The St. Paul Federation of Teachers last week filed a petition for state mediation — a required step on the route to a potential strike — as it argues for additional staff and resources to “make our schools safe.”

The situation leaves the community — and board members, including a new majority elected with union support — with the challenge of separating the degree of bargaining-table posturing from what’s happening in city schools.

In the highest-profile among recent incidents, a Central High School teacher was seriously injured and an assistant principal hurt in a lunchroom fight that resulted in charges — one a felony — against 15- and 16-year-old assailants.

It is unfortunate that the issues “are being conflated now,” Michelle Walker, the district’s chief executive officer, told us, and that it is “quite frankly the excuse that is being used for going into mediation.”

In our one-party town, we have expressed concern about how board members — particularly those propelled into office by the teachers’-union-affiliated “Caucus for Change” movement — might be unduly beholden to that powerful constituency.

As we have noted, the school district, one of the city’s largest employers, is unionized wall to wall. Of a total of 7,700 full- and part-time workers, only a couple of dozen are not represented by a union.

“Some of what’s happening may be posturing,” Board Member-Elect Mary Vanderwert acknowledges.

But ultimately, both sides will “have to be looking at what’s best for kids and come to some agreement on that.”

The situation “reflects a fundamental mistrust that exists between these two entities,” another incoming board member, Steve Marchese, told us. Willingness to strike expresses “how seriously they think about this issue.”

The union presented its school climate proposals in May. In response to a “restorative practices” proposal, the district said it would be willing to form a committee to talk about it for the next school year, Federation President Denise Rodriguez told us.

The union would rather implement school pilots than “spend the school year talking about how to create safe and equitable learning environments,” she said.

But work is taking place outside negotiations, Walker said, citing efforts on student-discipline and school-climate issues for the last 18 to 24 months that include consideration of alternatives to suspensions.

“People are saying we’re not suspending students and that students are not getting consequences for their action,” she said. Data “don’t bear that out.”

Issues of student privacy also prevent the district from discussing specific situations. That “feeds into the frustration,” Walker told us.

It’s been reported that the Dec. 4 incident at Central was the 27th time a school staff member has been assaulted in Ramsey County this year. (Another last week at a district special education program resulted in the arrest of a 13-year-old).

Such incidents have nearly doubled since last year, County Attorney John Choi said, in announcing a task force to address the situation county-wide. About half of the incidents occurred in St. Paul, the rest in the suburbs.

Some suggest that the problems are symptoms of broader race and equity issues. Issues within the community “manifest themselves in our schools,” Board Member-Elect Jon Schumacher told us.

“Having the county attorney step forward and identify this as a community issue” is meaningful, he contends. “For him to stand up and say the schools need our help is absolutely correct.”

Our conversation with Marchese, the parent of a Central student, included this observation worth noting: “We have to be careful about taking a look at just the conflicts that happen,” he said, and drawing conclusions that suggest that “district schools — high schools in particular — are not functioning, because there is a lot going on that’s positive.”

Central’s fall musical, a production of “Guys and Dolls,” went on the night of the incident and continued last weekend. It was “a phenomenal production,” Marchese told us. Students were supported in their arts program not only by the district, but by the community.

A key point.

“These are complex issues, and they do need a community response,” Schumacher said, rather than leaving the district to confront them alone.

“Some of what is happening now is that there is a larger community attention to the need to really focus” on schools, he told us. “I am optimistic about what that will bring.”

Yes, such work will require an engaged community, and one able to discern where the needs of students and adults intersect, and where they diverge.

 

— St. Paul Pioneer Press, Dec. 12