SKPS Teachers and Staff Aren’t Being Protected or Supported by the District Either
The union raises concerns yet again, but we never hear of any changes to make things better
If you saw my previous report Do the Leaders of SKPS Even Want to Keep Kids Safe?, you saw some pretty alarming statistics that make it clear the District leaders are inconsistent AT BEST in how they respond to on-campus safety threats and behavioral incidents.
According to a letter from the teacher and support personnel union leaders, following on the heels of the student with a loaded gun and knife at South Salem High School, it appears that the District is also failing to keep teachers and staff safe.
In this March 3 letter, from Tyler Scialo-Lakeberg, President of the Salem-Keizer Education Association (SKEA), and Edie Buchanan, President of the Association of the Salem-Keizer Education Support Professionals (ASK-ESP), they surveyed 1,256 employees and reported some of their findings. This report, sent to each school board director, the superintendent, and the leader of SKPS human resources, details some of the most egregious results and personal responses.
Just to put the number of responses in perspective, depending on where you look, there are approximately 5,000 employees. That equates to around 25% of the staff which easily satisfies the qualification that it is an adequate sample size reasonably representative of the whole.
That being said, here are some of the highlights:
Over half of those who responded said that a student has harmed or attempted to harm them or others in the last 12 months (emphasis mine).
“Employees report they are frequently injured by aggressive students in our schools. Injuries range from broken bones to lasting emotional trauma. One employee reported being ‘punched in the face’ twice by the same student without any investigation. Another was kicked in the stomach so hard it caused bleeding. Multiple employees report students hitting and kicking them repeatedly, biting their arms and legs hard enough to leave lasting bite marks, [and] scratching to the point of drawing blood. Employees have had their hair pulled out, received blows to their head (sic), been pushed to the ground, and had objects thrown at them. There are simply too many instances of violence to list here.”
Just 23% of respondents reported the district is fulfilling its “legal obligation to evaluate students with special needs after they act aggressively.” Only 19% agree that the interventions that are happening are sufficient to address the student’s needs.
68.44% of responses disagree or strongly disagree that they have “been adequately trained in all processes that [they are] expected to use if a student becomes violent.”
The letter goes on to state “After a violent attack occurs, employees are expected to promptly return to work, and students who witnessed the attack are expected to resume their learning, despite the likelihood of emotional trauma. Meanwhile, the student who engaged in the aggressive act is typically issued little - if any - consequence.”
We’re going to take a slight detour for just a second and take a look at the system that Salem-Keizer Public Schools (SKPS) has adopted to govern the way they respond to behavior issues and support students and staff: Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports or PBIS. It would make this post way too long to go into detail on how they’ve failed miserably to use PBIS to produce any sort of positive effect on the experience of teachers, staff, and students. Go take a look at what they call the benefits and the reasons this type of system fails. It’s almost comical how much it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The letter goes on to call into question the district’s commitment to OSHA regulations. I know, those pesky OSHA regulations. But still, rules are rules. “These reported OSHA violations are deeply concerning, given that the District was cited in 2019 for what OSHA considered ‘serious’ violations of workplace safety regulations.” Despite the seriousness of most of the other parts of the letter, this is the one that they bolded for emphasis themselves. The question remains if the union, operating as the advocate for their members, is following through and reporting those violations to OSHA.
See the letter for more anecdotal statements from different employees that are just as jolting as the facts mentioned earlier. The union presidents also layout 8 points that they ask the District to take immediate action on “to protect employees and students from further harm and create a place where everyone feels safe.”
Recently in Corvallis, OR, teachers walked out of a middle school “as an expression of their frustrations surrounding student behavior in and outside of the classroom.”
Lest we forget, back in May of 2022, the “united staff of Waldo” Middle School wrote a letter detailing their disturbing reality of having to deal with student behavior, after a fight injured the principal, resulting in a concussion.
It doesn’t escape me that the state of our school’s behavior and discipline problems can be attributed at least in part to the incessant political gamesmanship employed by the SKEA and ASK-ESP at just about every major (and many minor) decision points by the district and school board.
I’m making a distinction here between the unions themselves and the teachers and staff. Teachers and staff, you do not need to stay in a union that isn’t and won’t protect you. They just want your money for their own agendas, and if it happens to align with pretending to protect you, well, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Oregon Education Association (OEA) members can opt-out here, and Oregon School Employees Association (OSEA) members can opt-out here.
So, SKPS, how’s that school discipline overhaul going for you? PBIS, restorative justice, and addressing disparities doesn’t seem to be working out so well for quite a few of the important people in that equation. With former Governor Brown (it feels good to type that) reducing graduation requirements to artificially inflate the graduation rates (forcing those graduates that proceed to college to spend unnecessary time and money on taking remedial classes that don’t count towards their field of study), instead of addressing the gaps in academic accomplishments, something tells me that SKPS just took a page from Brown’s book and reduced the standards of behavior, too. And with reduced standards of behavior equating to far fewer students being held accountable for their actions, everyone is free to act out, whether it be towards other students, staff, teachers, etc.
As the school board elections are coming up, please remember things like this letter and the events of last week, and what the District is actually doing to help address any of these situations (which is nothing). They won’t even acknowledge that they are problems to address. As the letter quotes from a brave teacher, “I accepted a job as a teacher. There should not be an accepted, implicit assumption of bodily harm on my part. I did not join the military, become a police officer, firefighter, etc.”
I’m calling it now, the next teacher’s union contract will have a provision for “hazard pay”.