The Greene County Schools board of education’s public forum May 11 was the scene of a conversation that is held in school districts all over the country – what could and should the school do to address bullying. The answer from the board – continue discussion until strategies are developed.
The public forums were initiated in April as a time for the public to interact with the board in a way not possible under the regular public meeting format. Intentionally, there is not a quorum of the board at the forum. At the May forum were board members Mark Peters, Ashley Johnston and Mike Dennhardt.
Angela Milakovich claimed the floor after superintendent Tim Christensen made brief comments. The story of a bullying incident against her daughter Destiny Hofbauer, a kindergartner at Greene County Elementary School, had aired on a Des Moines television station Thursday, May 5.
According to the story, Destiny, who has epilepsy, was pushed off a swing the previous day by a classmate who had been bullying her all year. Milakovich said the boy made sexual comments to Destiny as well.
Milakovich said in the news story that the bullying had been happening most of the school year and Destiny had missed two weeks of school last fall because the stress of being bullied had triggered seizures that left her too tired to go to school.
At the open forum, she said the situation should have been taken care of by the teacher and the principal, that she shouldn’t have had to go to the media to for something to be done. “There’s been several people that have came to me since I came out and told me that their child was getting bullied and nothing has gotten taken care, but they’re scared to come forward. I feel like this is a huge, huge issue,” Milakovich said. “I don’t feel that you guys are doing the right thing.”
Board member Peters asked Milakovich for suggestions of what should be done. Milakovich said she had followed the chain of command in dealing with it. Just that day, she had conversation with principal Scott Johnson and she felt like the situation was handled. Destiny will have a fulltime associate with her going forward, and the bully has been moved to a different class for the rest of the year.
Milakovich said the new plan is fair, “but it never should have got this far.”
“It’s good that you got help. That’s positive. But everybody needs to realize policies are in place for a good reason, and exhaust all policies before you go elsewhere,” Peters said.
(After the meeting Milakovich said Johnson had been helpful last fall in getting Destiny back to school, once he learned why she had been absent for two weeks. She said the bullying had continued to a lesser degree, and had only escalated to the incident with the swing the day before the television news story aired.)
Other relatives of Destiny spoke at the forum. MeLinda Madison-Millard spoke of her experience in Coon Rapids as a student. There, in 1993, parents had to do community service when their children bullied at school. “I’m sticking up for my niece and all the kids who are being bullied,” Madison-Millard said. “This bullying has got to change.”
“Bullying is a problem,” board member Johnston said. “Nobody wants our children to be afraid at school. We want our kids to feel safe at school…. We need solutions. We need ideas.”
Other parents said bullying had been going on for years.
According to board member Dennhardt, some of the solution lies at home. “Our community has to stop blaming everybody for everything and maybe start taking care of some of this at home,” Dennhardt said.
Suggestions included having relatives volunteer to stay with children at school, trying to re-activate the Bully Project in Greene County, holding schoolwide walks to raise awareness, instituting a mentor-type program with high school students and younger students, and stiffer punishments for bullies.
Johnson said the elementary school has implemented the Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS) program, and that they are working to develop a schoolwide system with a common language for expected behaviors. Guidance counselor Teresa Skalla talks with classes about bullying every year.
“We’re practicing education. We’re always trying to get better. We learn from what we’re doing. We’ve learned from this experience, and hopefully it helps us next time to have a better response to what is happening to the next child,” Johnson said.
Christensen said he would gather information about other schools’ anti-bullying programs and that the board would continue to talk about the problem. “We need to all be in this together. It’s about education, it’s about the community, it’s about the school. It’s policy. We’re going to look at all of this,” he said.
Discussion of a fulltime activities director took up the last 15 minutes of the forum, which is capped at 60 minutes.
As follow up to discussion at the April public forum, Celli Whipple provided information she compiled about the AD position in 27 other Class 3A districts. Of those districts, 11 have fulltime ADs; five specified the position serves grades 7-12. There are many combinations, with some also serving assistant principals. Two are transportation directors.
Greene County activities director Dean Lansman teaches eight classes of the total 18 classes during a school year (three trimesters, six class periods per trimester. Teachers generally teach five classes per trimester.) He does all scheduling of athletics, purchasing, coaches’ evaluations and many other duties. He is paid $12,000 per year in addition to his teaching salary. Whipple suggests the AD position be increased to closer to fulltime.
“We want to have a good athletics program and it starts at the top. I feel we ought to give the person at the top as much as we can,” Whipple said.
Christensen said it’s a question of priorities in budgeting.
“It’s a worthy goal at some point,” Peters said. “In a year when you’re cutting 2-1/3 teaching positions, we can’t do it.”
“In my opinion, we need to find a way to do it, and I mean sooner rather than later. I think we need to build a new school, and until we take care of athletics, the school (bond) is never going to pass,” Dennhardt said.
