Marysville parents fume over school safety

Published 11:05 pm Thursday, March 13, 2008

MARYSVILLE — They shared stories of bullies and kids who are afraid to go to class. And they asked that something be done.

Fearing for their children’s safety, more than 90 parents and teachers gathered Wednesday night to complain to the Marysville School Board and ask for help.

“You’re breeding violence by doing nothing,” parent Erin Ragland said. “You have students begging for help.”

The meeting at Cedarcrest Middle School followed a protest last week where around 200 Totem Middle School students walked out of class to demand tougher discipline and safer hallways.

Today, some of those students are expected to attend a forum on their safety concerns as an alternative to a one-day suspension for skipping class. Totem students were scheduled to have today off.

Several parents at Wednesday’s meeting defended the protesters and said they shouldn’t be punished.

“Our children have given you a message,” parent Joe Fitch said. “Listen to the message. Don’t shoot the messenger.”

The school board and administrators plan to use the comments from Wednesday’s meeting to form a plan to address middle school safety.

“We all want the same safe learning environment for kids — and that it’s not happening in classrooms on our middle school level, of course, is a concern for us,” said Gail Miller, a Marysville School District assistant superintendent.

She sat in the second row and listened for 90 minutes as speaker after speaker told of failed discipline policies and frightened kids.

The existing school ­discipline policy is routinely overlooked, Cedarcrest teacher Charity Husser said. After being caught twice displaying aggressive behavior, kids are supposed to face a three- to five-day suspension. Instead, they’re often given lunch detentions, she said. Husser said one of her students has had 29 detentions.

In the last five years, Cedarcrest Middle School teacher Debbie McAnaw has noticed a change in her students. They’re more savvy, worldly and better at finding ways to make other kids unhappy, she said.

She urged the board to develop an alternative program for troubled middle schoolers, similar to alternative high schools.

“The good, respectful, hardworking students are now being overpowered by the five or 10 percent that can, quite frankly, make their lives very miserable,” she said. “It hurts my heart as a mother and a parent and a teacher to listen to a child who’s afraid to go to school.”

Seventh-grade teacher Dave Van Kooten helps lead the “safe and civil” school program at Totem Middle School. The program could help improve the atmosphere at Totem, but he said administrators haven’t made it a priority.

“Over the last two years, we’ve been given little time to train the staff and develop the programs,” he said.

The school board organized the last-minute meeting after several parents tried to discuss school violence at an unrelated work study session Monday.

“It’s medicine for us to be able to hear some of the criticism,” board member Don Hatch said. “If we can’t accept it, we don’t need to be here.”

The district plans to post comments from both Wednesday’s meeting and the student forum at Totem Middle School today on the district’s Web site: www.msvl.k12.wa.us.

Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.