Stephen Wallis: Schools should not tolerate violent, disruptive students

Mr. Wallis is also the Principal at Harper's Choice Middle School in Howard County(MD) Public School System. He is a forwad thinking individual that has demonstrated and proven time and again that his nurturingly aggressive, No-Excuses approach works to bring out the best in a school system's students, staff, parents, and community. One very lucky school system will be snatching him up for Superintendent in the very near future. Keep your eyes on him!

by Stephen Wallis, The Examiner
Jun 19, 2008 3:00 AM

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Recent reports in The Examiner on the disruptive and violent culture of Baltimore and surrounding schools are not unlike those outlined daily in national periodicals on the disgraceful conditions of too many of this country’s schools.

It is mind-numbing that those responsible for our schools still fail to understand a fundamental fact: Any schoolhouse — urban, suburban, rural — devoid of civility, self-discipline and character simply cannot exercise its primary, essential duty of providing to the citizenry a professional learning community — one that values its teaching staff and furnishes its youngsters with a meaningful education.

Educators, parents and business community representatives openly comment that officials responsible for disruptive schools don’t even pretend learning is at the heart of their mission; should we continue to tolerate such nonsense, we will do so at our own peril.

The answer to this mayhem lies in a comprehensive, multipronged approach. The education of youngsters requires the shared partnership of school and family. However, where the supportive parent/guardian component is absent, school leaders must have the intestinal fortitude to rid the schoolhouse of disruptive, violent behavior. Many benighted school officials and board of education members pay lip service to the idea of having safe schools, but they regularly fail to exercise their fiduciary responsibility of operating in loco parentis, initiating an assertive plan to make a school safe and inviting for its staff and students, as well as providing an alternative for the disruptive youngster’s education.

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