Report shows Berg Middle School and community need to change

Focus groups comprised of students, staff and administrators agree something needs to change at Berg Middle School.

Results from a strategic planning report say the building is rife with “apathy, oppression and depression” among students and staff, and it is likely caused by family situations, student characteristics, social media, school polices, school relationships, instructional organization and practices and administrative issues.

The report — led by a research group and two representatives from Heartland AEA — goes on to say the consequences of these conditions are increased absenteeism in the grades 5-8 building, increased behavioral problems for students, low ratings on a climate survey and staff turnover.

Diane Schnelker, owner of Research, Evaluation & Planning Services, LLC, facilitated the group meetings to determine if the Newton Community School District was upholding its vision statement: “We are a collaborative and cohesive team that inspires and supports all learners in a culture of safety and acceptance.”

Trends on attendance and the overall cultural climate at the middle school raised questions over whether this vision statement was truly being implemented. Data in the report concluded the percentage of students attending classes at Berg Middle School is decreasing, and a number of them do not feel emotionally safe.

“All of that data was available on the Iowa School Performance Profile (ISPP),” Schnelker said of the recent data found from Berg’s chronic absenteeism rates and the conditions for learning results. “…It summarizes school and district data on a number of indicators that is put together by the Department of Education.”

The focus groups were asked to come up with explanations for the low emotional safety scales, the drops in attendance at the middle school and why they thought the conditions for learning scales were so low in fifth, sixth and seventh grades but then start to increase in eighth grade.

Schnelker found a considerable overlap in the responses.

Participants in the focus groups recommended a number of changes be adopted by Berg Middle School to fix these issues, including:

• Increase avenues for communication and involvement/engagement of staff students and parents.

• Develop and commit to implementing school policies that delineate expectations and consequences for students, staff, administrators and parents.

• Explore teaching and instructional practices that engage students and provide incentives for learning.

• Increase team building activities to improve relationships between and among students and staff.

• Commit to data-driven planning processes.

• Provide opportunities to staff to better understand and relate to middle school-aged students and conduct safety drills with all stakeholders annually.

PROBLEMS MAY EXIST OUTSIDE SCHOOL BOUNDARIES

In addition to the report’s findings and recommendations, it included notes and excepts from focus group interactions that highlight the issues Berg faces.

Participants suggested a number of factors are affecting students at home, which could be discouraging attendance or impacting their state of mind when they do go to school. The report said some kids may have a lack of support from parents, which could be linked to the mental health of parents or guardians.

The group noted the mental health of students may not be addressed at home, or parents deny kids have behavior problems. Some parents and guardians are aware of these issues, but they don’t know what to do to de-escalate. Others do not have the ability to acknowledge or resolve the problems children are facing.

School policies may not be helping the situation either.

The report said parents know truancy is not enforced by the school, so they don’t care about attendance and don’t enforce it on their children either. But parents are also unhappy when their student’s technology, like a computer, is taken away, because then they don’t have access to entertainment at night.

Middle school staff said they try to get parent support, but only 20 percent of parents actually support their kids. Which have led some participants to believe a core of parents expect schools to raise their problem children, force their kids to go to school when they’re sick or turn off their phone so they can’t be contacted.

SOCIAL MEDIA CONTINUES TO HAVE A NEGATIVE INFLUENCE

Characteristics of each grade level are different. Younger students are thought to be more motivated and excited to be attending a new building and making new friends than older students. Sixth-graders and seventh-graders are described as being more complacent and concerned about social networks than school work.

By eighth grade, students are more independent and have figured out how things work at Berg Middle School; they learn to bond more with friends and have found supportive adults and peers.

Every group discussed the negative influence social media had on the climate of Berg Middle School. Students have found ways to work around safeguards, and are taking and distributing snapshots of SnapChat, a social media application where the user’s posts are supposed to disappear after a short period of time.

Feedback from the group points to parents not monitoring the content their own children distribute, which is “full of inappropriate language and nastiness.”

The group said posts both outside and inside school spread like “poison ivy.”

POLICIES AND PERCEPTIONS

Participants said in some cases there appears to be either no policy in place or a lack of awareness of policies for governing certain behaviors; there is not enough secured rules and it leads to people not feeling safe. In the event a student has a weapon, participants said no one knows how to discreetly report a problem.

Again, the participants pointed to the building seemingly not enforcing the attendance policy and not holding kids responsible for their behavior. There are no consequences for bad behavior, they said, and too many kids walk around and do what they want without punishment.

Cellphone rules are not enforced consistently, they said, and some other rules are not consistent from teacher to teacher.

The group said middle school students need clear expectations and boundaries, but too much bad behavior is not being enforced out in the open by adults. There may also be a disconnect when it comes to teacher expectations for students. For instance, fifth graders are forced to behave with middle school expectations.

Some of the adults and students in the focus groups perceived teachers treating students based on prior assumptions; teachers expect “good” kids to be good and treat them differently, and they expect “bad” kids to be bad and treat them like that.

Other comments said teachers and students have limited interactions or create emotional distance from students, which makes building relationships difficult.

WHAT NOW?

The 25-page report is extensive and highly detailed. Schnelker credited Berg Middle School Principal Daryl Dotson for his work in gathering people to participate in the focus groups. Dotson said he had never had an experience like this before, but he expects to utilize the recommendations laid out in the report.

“And then look at what we can do to impact our school year coming up,” Dotson said to school board members on June 23. “…Yeah, it’s a lot of reading, but I think there is some relevant information in there that I think can be taken and kind of planned out each year going forward.”