McGraw presents her vision for dealing with behavior problems in schools

BY AMBER THIBODAUX

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Alachua County School Board held a workshop on February 8 that lasted nearly five hours and gave each member a chance to make a presentation on their top priority for board action; this article will focus on the presentation from Member Diyonne McGraw.

District 2 Member McGraw gave a PowerPoint presentation titled “Enough is Enough,” where she highlighted the severity of behavioral problems in the district and warned the other board members of the consequences of inaction, saying, “Right now, we’re in a crisis.”

McGraw told the board that she “loves dealing with behavior,” and in order to be a good policymaker, she needed to “go out and see exactly what is going on in the classrooms.”

 “As a board member, I’m really concerned about the behavior issues that we’re having in our district. The purpose of ‘Enough is Enough’ is that Alachua County must save our at-risk students through meaningful, firm, and transformational initiatives that would involve the parents and families to make our students assets to our community, and not liabilities.” McGraw pointed out that many of the troubled children in the district are experiencing trauma, and that chronic trauma can cause serious difficulties with learning and behavior – “affecting the ability of students to learn, and teachers to deliver instructions.”  She used the following slide to highlight her interpretation of what’s happening in the classrooms:

McGraw revealed that there has been an increase in transfers from state Juvenile Justice Programs and foster care children who have been expelled from schools in other counties and transferred to Alachua County. This has led to an increase in violent offenses committed by juveniles, including home invasions, armed robbery, and crimes committed with guns.

She then presented data pulled from the Florida Department of Health, which shows a breakdown of youth demographics, ages 12-17, and the number of arrests in Alachua County broken down by race, as shown below:

She followed up with a breakdown of the number of violent offenses on campuses as reported to the Florida Department of Education so far in 2022-2023:

Referencing the Violent Offenses slide, McGraw said, “We’ve gotten to the point where administrators and teachers and other children are being attacked.” 

She presented the following data regarding suspensions in elementary, middle, and high schools throughout the county:

McGraw’s solution to these issues involves multiple levels of intervention and more community support: “Due to the significant increase for the need of more stable home environments, [we need] community options that provide wrap-around services of support 24/7.”  She said part of the problem is that children are showing up to school for a meal or as a form of safety but are refusing to attend class because of their academic deficiencies.

McGraw suggested creating a Transitional School of Success in addition to A. Quinn Jones (the district’s only alternative school for troubled youth) to provide a diversion program for students with felony charges, severe substance abuse issues, and more severe violent offenses; she envisions a school with extended hours and eventually residential services. Her goal is to introduce students to Career and Technical Education options and to decrease academic deficiencies. 

“Currently, we have A. Quinn, which is an alternative school that focuses on middle and high school students who are emotionally and academically challenged, with a significant number of referrals for fighting or any type of violent offenses that don’t result in arrests.” 

However, she warned of the dangers of placing all troubled students at A. Quinn Jones: “A. Quinn has had a significant increase in admission of students with felonies/gun charges and other weapons that are gang-related, with more weaponry usage, selling of drugs, etc. … so all these behaviors are being placed in the same alternative location, which is a disaster waiting to happen.”  

McGraw also stressed the importance of family engagement as one of the best dropout prevention strategies: “Moving forward, it’s going to be important that we have [a] parent academy, where we can work with families to help them rebuild and [to] give that support that they need – because we have a lot of young parents who need support as well.”

In addressing the cost aspect of her vision, McGraw first asks: “What will it cost us if we don’t do it?” She presented a slide with several funding options, shown below, and later deferred to the Alachua County Public Schools Chief of Finance, Alex Rella, who said that there is a lot to be worked out in terms of staffing but conceded that “there are general revenues available to provide a significant bump in funding.”

Board discussion

Vice Chair Leanetta McNealy said the behavior in the district is certainly a top priority for her as well and that she too receives phone calls and emails from “citizens and families” regarding behavior in schools: “It’s evident we have some situations, I don’t want to say problems, but we have situations in the district that must be corrected.” She said that the district has been dealing with discipline “forever” but that it’s clear now that it has become an extreme situation “not only in our schools but in the community as well.”

McNealy then voiced her concerns about funding: “I think the proposal is good, except funding is always the issue.” She later asked, “If we can’t support [the alternative school] for more than one year, why go down this path?” 

McNealy acknowledged, however, that something must be done: “We’ve got to do something different. We must. We must save our children.” 

District 5 Board Member Kay Abbitt also mentioned funding but echoed McGraw’s sentiment: “Funding is always a problem or an issue, but I think that with this, we can’t afford not to put money into improving the behavior in our schools… It has to be done, and it has to be done very quickly.” 

Abbitt pointed out that bad behavior affects more than just academic success: “It’s teacher retention, bus driver retention, it has this domino effect.”

Chair Tina Certain agreed with the board’s consensus, but her focus was on the lack of funding and concern for stepping outside the board’s jurisdiction into “day-to-day operations”; she said at one point, “The board cannot run the district.”

“Behavior is truly an issue for our school district, but I think we’ve got to pull back as to what we can do as the board and make sure we stay in our spot, in our lane,” Certain said. She recommended using existing resources and repurposing what’s already available. 

Certain also felt that the district needs to work together rather than working in “silos.” 

“We have departments, we have staffing, we have programs, that all seem to be working in silos, and there needs to be coming out of those silos and working together to solve this problem,” she said.

In response to the board’s concern for funding, McGraw insisted that the district does have the money to deal with the behavior issue and suggested looking at staffing positions that “may not be of benefit, that we may not need to continue.” She says that if a solution isn’t presented by the end of the school year, the district will lose a lot of staff.

“We have so many different community groups that are at odds with one another.” – Superintendent Shane Andrew

Superintendent Shane Andrew spoke about his concern with placing every student who qualifies for alternative placement into A. Quinn, recognizing that although there are 187 spots available, only 91 are filled: “If we have all of our students in the same spot, we’re going to have some issues with the kids getting along because we have so many different community groups that are at odds with one another.”  He acknowledged that some of these students need to be separated but there aren’t enough places to put the students to separate them. 

“Historically we had A. Quinn Jones… the majority were ESE students, and Horizon dealt with more behavioral support, yet A. Quinn Jones was also utilized to place behavioral students that we couldn’t necessarily mix on the Horizon campus.” 

Andrew admitted that cost needs to be factored in and indicated that he would be looking into it “right away.”

Public comment

Representatives of a number of local organizations were in the room to support McGraw’s presentation. John Alexander, who works with the City of Gainesville’s Juvenile Justice and Community Support Program under former Police Chief Tony Jones, addressed the board, explaining that his specific job is to handle some of the issues now facing the community. He said that he’s able to see how students operate in a school setting and then continues to follow them through the rest of their day, and that includes the opportunity to observe them in their homes and communities. 

“I’m more than certain that the school district is not equipped to deal with what we’re about to face with this up-and-coming generation,” Alexander said. “The exposure, the ease of access to get a firearm, to get the drugs, some of the parents now just allowing and accepting and giving in and allowing their kids to participate – some of the parents are oblivious to what’s really going on with their children.” He warned that some teachers will not be able to teach in a peaceful setting with “some of the children that’s getting ready to enter into their classrooms.” 

Alexander advised the board not to wait until it’s too late to take action: “I’m saying this loud and clear to the school district… you’re going to need the community, more than ever, with this generation we’re getting ready to face.”

Certain wrapped up the discussion by conceding that enough meetings had been held on the topic of behavior in schools and that it’s time for action. Speaking to Superintendent Andrew and ACPS Chief of Equity Anntwanique Edwards, Certain said, “I think we’ve got to land the plane – the plane is flying… there’s got to be some direction given as to how we’ll move forward because I’ve been in a couple of meetings and the same things are being said.”

She stressed the importance of identifying and targeting specific problems immediately to gain small victories and then developing a more comprehensive plan for the future.

McGraw’s PowerPoint presentation slides can be found here.

The workshop can be viewed in its entirety here.