[BHS Etree] ADMIN - Message from Principal Scuderi on Attendance Incident and Updates

[BHS etree]

Do not reply to this message, contact Richard Ng, richardng at berkeley.net 

 

Dear Staff and Parents:

I am writing to update you on two issues related to attendance at Berkeley
High School, one a negative and the other an emerging positive.

First the negative so we can close on a high note.

As many of you know attendance was a major focus coming in to the school
year at BHS. Working with additional resources provided by district staff we
reorganized and shifted resources to bring staffing in our attendance office
to a level that we believe is the minimum level necessary to adequately
track and process attendance for the nearly 3200 students on our campus. In
addition, this staffing has also allowed us to move forward with
interventions for those who are chronically truant. 

The addition of an administrative position, specifically a Dean of
Attendance, to oversee the attendance process at BHS and to implement
interventions and consequences outlined by state law has also proven quite
helpful. Coordinated truancy sweeps with Student Services and the Police
Department have begun to make the area immediately around the campus less
hospitable to truant students while our participation in the formal
processes outlined in the Education Code have increased as has direct
personal contact with families of truant students via mail and personal
calls from counselors and administrators.

The addition of the staffing and the newer, more efficient culture in our
attendance office has, under the direction of our Dean of Attendance, Daniel
Roose, insured that attendance data is being reviewed far more consistently
and in greater depth than it has at Berkeley High School in recent memory.

That data analysis some weeks back lead to a discovery that several student
accounts in our student database, the product we use is called Powerschool,
appeared to have had inappropriate or unauthorized changes to their
attendance records.

These irregularities triggered a deeper analysis of our attendance data and
a initiated a concentrated inquiry. With the assistance of technical staff
from the district, administrative staff soon learned that at least four
students obtained the password of a staff member. We prefer not to share the
technical aspects of how the password was obtained, but the security issues
that led to the compromise have been addressed, resolved, and we continue to
monitor the system through regular checks. 

As the investigation widened we had reasonable suspicion that approximately
50 students had unauthorized adjustments made to their records. The degree
of involvement ranged from what we now know was a few students literally
selling the clearance of absences to those who may have accepted having a
few absences or tardies cleared by a friend or acquaintance who gained
access. 

In addition to the flagrant dishonesty exhibited by this small portion of
our student body, one of the more trying aspects of this was how much
administrative time subsequently needed to be spent on interviewing students
and following up on this behavior instead of the school investing that
administrative time in things like classroom observations, student support,
and true instructional leadership. 

We have to keep in context the fact that given the size of our school it was
roughly 1% of our student population who made these poor decisions, but
nevertheless it still is a vastly unacceptable number of kids who made
regrettable decisions. 

As administrators have met with the students involved we have emphasized and
reiterated a deep and genuine hope that they use this incident as a window
for deep and earnest reflection on how they see themselves through these
actions in relation to the values of honesty and integrity. Suspensions have
been issued in most cases and a few students will be put up for expulsion.

Some have questioned our use of suspension in this matter, yet we see this
altering of teacher and school record keeping as a level of dishonesty that
violates our community agreements and expectations of our kids. When one
violates our agreements and fails to meet our expectations to this extent we
feel justified in issuing a consequence that temporarily revokes the
privilege of that student being a part of the school community. 

Time off during a suspension certainly makes staying current in your classes
more difficult and inconvenient, but we are convinced that it can be done.
Students may have to work harder to stay in contact with teachers or friends
in their classes to stay current during the suspension, and this is perhaps
one of the chief lessons that we hope students involved will take away;
namely, that when you make bad decisions in life they often yield
inconvenient or difficult results and subsequently make it harder to meet
obligations and responsibilities that you still have to meet.

Incidents like these surely leave one feeling deeply disappointed in those
young people involved, yet I am hopeful that the students involved in this
will reflect and have significant discussion with their families as to how
this type of act might play out in another scenario or another setting had
it occurred in a different place or later in life. Both the Education Code
and the California Penal Code speak to this issue as an act of fraud and I
hope that in the conversations that families have with students who were
involved they come to a realization that were similar acts to be carried out
on a job somewhere in the future, not only would dismissal be probable, but
that those acts could also become part of a permanent record that could
impact their ability to find quality employment for years to come and have a
host of other negative consequences.

We are saddened by the general outcome of this incident, but hopeful that
the mistakes themselves in combination with the consequences incurred and
discussions held, will push the young people involved into gains in
perspective and values that may in fact help them make better decisions down
the line when decision-making, for both themselves and the people that they
care about, takes on even greater implications than it does now. We often
use the phrase "teachable moment" in this business and I would like to see
our community, namely our families and staff, use this incident as a
springboard for discussions on ethics, integrity, and honesty. I see this as
an opportunity to discuss those concepts in a rich and contextualized way
and hope you will help initiate that discussion with all of our students.

On the brighter side...

 

In what could be seen as a pleasant irony and welcome counterpoise to the
details above, our efforts around attendance appear to be paying off
school-wide.

 

 

Here are our average daily attendance (ADA) numbers for September through
March, compared to the same time period a year ago:  

 


2010-2011

ADA %

first seven months

2011-2012

ADA %

first seven months

Increase


 

92.43

 

93.98

 

1.55%

 

 

Our collective focus on attendance is paying off -- more BHS students are
going to class.  That's a testament to many things, but primarily the
incredible work of BHS' teachers, who engage students with dynamic,
meaningful lessons and motivate them to keep coming back, day after day.

 

Behind the scenes, safety officers have been transforming the hallway
culture, hurrying students on to class and requiring passes from students
leaving class.  Counselors, administrators, and the attendance team have
been reaching out to students and their families, making personal contacts
and connecting students with the support they need to be present on campus.
By this point we've had dozens of individual meetings and group meetings
with truant students and their families.  Classified staff in the attendance
office are doing a herculean job with the daily mountain of absence
clearances and other attendance paperwork.

 

The word is beginning to get out that BHS is serious about attendance.  We
still have a long way to go, and our current attendance average is nothing
to boast about, but it is a nice start. We hope to continue building on this
success, and to expand our efforts, which this year have zeroed in on
unexcused absences, to other attendance issues, namely tardiness, next year.

 

Thank you for helping to reinforce our expectations around attendance and
for all of the efforts you put into the raising and educating of students as
parents and staff respectively.

 

Respectfully,

 

Pasquale Scuderi

Principal

Berkeley High School

 

 

______________

Pat Anderson, Diane Douglas, Marguerite Fa-Kaji and Lisa Sibony are the
parent-volunteer facilitators of the etree; please direct any questions to
them at  <mailto:bhs-owner at lmi.net> bhs-owner at lmi.net. 

BHS etree archives:  <http://lists.lmi.net/pipermail/bhs/>
http://lists.lmi.net/pipermail/bhs/; BHS PTSA website:
<http://www.bhs.berkeleypta.org/> http://www.bhs.berkeleypta.org/. To
unsubscribe from the etree, send an email to  <mailto:bhs-request at lmi.net>
bhs-request at lmi.net with one word only in the subject line: 'unsubscribe'.
To post a message, send to:  <mailto:bhs at lmi.net> bhs at lmi.net

 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lmi.net/pipermail/bhs/attachments/20120417/4880a813/attachment.html>