The Albemarle County School Board met last evening and held a lengthy discussion about student conduct issues in the wake of recent community events involving underage drinking and the death of AHS student Nolan Jenkins.
The School Board Attorney, Mark Trank, provided a detailed review of our current policies and Virginia law as it relates to a school board’s power to discipline students for illegal behaviors off-campus. He said there is substantial precedent in Virginia, going back to a 1961 Attorney General opinion, that school board’s do have authority, with some limitations, when there is a material or detrimental effect on the operation or general welfare of the schools. Further, it is well recognized by Virginia law that athletes and students representing their schools in other extracurricular activities may have other standards established. According to Mr. Trank, other school divisions including the City of Charlottesville, Prince William, Henrico and Fairfax all have specific policies on off-campus behaviors.
The School Board had mixed opinions last night as to whether Albemarle’s existing student conduct policies are in need of revision. Several school board members said we needed to focus primarily on education of students about drugs and alcohol. Mr. Trank informed the School Board that our existing Student Conduct Policy JFC was not specific or clear enough to put students on notice that we can discipline them for off-campus behaviors.
I offered the prepared remarks below during the discussion. I think our policy is broken and needs to be revised to help ALL our students make healthy choices in line with our core values. This matter will come back before the Board later this summer as there was consensus to: 1) review athletics training policy and related consequences for violations; 2) receive staff recommendations on educational programming; and 3) have another discussion about whether to change Policy JFC with respect to off-campus behaviors.
I look forward to continued feedback from the public.
Brian Wheeler
P.S. In addition to comments on this blog, you may e-mail me at bwheeler@k12albemarle.org, or the entire School Board at schoolboard@k12albemarle.org
Our discussion tonight is not about the families that hosted these parties, the actions the police have or have not taken, or whether the drinking age in the United States should be 18 instead of 21. The central questions for me are:
- Can we make improvements to our student conduct policies to help ALL our students make healthy choices in line with our core values? These core values speak to community, honesty, integrity, respect, responsibility, and virtue.
- Can we be more clear about our expectations for student conduct and can or should this include off-grounds behavior?
- With sometimes limited information from police, can we enforce our student conduct policies consistently at our schools, especially when they depend on an honor system of self-reporting?
- Do we have the right consequences for violations?
When it comes to off-grounds use of alcohol and drugs at the level that it causes a material disruption to the school division, I think we do have an important role to play in setting policy and disciplining students who make poor choices. We do that because we care about them, because we have lost too many young people, because we need to help set boundaries that promote healthy choices. Not all parents want our help and I certainly respect their opinion, but the majority of people I speak to want the school division to be part of the solution. Mostly, they are saying if we have a policy, educate people about it and be consistent in its application.
Some parents, as I said, have written me to say they think the school should do nothing about off-grounds behavior. They want illegal underage off-grounds drinking excluded from our code of conduct. If the school division’s response to Nolan Jenkins death is to retreat from our concern about off-grounds behaviors, I think that would be a double tragedy.
I have talked to many constituents and staff about these issues. I want to share some particularly interesting comments from an e-mail the School Board received from the Western Albemarle Warrior Club (parents of our student athletes):
“Everyone needs to accept the fact that we have operated under a don't ask/don't tell policy for all the years that any of us could remember. To suddenly apply rules and sanctions that have always been there but ignored is going to take a lot of effort from all athletic communities.”
“The rules should be discussed weekly, or throughout the season, starting in the fall. Coaches will need to be on board because the enforcement will come from them.
Include JV kids and parents in the discussions. Including the rules in the handbook is not enough right now. They have always been there and always ignored.”
“This has been an ugly issue for our students, coaches and parents. We need to use this frustration and anger and disappointment to make changes that make sense and help our student/athletes and insure that we do not have another year end like this. If we don't, then all the discussions are wasted.”
In a conversation I had this afternoon with a coach from another high school, these same basic observations were confirmed. This may not be the view from our administrators and athletic directors, but the reality is that this is the message our students and parents are receiving.
I started with some important questions… let me repeat them and give you an indication of where I stand.
- Can we make improvements to our student conduct policies to help ALL our students make healthy choices in line with our core values? I hope we can and I will support doing so.
- Can we be more clear about our expectations for student conduct and can or should this include off-grounds behavior? I think we can be clearer in the Student Conduct Policy and I think we need to make all our policies explicit that we do care about off-grounds behaviors.
- With sometimes limited information from police, can we enforce our student conduct policies consistently at our schools, especially when they depend on an honor system of self-reporting? It is a challenge, but we shouldn't back away from our goal just because it is hard to enforce. Clearly this is not an obstacle for the other school divisions Mr. Trank mentioned that have policies on off grounds behavior.
- Do we have the right consequences for violations? I’d like to hear recommendations about a set of graduated consequences for violations of student conduct and athletic training policies. I think the single-sanction 30-day removal from an athletic team is a major obstacle for students coming forward. I think a graduated set of consequences will make this policy easier to enforce because students will be more willing to confide in adults and admit they made a poor choice.
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