WATERLOO - East High School Principal Willie Barney expects to see a teacher's objectives for the day posted on a wall when he steps into a classroom. That way, students sit down with a clear idea of what they should be learning.

Unfortunately, Barney said, not all students are as clear about expectations when it comes to behavior.

"We have a tendency to believe that kids should know better. We have a tendency to believe that parents should know better. We have a tendency to believe that teachers should know better," he said. "We have to make sure we do a good job explaining what we expect from them."

That doesn't mean throwing discipline out the window, Barney said, but it does require something more from teachers and administrators.

Taking a lesson from the Bible, he said educators need to make students into disciples - which has its roots in the word "discipline" and originally meant "to teach."

Barney also refers to Jesus and his followers.

"He developed a relationship with his people," he said.

Teachers have to do the same with their students to effectively motivate them to learn.

"We continuously have conversations with our staff about relationships, because without relationships discipline is meaningless," he added. "So, in the end, we are really looking at behavior as something that can be learned. And since it can be learned, we are looking at how we can teach it."

A town hall meeting Oct. 28, organized by the Community Partnership for Protecting Children, focused attention on student misbehavior in Waterloo Community Schools. The partnership includes nearly a dozen community, education, court and social service groups.

Panelists examined the stark disparity in discipline rates between white and minority students. Black students were anywhere from two to four times as likely as white students to receive discipline referrals, out-of-school suspensions and expulsions during the last school year. Asian and Hispanic students also had higher rates than white students in some areas.

"The town hall meeting was a very good start," said the Rev. Belinda Creighton-Smith of Faith Temple Baptist Church and one of the organizers.

She praised those who filled the fellowship hall at Payne African Methodist Episcopal Church to discuss the issue and offer their input.

"The passion and energy was great," she said. "So now we need to build on that momentum."

Sharon Miller, a spokeswoman for the school district, said the town hall meeting reinforced the need for teacher-student relationships.

"What we're learning is it's important to put a face and name with the child. These are living, breathing children and we believe each of them can learn at a high level," Miller said.

That means using a variety of methods to reach different students.

"We really do have many effective strategies at our disposal," she said. "Our challenge is to provide them more systematically and systemically to reach every child."

Supporting positives

The district is taking that approach with its latest push to address discipline problems. A program called Positive Behavior Supports is being used at seven elementaries in Waterloo and at Logan Middle School. Next month, training will begin at East along with other district middle and high schools. The remaining elementary schools will start the program next fall.

The program allows schools to collect student behavior data on a computer system. Administrators use the database to track behavior problems or pinpoint supervision efforts to a part of the building or time of day, for example.

Lowell Elementary School is in its second year of implementing the program. Principal Stephanie Mohorne said the aim is "a reduction in the negative behaviors which, of course, leads to more instructional time for the teachers." That, in turn, "makes a better learning environment for the students."

The school holds "Lowell Academy" at the beginning of the year and after students return from winter break in January.

"We teach expectations for all the areas in school," said Mohorne. Students spend time visiting eight different areas such as bathrooms, hallways and the bus where "they learn expectations, what it looks like to be a star.

"It takes a big chunk of a day, but we feel that it's important … just like other instruction," added Mohorne. "Because then teachers and other staff in the building can constantly reinforce these."

One way they do this is by handing out Stay safe, Take responsibility, Accept others, Respect and Succeed notes for students' positive behaviors.

"If you bring back your homework the whole week, you get STARS notes," said Jenna Drahos, a third-grader at Lowell.

"We can get STARS notes if we read quietly," added her classmate Bradley Wood.

Their teacher, Kara Haugen, likes the approach.

"It's a good, easy way to get the students to focus on the positive," she said.

The school holds monthly celebrations involving all students. Individual classrooms may also plan activities when they reach a milestone. For Haugen's class, that happens after 30 positive notes are handed out to students.

"We just had a movie and popcorn on Friday, because sometimes a month is too long to wait," Haugen said.

Roberta Simmons, a first-grade teacher at Lowell, provides daily and weekly recognition opportunities for students, such as a drawing to do activities like 10 minutes of play time or eating lunch in the classroom. Simmons also leads students in a class meeting near the end of the day.

"That's when we tell Mrs. Simmons what we've been doing good," student Meagan Diestler said.

When something good is mentioned, colored beads are placed in one of six 4-ounce cups representing the pillars of character.

"We get little beads to put in our bead banks and when we get the bead banks filled up we get to have a party," Diestler added.

Simmons said the attempt is to encourage students "to be part of a community and look out for each other."

"We try to reward them frequently, but meaningfully," she said.

Discipline still occurs at the school. Students are given "majors" for serious misbehavior where the principal decides on the punishment, from detention to suspension. Teachers dealing with smaller infractions hand out "minors" and hold conferences with the offending students to get them back on track.

"We just talk them through it and ask, 'What do you want to do next time?' because usually there's a reason they're acting out," said Haugen. "A teaching tool, I guess you could say it is."

Preventing problems

District elementaries gained another tool last school year to help students find alternatives to bad behavior. Curriculum for the Second Step violence prevention program was purchased for all elementary schools through a grant from Cedar Valley's Promise.

Orange Elementary School counselor Melissa Hardman teaches the lessons to classes during her guidance period, held weekly for kindergartners and first-graders and every two weeks for older students. Lessons are designed to help students develop emotion or anger management, problem solving, impulse control, and empathy training - which Hardman said is "a big focus" of the curriculum.

"What I'm going to do is show you pictures of kids about your age and you're going to have to use your detective skills to tell me how they feel," she told Faith Garcia's first-grade class during a recent lesson. The students described what they saw, discussed the pictures and even demonstrated some of the emotions on their own faces.

"It's just all about bully prevention," Hardman said after the lesson. Research shows 10 percent of students bully others, 10 percent are victims and the remaining 80 percent are spectators. The hope is that students develop empathy through the lessons and then learn to stand up for those who are bullied.

At East, about 100 juniors and seniors are being trained in the Mentors for Violence Prevention program. Identified as leaders in athletics, academics, arts, or through peer recommendations, they will be paired with younger students in mentoring sessions.

"The point is, you need to do something," said Barney, when you witness one student bullying another. "What you permit you promote."

In the past year, East teachers have also gone through training programs intended to increase their awareness of and competency in dealing with the cultural backgrounds of students that are different from their own.

Now Barney is preparing to introduce Positive Behavior Supports at the school. He recently took some East staff members to Chicago's Foreman High School, which has been using the program for about three years.

It requires teachers to "start acknowledging and supporting expectations" that have been set for students, said Barney. That can take the form of a simple "Good morning" at the beginning of class or expressing appreciation when a student raises her hand rather than blurting out an answer.

The program accounts for varying levels of student need that Barney describes in terms of a pyramid. At the bottom, 80 percent of students can meet a school's expectations through the normal channels. On the next level, 15 percent of students require a little more support. At the top, 5 percent of students have a "deep need for intervention" in order to be successful.

As a result, teachers and administrators spend more time looking at the reasons for misbehavior before determining how to deal with it. Suspension may not be the automatic response to a student who cuts too many classes or gets into a fight.

"Again, we're expecting them to utilize skills that they haven't been taught to utilize, or haven't internalized," said Barney, of students who misbehave. "It really has challenged us to be creative in our response."

Creighton-Smith called Positive Behavior Supports a good initiative, but notes it must be teacher-driven.

"That particular process requires buy-in from each building, and it requires 80 to 85 percent buy-in." Without that, she said, "it won't be as effective as it needs to be."

That wasn't a problem at Lowell Elementary. After hearing a presentation introducing the program, 96 percent of staff members voted in favor of using it.

Other concerns raised by Creighton-Smith could be a problem at Lowell and across the district.

She said research into the program shows a need for an "intentional focus" on decreasing the disparity between white and minority students in discipline rates before an impact is made. "They may change their overall number of young people being referred," she said, "but it will not impact the over-representation of African-Americans."

Creighton-Smith added that research shows black students receive more discipline referrals for subjective reasons like being defiant, disrespectful and obstinate. White students, on the other hand, face consequences for more objective misbehavior, like fighting.

"We have to look at putting in place some sort of system that doesn't yield itself to something more subjective," she said.

Barney noted that responsibility for misbehavior extends beyond the school door, though. Parental support is necessary to ensure students get enough sleep, complete homework and have their basic needs met. He added that sometimes a child's bad attitude starts with what they see and hear at home.

"I've often said that kids don't learn the F-word when they walk into the building in ninth grade," said Barney.

Cora Turner, the district's executive director of student and at-risk services, acknowledged that a program like Positive Behavior Supports "is not going to be a cure-all." Discipline referrals will continue to be given, some of them ending in out-of-school suspension.

Turner urges a more positive view of such interventions. Parents have the option of sending their child to the Four Oaks program during the three- to five-day suspensions, she noted.

"They're in a setting where they're receiving their education. It's not at home and it's still connected to the school day," she said.

"I want them to begin to understand it as a teaching tool for a child to learn, instead of a punishment."

Contact Andrew Wind at (319) 291-1507 or andrew.wind@wcfcourier.com.