After 45-minutes behind closed doors getting an update on contract negotiations with the Austin Education Association (the teachers’ union), the Austin Board of Education opened its meeting to a review of the district’s current expulsion procedures and several proposed changes.

Thursday, September 30, 1999

After 45-minutes behind closed doors getting an update on contract negotiations with the Austin Education Association (the teachers’ union), the Austin Board of Education opened its meeting to a review of the district’s current expulsion procedures and several proposed changes.

Currently the district operates on a "zero tolerance" policy – basically any student caught at school with drugs or weapons is expelled unless there are extremely extenuating circumstances. Superintendent James Hess and director of educational services Candace Raskin took a proposal to the board outlining an intermediate step between being enrolled and being expelled.

Rather than expelling a student under current procedures and then re-enrolling him or her after the required time, Hess and Raskin proposed a voluntary enrollment in one of the district’s alternative education programs. The student would still be excluded from the mainstream, but not go through the expulsion procedure. The switch would be more immediate, "not giving the student time to get into the habit of not attending school," Hess said, and less of an emotional trial for everyone involved because it would be voluntary and not as extreme. It would also not leave an expulsion on the student’s record.

"This would give the district some options and give the students and parents options," Hess said. "It makes sense. We have to provide an alternative program anyway, and there would be less of a time factor where students are between programs."

The proposal included the following conditions:

– Students 15 and older caught with drugs – not with the intent to sell – on or around school grounds or with a weapon – not with the intent to use – would have the option of voluntarily attending the full-time alternative learning center program (ALC) at Riverland Community College for the remainder of the school year.

– Students under 15 in the same circumstances, could attend an alternative education program for four hours a day housed at an alternative site.

In both cases, the student and parents would have to participate voluntarily. Under the proposal, if the parents or the student were unwilling, normal expulsion procedures would be followed.

No final decision on the exclusion proposal was made, except to continue exploring alternatives to the current system. Board opinion on the subject varied tremendously, with Carolyn Bogott requesting accurate statistics on the current system of zero tolerance and how many students drop out or graduate and Brian McAlister making the point that he believes the schools are "here to educate and not to be an alternative court system."

McAlister believes the district needs to look at how, why and what it’s trying to do under the current system of zero tolerance before setting any alternative exclusion policy.

"Right now we treat a third grader with a butter knife in his backpack the same as a 12th grader threatening someone in the hall with a hunting knife," he said. "They’re not the same thing, except maybe politically for zero tolerance. In real life, we know it’s not the same thing."

In related news, the board also approved a new lease levy of $190,000 to be included in the 2000-2001 levy for the lease of an off-campus ALC and EBD (emotional behavioral disorder) treatment facility. Now the additional $190,000 is only "in-case" the district finds it needs to lease another facility.

Although the state had to be notified of the levy figures by today, accountant Lori Volz said a final levy decision wouldn’t have to be made until the levy was officially approved in December. If the district decides not to pursue an additional campus then the lease levy will be removed from the final equation.

"Instead of a 7.88 percent levy decrease it would mean a 5.19 percent decrease for the district," Volz explained. "This puts the total levy amount for 2000-2001 at $6,710,635.

Also at this morning’s meeting, the board got a look at a preliminary draft of a parent survey the district is planning to send out after further work.

In terms of contract negotiations with the AEA, Superintendent James Hess said publically only that they’re "not going very well."