CEDAR RAPIDS — A new strategic plan under consideration by the Cedar Rapids school board to decrease fighting and weapons in schools and create a safe and secure learning environment makes five recommendations.
The plan was created by a Safety Advisory Council of school staff and members of the community. It seeks to move away from punitive discipline to restorative and healing-centered models, and to reduce the disproportionate discipline and behavior infractions of students of color and students in special education.
A final recommendation of the strategic plan is expected to be presented to the school board at its meeting at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 26 at the Educational Leadership and Support Center, 2500 Edgewood Rd. NW in Cedar Rapids.
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The Cedar Rapids school board in May hired West Wind Education Policy Inc. — which works to engage students in learning and overcome inequity — in a $118,000 contract to help develop this plan and provide expertise, conduct more than 150 interviews of school staff and community members and facilitate the council meetings.
Here are the five recommendations of a strategic plan, according to a 15-page document from the Safety Advisory Council provided to The Gazette:
1. Adopt and use guiding principles to inform decision-making
The first recommendation in the strategic plan is for the school board to adopt guiding principals outlined by the Safety Advisory Council. The guiding principals seek to create shared language and expectations for school leaders.
To put into practice, professional development for school staff would explain each of the guiding principals and how they can be used and improved over time.
The guiding principles are:
- Prioritizing restorative practices — which focus on repairing and improving relationships over punishment as a way to work through conflict — that build trust and community, are learning-centered and strive to affirm the dignity of individuals.
- Creating learning environments that are culturally responsive — acknowledging and including the diversity of individuals and their cultures in interactions — and equitable, and that acknowledge and address the presence and impact of bias in learning communities.
- Working to ensure every child is engaged, held to high expectations and in quality relationships with adults and peers in school.
- Pursuing a culturally sustaining and layered network of supports for students and staff.
- Preventing harm by focusing on proactive interventions that seek to identify and address root causes of disruptions to learning environments, not just reactive responses to threats and weapons.
- Building accountable spaces and practices by prioritizing listening for understanding and taking responsibility for the impact of words and actions.
- Ensuring students are partners and agents of change when defining, co-creating and sustaining safe and secure learning environments.
- Adopting collaborative and participatory structures and processes.
- Practicing humility when engaging the full range of families and caregivers in the school community.
- Relying on evidence, professional expertise and lived experiences when choosing initiatives and interventions.
- Implementing change management strategies that have compassion for people, focus on the ultimate goals and promote continuous improvement.
2. Develop a restoration and discipline matrix with guidance for how to reduce disproportion in discipline
The district should develop a restoration and discipline matrix that provides required and suggested responses to student behaviors, according to this recommendation. The goal is to reduce disproportionate discipline in the district among students of color, students in special education and students learning English as a second language.
With this recommendation, a restoration and discipline matrix would be created that provides clarity on how to respond to weapons, fighting or physical aggression and supports consistency in disciplinary responses across school buildings.
The matrix should avoid discipline as a way to punish students for misbehaving and instead use discipline as a way to learn and restore a learning community, according to the recommendation. In this plan, the social and emotional well-being of staff also is supported.
The matrix would be developed by analyzing current district policy, Iowa Code and guidance from the Safety Advisory Council. Professional learning would be provided to staff on understanding of and how to use the matrix.
3. Ensure coherence across district initiatives to support the creation of safe and secure learning environments
This recommendation weaves the guiding principals for safe and secure learning environments from the first recommendation into the learning environment.
School staff would be supported in how to identify how their programming incorporates the guiding principles. Professional development would be provided to staff that engages them in activities to identify and articulate how their work supports safe and secure learning environments.
Additional support would be provided to schools to ensure the implementation of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports — a set of ideas and tools used in schools to improve students' behavior — and that it is proactive, restorative and advances equity, according to the recommendation.
4. Provide professional development to create and maintain safe and secure learning environments
To make long-term change, the school district will provide professional development on many aspects of safe and secure learning environments. It should help staff connect the goals of the training to their practice and reflect on their beliefs about student motivation, behavior and belonging, according to this recommendation.
All professional development opportunities should address the guiding principals listed in the first recommendation, with special attention to equity, restorative practices, proactive practices and effective use of behavioral interventions.
Feedback will be gathered from school leaders, teachers and staff about supports they need to better understand. Using this feedback, tools and opportunities to deepen the understanding and use of the guiding principles will be created and offered.
5. Develop and implement a communication plan
A communication plan will be created that helps fosters transparency, responsiveness, trust, accountability and responsibility for the district’s commitment to creating safe and secure learning environments, according to this recommendation.
The communication plan will include ways to communicate with staff and the community and accessible to families with varying levels of technology access and proficiency in English.
Timeline
If adopted by the school board, recommendations would begin to be implemented immediately with training for district-level staff, according to the plan. School building staff would begin to be engaged in professional learning on each recommendation throughout the 2024-25 academic year.
Over the next year, audits would be conducted in district initiatives and programs to ensure they align with the strategic plan.
Throughout the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years, feedback would be collected on each of the recommendations and staff surveyed to identify how they understand each recommendation and how it’s being implemented into their own practices.
By the 2027-28 to 2031-32 school years, the goal is for all schools to have safe and secure learning environments using restorative and trauma-informed responses to misbehavior. Staff feedback will indicate a sense of consistency across schools in response to student behaviors.
The goal is for there to be reductions in office referrals and in the disproportionate referrals for students of color and in special education and improvement in staff and students feelings that their learning environments are safe and secure.
Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com
