Halls safe in Charlo schools

CHARLO — According to the Montana Board of Crime Control, 138 crimes were committed on either college or K-12 schools within Lake County in 2007 — as reported by the sheriff’s office.

The Leader is conducting a series on Lake County schools every week for the next month, looking at individual school districts and using statistics from the Office of Public Instruction’s most recent reports — mainly the Discipline Violation Report. These reports are generated by all public schools throughout the nation and sent to the OPI for input into their system.

The DVR reflects school discipline incidents that resulted in suspensions and expulsions; the definitions are subject to the school’s interpretation, yet a glossary of definitions for all offenses is provided by the OPI and serves as a reference guide for schools.

In most cases the reported violations do not reflect court-prosecuted crimes. Most incidents are handled within the school, by means of suspension or expulsion.

The Leader is using four of the 20 discipline violations in the report for school comparisons — those violations being aggravated assault, alcohol, drugs and theft.

The focus of this week’s school report is the Charlo School District and the public schools within its boundaries.

Based on OPI’s 2007-2008 DVR report, the Charlo High School reported one incident of aggravated assault and one drug-related incident, and Charlo K-8 schools saw no reported incident violations — in the four categories previously mentioned. Every Charlo public school passed the 2007-2008 Adequate Yearly Progress standards.

Based on the Lake County Public School Enrollments document: Charlo had an average of 355 K-12 students in the fall of 2007 — a 2 percent increase from fall of 2000. All other school districts, within Lake County, saw a decline in enrollment over the seven-year period: ranging from 13.4 percent to 76.9 percent — except Dayton which saw an increase of 254.5 percent in student enrollment between those dates.

Charlo K-8 Principal, Clair Rasmussen, said Charlo schools are the right size and that “everybody knows everybody.” He went on to say that discipline problems do not stem from the community and the educators within every school.

Rasmussen said that although the halls in his schools are safe, he has seen the atmosphere change in his 20 plus years as a principal — 10 at Charlo. He said the school has simply had to work harder to dilute the potentially dangerous side-affects of such changes.

“Kids have the inability to sit still and listen,” he said. “It’s a trend going on everywhere.”

One of the ways Rasmussen said the elementary school has combated this growing norm is through the school’s implementation of the Reading First program, a part of No Child Left Behind.

The program serves as a reading template for K-5 grades, in which teachers are taught to use the same terminology and similar lesson plans to create consistency for children. The school also has a reading coach on staff, said Rasmussen.

Charlo schools are currently working with two graduate students from the University of Montana to develop a similar program for mathematics.

“Kindergarten used to be all fun and games,” he said.

“Now it’s more academic. Kids don’t change our nucleus,” he said of the schools’ reaction to the changing times.

Charlo District School’s Superintendent Bill Colter said most parents within the district are very involved in students’ education, and most children are involved in school clubs — such as 4H or athletics.

“I think we’re blessed with the kids we have here,” Colter said. “Our teachers care about our students and our students care about school.”

He went on to say that there’s “not much trouble to get into” around Charlo.

“Our kids here are good,” Colter said. “There’s probably less than 5 percent that give any problems.”

Aside from keeping students focused on learning, and extra-curricular activities, Colter said the schools also talk about drug, alcohol and tobacco abstinence in their health classes.

High school principal, Steve Love, said the high school receives posters and brochures from the Aim Higher program of the Montana High School Association — an anti-tobacco, anti-alcohol leadership program.

He said the high school picks a four students and one teacher to attend an Aim High conference each year. He said this year about 15 Montana schools were represented at the one-day conference.

The schools had anti-drug assemblies during red ribbon week, and last year three bronco riders came in to the elementary school to talk to students about smokeless tobacco cessation.

School administrators also bring drug dogs in to do random school searches throughout the year, Colter said, adding that a school resource officer visits the schools one day a week on average.

Love said the discipline policies within the schools are “black and white” and that the school’s SRO is contacted in any criminal incident — such as drug possession. He said there are very little discipline violations within the high school though.

“We have a lot of old fashioned values,” Love said. “Ninety-five percent of the time, when we call the parents they take care of it.” He went on to say that the majority of the high school students view drugs as “the wrong thing to do.”

“The discipline backbone (within Charlo schools) comes right from the home,” Love said, going on to describe the school board and faculty’s role in discipline. “The school board is very supportive of faculty and staff in discipline matters, and the kids follow in line.”