2007 Year in Review--10 Biggest Vanguard Stories of 2007

As the first full year of the People's Vanguard of Davis comes to completion, we will countdown the top 10 stories from year. This is the second year we have done this.

Last year we counted down the 10 Biggest Stories in Davis.

This year we countdown the 10 biggest stories that we followed on the People's Vanguard of Davis.

We continue with the 7th biggest story: Racial and Other Strife on the High School Campus.

Last year there were a series of incidents and stories involving the Davis High School Campus. One of the strangest incidents was an honors student who ended up getting suspended for giving a speech about Malcolm X that may or may not have challenged the authority of a teacher.

The incident started with the student asking if they could bring a poster of Malcolm X to to math class. The teacher had posted a number of political posters in the classroom and they had agreed.

As we wrote at the time:

"On the poster appeared the phrase very prominently, "by any means necessary" along with other phrases from one of Malcom X's most famous speeches.

This is a phrase comes from this context:

"We declare our right on this earth...to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary."

The next day, the student came back and found that the poster had been taken down and in front of the class and was told that it was a "terrorist" message.

A few weeks later, this same student was asked to give a speech in front of the school during Human Relations Week about a civil rights incident that he had experienced. He was given a choice and decided to do it on this specific incident. He then gave them an advanced copy of the speech which they approved. He was told that he could not specifically mention the teacher and he agreed to this.

He then delivered the speech, he did not mention the teacher's name. Apparently the teacher however walked out during the speech, he and his parents were called in by the Vice-Principal."

The text of the speech was approved apparently by the powers that be. However, according to some, the student changed parts of the speech and made critical remarks to the teacher.

Because of the criticism of the teacher in the speech, the student was suspended for three days.

According to the student, this is a copy of the text of the speech that was actually read during the assembly.

Versions of the incident vary depending on who you ask. From my perspective, a three day suspension for an offense that does not include physical danger or illegal activity is inappropriate. A further problem is a school policy that is in the process of being changed, whereby students are punished academically for being suspended. This is problematic since most students suspended are academically at risk to begin with.

This leads us to another concern from the high school campus and really beyond--the achievement gap.

The basics of the achievement gap are well-known by now. Each candidate for school board expressed great concern for it. At a fundamental level, white and Asian students perform consistently and statistically significantly higher than do African-American and Hispanic students.

In fact it is worse than that. The most chilling statistic is that when you control for education level of the parents, and you look only at children of college educated parents, the achievement gap still remains. This means it is something beyond merely economic or educational differences between black and Hispanic families and white and Asian families.

Last spring, Davis High School Catalysts for Social Justice presented research on a number of tough topic including achievement gap, suspension rate differentials, and lack of minority hires.

That presentation is summarized here.

Early in May, Tansey Thomas, a community leader stood up before the school board and spoke at length about a "Racial Climate Assessment Report" that was done in the early 90s. This report laid out a series of concerns and problems that existed at the time. It made a series of recommendations.

Here are some of the specific recommendations made:

"The District should establish... no later than the 1990-91 school year, a district-wide multicultural curriculum committee... [that] should oversee and assist in implementation of the plan within the District. The responsibilities of the committee should include developing staff training programs, curriculum materials, and other similar matters."

"The district needs to employ a specialist in multicultural education who can provide assistance to the administrative staff in the areas of staff development and development of multicultural curriculum materials."

"To promote teacher input, a committee of teachers should be established at each site."

"Job responsibilities of all school personnel should include being knowledgeable of, and attentive to, the educational needs of students from diverse cultural backgrounds... Training should be broad, covering all aspects of human relations and multicultural education."

"The district should promote follow-through, such as peer coaching, where teachers can have other experienced staff observe, evaluate, and provide feedback concerning the implmenetation of teaching principles and methodologies covered in the training."

"A strong consideration in the selection of Mentor Teachers in the District for the next several years should be their skill in multicultural education."

"As part of its affirmative action program, the District should focus on strategies to attract and hire qualified applicants with diverse cultural backgrounds who are trained in multicultural education."

"The district should offer more kinds of programs such as Global Education in which teachers learn about different cultures within the United States and in other countries."

"The District needs to develop ways to help students realize their academic potential... a State task force recommended that local school districts review their policies to deliberately expose minority students to a strong academic background and prepare them for higher education."

"Assessments every two years or on an annual basis, as needed, should be made to evaluate the progress the District is making in improving the racial/ethnic climate in Davis schools."

The big concern of course is that this report could have been written today. And in fact, what happened was it gathered dust on a shelf. It was never implemented. The school district has gone to great measures to really just reinvent the wheel.

It does us little good to have studies, to discover that the same problems exist, but not to follow through on those recommendations.

Unfortunately these are just a few of the issues that arose during this year.

We also had a group of parents in frustration threaten to boycott the district's STAR testing.

And the Interim Superintendent Richard Whitmore was concerned enough about this threat to personally respond on the Vanguard.

There was also conflict within some of the parents and students at the high school that led to the shutdown of the Black Student Union. This led to protests and marches.

Finally, just when it appeared things had calmed down after a long summer break, school started again, and the district began a crackdown of truancy at the same time the police began a crackdown on underaged students giving rides to other students (which is against the law). The combination led to mass confusion until everything was sorted out.

The Vanguard would run a four-part series on the truancy issue.

The first installment focused on the meeting itself. Newly promoted Director of Student Services, Pam Mari was put into an awful position at this time. She later told me that she was under the mistaken impression that the school board actually knew what was going on. They did not. Therefore, the lack of material and information fed into the confusion by the school board.

This was coupled with a fundamental misunderstand of what the term "truancy sweep" meant. Most of us took it to mean that the police were going around the community to round up students. What we would later learn is that they were using the term "sweep" as the police would to mean an operation that has a specific focus and goal, in this case to get the 15-20 worst truancy offenders back into class.

However, that is not what it looked like in mid-September when this story broke.

The confusion was perhaps best summed up by Amanda Lopez-Lara, the student representative on the school board.

"It was when the student representative on the board spoke, Amanda López-Lara, that it became more clear that what was being described by Pam Mari looked very different from the student perspective.

"Today was probably the first day most students were actually told these rules. We had never heard of them before, we were not aware of them. I agree it is very good to kid the kids into class again, because I do know there’s a problem at the high school especially with a lot of kids just skipping class and going to parks. But one concern I do have is that a lot of people appreciate Mark Hicks, and I know a lot of kids who are at-risk students who really respect him, but one concern that I had is that I know today during lunch, the whole high school was scared. We were scared because we went to lunch, we weren’t necessarily scared but we were made nervous, because we went out and I don’t think I’ve see that many cop cars at the high school. I saw one across the street, and two and each entrance, and then once I went down the street I’ve had my license for a year, so I wasn’t nervous, but what did make me nervous is that there were cop cars going up or down and I know that there were some students pulled over. I know one student who actually had his license for year and there was a misunderstanding between himself and the police officer. But I do know that a lot of students afterwards were feeling very nervous and had a lot of apprehension towards the police officers."

Furthermore she stated:

"I’m an A student, I have no truancy problems, and I know that made me nervous.""

School Board members Jim Provenza and Tim Taylor expressed concern about this type of seemingly overly broad approach to fighting truancy.

At one point, Board Member Taylor in frustration summed up his concerns:

"Pam with all due respect that is interesting, but Jim’s point is that a student with all the reason in the world to be going to the bank, shouldn’t be stopped… It doesn’t matter that once their stopped and police run a check on them that fifteen minutes later they are let out of police control, the problem is the being stopped in the first place. I have a huge concern about it… [He stated he is supportive of the mission to reduce truancy] but there are limits, and I think the limits that Jim is identifying in his question are the ones that I am concerned about.”

Here's the full article on the first meeting itself.

It was not until later the next week after a conversation with Davis Police Lt. Darren Pytel that it became clearer that what was conveyed at the school board meeting was not the entire story (fortunately).

Meanwhile the Vanguard met with a number of students who demonstrated the confusion and concerns that students had with the confluence of two policy decisions that appeared to the students to be one and the same.

By November 2, a new meeting laid out to the board what was really going on--telling the board in a way that should have been done in the first place. This time, in addition to Pam Mari, the Davis Police, the District Attorney's Office, and other agencies involved were there to provide additional information.

"To her credit, Pam Mari, Davis Joint Unified School District Director of Student Services admitted that the previous conversation did not go as well as was hoped. However, she suggested that communications have drastically improved.

As so often seems to be the case, there was a miscommunication about expectations. She seemed to believe that the board already knew what was going on with regards to truancy, when in fact they clearly did not. It should be noted of course, that this was her first presentation in her present position. Nevertheless, the entire incident underscores the need for communication to occur at a high level.

Unlike the September meeting, Pam Mari was flanked by Lt. Darren Pytel of the Davis Police Department who was able to clarify the role of the police as it relates to issues of truancy. Also present were Trease Peterson, the Youth Intervention Specialist, and representatives from the Yolo County Probations department and the Yolo County DA's office (Patty Fong).

Lt. Darren Pytel made it clear to the public that the use of the term "sweep" meant something different to the police than to the public. To the public the perception was that they would go around town and attempt to round up youths who might not be in school. "We have no intent to do that." Instead, they have found that a lot of high school students, when being truant, end up hanging around in the park next to school. If this is the situation they encounter then they approach the students with a consensual stop and ask them where they should be. According to Lt. Pytel, most students are fairly honest about what they should be doing."

The bottom line here is an illustration as to why communication within the district and between agencies would have spared a lot of people, a lot of grief.

Things would calm down after this, but it was a tumultuous year on the Davis High School Campus.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

School Board Receives Full Explanation of Truancy Policies

It was a meeting in stark contrast to the previous board discussion on the issue of truancy. The meeting was such a stark contrast to the point where people were openly shaking their heads wondering why the original meeting in September had to go as poorly as it did.

To her credit, Pam Mari, Davis Joint Unified School District Director of Student Services admitted that the previous conversation did not go as well as was hoped. However, she suggested that communications have drastically improved.

As so often seems to be the case, there was a miscommunication about expectations. She seemed to believe that the board already knew what was going on with regards to truancy, when in fact they clearly did not. It should be noted of course, that this was her first presentation in her present position. Nevertheless, the entire incident underscores the need for communication to occur at a high level.

Unlike the September meeting, Pam Mari was flanked by Lt. Darren Pytel of the Davis Police Department who was able to clarify the role of the police as it relates to issues of truancy. Also present were Trease Peterson, the Youth Intervention Specialist, and representatives from the Yolo County Probations department and the Yolo County DA's office (Patty Fong).

Lt. Darren Pytel made it clear to the public that the use of the term "sweep" meant something different to the police than to the public. To the public the perception was that they would go around town and attempt to round up youths who might not be in school. "We have no intent to do that." Instead, they have found that a lot of high school students, when being truant, end up hanging around in the park next to school. If this is the situation they encounter then they approach the students with a consensual stop and ask them where they should be. According to Lt. Pytel, most students are fairly honest about what they should be doing.

Chronic truancy is also linked to criminal behavior and substance abuse.

Currently they are allowed by the education code to return the students to school. This does not constitute an arrest, and nothing is placed on the record or legal action taken, however, they do intend to notify the public.

Pam Mari laid out what amounts to seven levels of intervention based on the severity and persistence of the problem. (See the slides from the powerpoint presentation).

These range from preliminary steps to make contact with parents and students at the low levels of the policy to home visits in the middle levels, to full legal action at the high levels.

Police involvement begins at level three where a visiting team of the Davis Police Department Youth Specialist or an officer and a school administrator attempt to visit the home of a consistent truant. This is a consensual visit whereby the policy have no authority to enter the home. They can enter only by consent. They are limited to attendance issues and prefer to have school personnel present. There is a letter that would be deliver to the student or parent and they then follow up with a certified letter to the home.

At the level five, the student is classified as an "habitual truant" and is generally referred by the Yolo County District Attorney's office to a Truancy Mediation program. Finally level six is where formal legal action occurs where by a notice-to-appear in court is present and the students and parents can face legal action.

It should be noted of course that level six only occurs after the previous five steps, it does not seem likely that this would ever be implemented unless the parents are being almost intentionally neglectful. Assuming that they follow through with the first five steps as diligently (as it appears on paper) they should be able to avoid full legal action.

On the other hand, Pam Mari remarked that the first letter finally went out last week, and this letter went to 45-55 Davis High School Students, which seems to me, a very large number of students who would have enough of a truancy problem that they required a first letter.

Board member Tim Taylor - who had expressed some concern at the previous meeting - expressed that he was both happy and impressed with the thought and explanation that went with this.

Taylor remained concerned about one aspect, and that is about how this process works and what criteria was applied for students to be brought back to school. Lt. Pytel explained that mostly the police made consensual contacts with people, cruising around and stopping kids who appeared of school age to ask them where they are supposed to be. Chief Black clarified with me that this largely occurred around the school itself but occasionally went into the broader community. However, it was not a large scale community-wide effort and was also not generally focused during times when students would have legitimate reasons to be about--such as during lunch or at the end of the day when some students had no classes or other arrangements.

The question of suspension came up. It seemed contradictory to Tim Taylor, Jim Provenza, and Gina Daleiden that suspension was a viable punishment for a student who was being truant. There was concern expressed, since suspension was the only punishment laid out in the policy code. Pam Mari suggested that it was largely counterintuitive, but said that every so often it makes sense. She suggested that two students had been subjected to this over the course of her tenure, in over 1000 cases. Tim Taylor pressed this point, suggesting that there may be reasons for suspension in addition to truancy, but does not understand why the punishment for not going to school would to keep the student from going to school.

Board member Keltie Jones suggested a scenario where a good student might blow off a single class that bored them; however, this does not seem to be a very likely scenario for habitual truants.

Jim Provenza eventually read from the education code which suggested looking for alternatives to suspension and detention. There also seemed to be a consensus to deemphasize suspension but not take it completely off the table.

In general, there was concern about how to handle the academic component of this. Two problems that are foreseen is that students may be reluctant to go back to school after missing considerable class due to being so far behind. Trease Peterson approached me after the agenda item to explain that they have given this dilemma considerable thought and have attempted to incorporate it into the broader program, so that students are not simply left with a sense of hopelessness.

Additionally, there was concern about the district policy whereby suspensions automatically mean coursework would become a zero. For students to suffer an academic punishment for behavioral problems, again seems counterintuitive. Many of the students who would be truant or suspended for other purposes, are likely to have enough academic problems to begin with.

Superintendent Richard Whitmore, who was in his final meeting as interim Superintendent, said that his single biggest regret was that they did not address that particular issue.

The issues that were not raised were SARB (School Attendance Review Board) which was multi-jurisdictional, and the issue of portable PDA devices and their use on campus.

However, for the most part, the key issues got raised, the school board had considerable buy-in to the process, and again one has to wonder why these things have to be so difficult. Had the initial presentation occurred like this, much anguish and confusion would have never materialized. Hopefully this is a lesson learned.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary: School District and Community Still Deciding How to Deal with Truancy Issue

In an effort to foster inter-jurisdictional cooperation, many of the local jurisdictions have "2 by 2" meetings to discuss issues of mutual interest that may at a later point in time be brought back up with the full body. Two members from each jurisdiction sit on a body that is governed by the Brown Act. On Thursday, two members from the school district--Jim Provenza and Tim Taylor met with two members of the Davis City Council--Stephen Souza and Lamar Heystek. One of the items that they discussed was the recent truancy issue which was brought to this body at the behest of School Board President Jim Provenza.

Originally Mr. Provenza brought the matter to this body because the school board was for all intents and purposes blind-sided at a September 6, 2007 meeting where they learned of efforts to crack down on truancy in the district, apparently already underway between the school district, the district attorney's office, and the Davis Police Department. The hope was that this meeting would provide the district with some clarity, but in fact, we learned very little from this particular meeting. School Board President Provenza himself deferred most comments until the school board could meet on November 1 to discuss this item. He did however invite Chief Landy Black and Lt. Darren Pytel to present a report on the police's efforts to date.

Davis City Councilmember Lamar Hystek pressed for some information about the efforts to date and the current policy, however, the response was that there was no changes to the current policy and any other answers were deferred to that November 1, 2007 meeting.

Councilmember Heystek relayed concerns that he had heard from Davis High School Students about the policy.

School Board Member Tim Taylor responded in part that he felt that much of the confusion and anxiety was created by the school board meeting and presentation by Director of Student Services Pam Mari.

From my perspective, having talked with a good number of students, most were not even aware that there was a school board meeting that discussed this topic. Their confusion stems from the lack of adequate communication from the school district and the police about activities that have been occurring on campus since last spring but also about activities that occurred on campus the first week of school.

That is not to criticize Mr. Taylor on this, in fact, he was quite forceful once again in not wanting to repeat what happened at the September 6, 2007 meeting.

“We need to ramp this up through the community, rather than have it dumped on the public through another board meeting. We need to make it clear that we're going to have dialogues at schools.”

Davis Police Chief Landy Black suggested that the use of the word "sweep" was not the best word choice. He suggested that is a word used by the police in a different sort of context than it is used in the public. This was much the same as the conversation I had a few weeks ago with Lt. Darren Pytel. The idea that the police would be able to do any sort of broad sweep of the community is not realistic given department resources. And in an interestingly candid admission, he acknowledged that the police often do not do a good job of public relations.

Councilmember Heystek suggested again that the district and the community needs to be proactive in terms of how they deal with this issue, not just in terms of cracking down on truancy, but also in terms of getting community buy-in and communicating with the public.

Mr. Heystek then pushed for a motion to direct city and school district staff members to distribute information on the truancy policy, and the rights and responsibilities of students, parents and school district employees.

Interestingly enough, one of the things that came out of my meeting with Lt. Pytel was a that he will be offer a session to students on Police Procedure. So on October 29, 2007 at 6 PM, a session on "An Introduction to Police Procedure: Emphasis on Juvenile Law" with be taught by Davis Police Lt. Darren Pytel, this workshop will cover law and procedures currently in effect for youth in California and the Davis Community.

Last spring Lt. Pytel offered a course like this for adults which I attended, for the most part I agreed with his information and I found it valuable to understand where police were coming from in terms of contacts with the public--both consensual and non-consensual.

In my discussions with many high school students it became very clear that most of them did not know what their rights were and did not realize when they were free to leave and when the stop was an actual detention and they were compelled to give the police any information.

I would encourage in fact both students and their parents to attend this seminar. Chief Black suggested that while this is scheduled for community chambers where the city council meets, it could be moved to a larger venue if there is enough interest.

I also understand that the students themselves may be organizing an event with the ACLU to talk about these issues as well. The more discussion the better from my perspective.

November 1, 2007 will now be a key meeting for this community in terms of learning what is happening in the schools and also in terms of setting the direction for future efforts to deal with truancy. As long as the community is informed in this process, this will be a healthy discussion.

One of the efforts I understand that is underway are efforts to form a SARB--Student Attendance Review Board. The advantage of a SARB is that is a multi-jurisdictional approach between the schools, the juvenile justice system, and the police. But it also aims to really figure out why the student is being truant so that they can get help, and so there is a partnership with counselors, mental health services, drug counseling services, social workers, etc. to actually get to the root cause of the truancy and determine what needs the student has for help. The goal here is to get the student into school and the SARB can be a great resource for doing that.

This is another reason, I think the efforts to date while well-intentioned needed school board direction and community buy-in.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Student Perspectives on the Truancy Issue

During the course of this discussion on the truancy sweep and the crackdown on provisional drivers with underage passengers, we have heard primarily from administrators, the school board, and the police. However, there is a key group that we have only heard bits and pieces from and that is the students who have had to be on the receiving end of these new policies. I sat down with five high school students earlier this week and I also followed up with a conversation with Amanda Lopez-Lara, the student representative on the school board.

What became clear throughout our conversation is that there is quite a bit of confusion as to what policies are being enacted by the police and why. The anti-truancy sweep and the crackdown on provisional drivers is a key confusion. But it's also important to understand how this confusion contributes to the fear and anxiety that is clearly facing these students. If the message that the police want to get across to the students is that they are serious about the issue of enforcing age requirements for passengers of provisional drivers, this message gets lost. In speaking with the students there was expressed concern of intimidation by the police of students, there was a sense that students did not know their rights and this put them in greater legal jeopardy, and finally almost everyone of these students including Amanda Lopez-Lara, have a story about being pulled over.

Because we are dealing with minors, I will only use their first names with the exception of Amanda, who is in a bit of a different position since she is the student representative on the school board. In addition, one of the parents asked that their daughter's name be withheld, and so I have complied with this request, she will be referred to as the female student.

Each of these students seemed to have a story about being pulled over on campus.

Amanda told me that she knew of a few students, including herself who have been followed by the police and pulled over by the police. In her situation, she was driving with a friend in the same car legally, however, she was followed by the police for a number of blocks before she finally pulled into the school parking lot.

The female student tells of being questioned by a police officer in the parking lot after she had parked on campus.

"I got out of my car and as I was walking to class there was a patrol officer and he stopped, he had been following me back from lunch and he asked me if I had my license for a year. And I said no, I have only had it for eight months and he gave me a citation and I asked him if he was profiling and he just pretty much laughed. I was still really pissed off because I honestly thought it was profiling, so I went to the office and there was a cop there that I talked and he told it wasn’t profiling because he hadn’t had me detained, so I could have actually legally said, no I don’t want to answer your questions."

Soren also had a story to tell.

"I was in a car that, I suppose this is a situation similar to [the female student’s], I was in a car that, well not pulled over, but pulled over to the side of the road because he saw two cops and he didn’t want to get pulled over. And the cop just pulled up right behind him.

Coming back to think of it, the cop didn’t have his lights on which means he didn’t pull us over, which means we didn’t have to, my friend didn’t have to answer his questions. Well he did, and he got a ticket for it and it’s even worse because he didn’t have his license on him and it wasn’t his car."

Drew and Mohamed were walking from their class to the library which is next door to the high school. They claim they had permission from their teacher to pick up a book.

"He put us in the back of the patrol car and drove us back to school. Once we did get to school, it wasn’t just that we were to go back to our classes, they took us into the office and they questioned us for about fifteen minutes, about drugs, just to see… They threatened to search us and they just were checking to see if we’d visibly react. The most interesting thing I think is how rudely we were being treated."

The students also each felt that either they or their peers did not know their rights. Amanda told me that she was trying to get the student government to look into Miranda Rights Training for the students.

When I spoke to Lt. Pytel later in the week, he was agreeable to having a seminar for the students similar to one that he ran for the public last spring, whereby he would talk to students about what their rights are, and what the police can and cannot do in a given situation. When the students can refuse to speak and when they cannot.

This is a serious concern that arose during my interview with the students who felt that they did not know their rights and therefore they ended up actually incriminating themselves with statements that they did not have to make.

The female student said that in her incident, it was not until she spoke with the officer in the office, that she realized that she had not been required to speak.

"I could have actually legally said, no I don’t want to answer your questions. My biggest thing is that those rights were not available to me. I didn’t know that. I’ve never been told, no one has come up to me, and said, you know your Miranda rights I feel like that should be a part of that, that should be something that they should tell me. I should have known that I could have said I don’t want to answer your questions because I wasn’t in violation of the traffic law. "

According to Soren,

"Well I think kids really need to know their fourth and fifth amendments. The fourth amendment says that cops can’t search your car without a warrant. And the fifth amendment gives you a right to not incriminate yourself."

While Soren has some understanding of his rights, he probably did not realize that it does not require a warrant to search a vehicle like it would an individual's home.

Nevertheless the clear lesson from the lack of knowledge of his rights was driven home during his experience.

"Coming back to think of it, the cop didn’t have his lights on which means he didn’t pull us over, which means we didn’t have to, my friend didn’t have to answer his questions. Well he did, and he got a ticket for it and it’s even worse because he didn’t have his license on him and it wasn’t his car."

Drew also was troubled by the lack of information that students have pertaining to their rights and the fact that it impacts the interactions with the police.

"When they go to you and they have two cop cars behind them and kids don’t know their rights, and they don’t want to call their parents of course, they don’t know what to say. When a cop comes in and starts asking you questions, you are just taught to respond to the questions, and be respectful and tell the cop the truth, but the thing is, that when your rights are being infringed there is no one there to tell you that you don’t have to say this."

He later followed up on his point during the closing remarks:

"I want to just point out that I think that it’s important that students know their rights and that people know their rights because your rights aren’t any good unless you’re using them."

Intimidation also appears to be a consistent theme through my discussions with the students. Part of this is the normal interaction with police authority figures. It is not necessarily that the police are going out of their way to intimidate, but that's certainly the perception by the students. I think this probably should underscore the pitfalls of having police get involved with such issues. Furthermore it also demonstrates how easily the message and point can quickly get lost.

According to Drew, he saw a clear intimidation factor.

"There is definitely an intimidation factor that is going on at the high school, people are being pulled over just because they’re age profiled all the time, the cops that come on campus are in full uniform, they sort of glare at students."

This intimidation and fear has according to Mohamed eroded the trust for not just the police but also the administration. They feel that they cannot trust some of the people in authority. Drew said that this actually did not begin this year but rather last year.

"It seems as though at some point about halfway through last year, the cops really got into showing force and numbers and trying to scare kids."

One of his complaints is that it is not just one patrol car pulling students over, but rather several.

According to the female student, they question the priorities of the police as well.

"I don’t want this to come off as a cop bashing session, because that’s not the point of this, the point of this is that like that these are valid opinions, none of this is coming from like teenage angst, or I just feel really unfair right now. No, it’s like actually like I feel that the police should have something better to do with their time."

Soren tells us:

"As far as the cops pulling over kids who probably haven’t had their license long enough, what they do is that they pull over the kids that look the most scared of them, the ones that look at the cop and then start driving really carefully, if you’re picking on the scared kids, isn’t that exactly what intimidation is."

The female student also suggests that the plan could work but they are not going about it in the right way.

"It’s all intimidation. This new plan that they have, it could work, it’s just that the way they’re going about it. Every single time a kid has a story, like the one that Drew and Mohamed just told, those stories go around and people get scared. When there’s a cop around any kid at the high school they feel scared that they’re checking, they think, oh what am I doing wrong. It shouldn’t be like that at all."

For the Drew the issue is not what the police are doing, but rather their demeaner as they are doing it.

"The only thing that I can say in terms of the cops and whether they are intimidating or to support, I think that better than any story that somebody can tell is really just look at their face, look at their expression, they are not smiling at you, they are frowning at you and glaring at you. And trying to scare you. I was walking through the high school just to get to a class, I was in school, on campus, walking from one classroom to another, and I see a police officer that just glared at me, that right there is all I need to see that they are not there to support. They don’t say hi, they don’t smile at you, they don’t say oh, how’s everything going, no they just glare at you and if you shake a little bit they assume you have something on you."

Mohamed had questions about the truancy sweep and the motivations behind it. As we've discussed previously this week, one of the factors in the rise of truancy was problems with the calling system in the attendance office that the students figured out before the parents.

"A lot of people are saying that the truancy numbers have like gone up, especially in the last year, but the reason for this is that at the beginning of last year for the first three months of the school year, any unexcused absences, there was no phone call home. And there was no way of informing your household that you had an unexcused absence so people would forget about it. When a lot of students found out about this, they took advantage of this. So in turn, they say the new truancy sweep is because of the increasing numbers of truancy, the fact that we lost almost three-quarters of a million dollars last year. But if you look at in fact, the reason that all of this happened is because of a mistake made by the front office or the attendance office or whatever is, and that began the increase in numbers. So a lot of these numbers are in fact, I would see them as like false, over-exaggerated or something."

He also wondered if money rather than education was not a heavily motivating factor behind the concern. The money issue also came up during the school board debates where the claim was made that the school district lost over $500,000 from truancy.

"The first thing I keep hearing when they talk about wanting to get the kids in the seat is the money that we keep losing. It seems it comes back to money rather than worried about us getting our education."

When I spoke with Lt. Pytel and others in the school district, he was surprised that the crackdown on driving caused so much confusion. He told me that they ran an announcement in the bulletin for three days prior to the effort and yet students largely seemed unaware and to ignore it.

However, Soren questions the effectiveness of such announcements. According to him, "no one actually reads the daily bulletin." If that is the case, then that is probably not the best means by which to communicate with the students.

The overriding beliefs I had as I listened to these students both during the interview and just now as I went through the recording of that interview is the amount of fear, anxiety, and confusion that has been brought about not necessarily by this policy and the crackdown, but rather by the failure to communicate what was going on adequately to the students, to the community, to their parents, and even to the school board.

The sense I get is that the school wants to send the message that they are going to take truancy seriously. The police wants to send the message that they are going to take the issue of provisional license requirements more seriously than they have in the past. But it is not clear to me that the message got through to the students. And if the message has not gotten through to the students, then perhaps this was not the best approach.

There is however an opportunity here for real communication and real learning. The students are now interested in the civics lesson of knowing their rights. That may be a good start. But frankly I think there are other lessons that we want to teach the students. I think we want to teach them the value of a good education and give them reasons to go to class and do well in school. I do not see that message getting through by these means.

I also think that the confusion between the truancy issue and the provisional license issue has probably harmed both efforts.

Finally and I cannot stress this enough, this demonstrates the need to have a policy that comes from the school board to the community and then to the administration and not probably the other way around.

I will also say since someone will mention it, obviously this is but one or six of many perspectives from the high school. This reflects the feelings of these students, but many other high school students probably have very different responses. Nevertheless, I do not think that fact invalidates some of the concerns raised here.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Truancy Issue: Getting Some Answers

As we continue with our look into the Davis Joint Unified School District and other jurisdiction's truancy efforts, we are finally getting a little bit of clarity as to what the policy entails and what it does not entail.

At one point during the school board meeting last Thursday, Davis Joint Unified School District Director of Student Services, Pam Mari made a somewhat awkward statement:

"And interestingly enough, there could have been an incident that happened today that had nothing to do with anything about this topic, but the last perception is crucial."

This statement turned out to be true to some extent. The police action on the high school campus did indeed have nothing to do with the truancy "sweeps." The action was actually related to a separate police led crackdown upon violations of the provisional license portion of the vehicle code section 12814.6 subdivision (B) which specifies:

"during the first 12 months after issuance of a provisional license the licensee may not do any of the following unless accompanied and supervised by a licensed driver who is the licensee’s parent or guardian, a licensed driver who is 25 years of age or older, or a licensed or certified driving instructor:

(B) Transport passengers who are under 20 years of age."

It is the view of the police that most minors do not believe that this section of the vehicle code is enforced and therefore they determined that they would crack down on this behavior by the students. In a future installment, we will hear from some of the students at the high school about their perceptions about what happened and is happening on the campus. But a number of public officials have expressed privately some concerns about this crackdown by police.

There is a specific provision in this law that students cannot merely be pulled over for suspicion of violating this law. They can only be pulled over if there is probable cause of some other violation.

Hence subdivision (c) reads:

(c) A law enforcement officer may not stop a vehicle for the sole purpose of determining whether the driver is in violation of the restrictions imposed under subdivision (b).

In other words, we have cleared up some of the confusion as to what occurred on campus on Thursday of last week, where there was mass confusion and a number of complaints about the police presence, activities and presence on campus. That said the very idea of a crackdown and enforcement of this law appears to go against the spirit of the law that the legislature passed which specifically sought to avoid the type of profiling and stops that appear to have occurred on the campus. The actions performed by officers may well have fallen within the letter of the law in terms of using secondary violations as a means by which to pull over the students, but the intention of the law and the spirit of this law have clearly been pushed to the brink at the very least.

Moving on to the truancy policy itself, there still appears to be two major problems with the handling of the policy by the school district administration.

One is largely a communication problem, where the policy was never communicated from the administrative level in the school district to the policy level (i.e. the school board) and probably not adequately communicated to parents or the community. As a result of that, large portions of this policy are now on hold. This was to be an interjurisdictional policy with coordination between the District Attorney's Office, Police Department and School District. However, somehow and for some reasons none of the policymaking bodies--city council, school board, or board of supervisors--were informed of this coordinated activity.

The second problem developed from the use of the word "sweep." As Lt. Darren Pytel of the Davis Police Department explained to me, the police's use of the word "sweep" is a much broader term than what non-law enforcement think of the meaning of the word "sweep."

At one point during the meeting, Pam Mari recognized the word "sweep" was part of the angst that had been created with the board about this policy.

"Perhaps we are really hurting on this word sweep... And if the word sweep were eliminated and it was home visit, I wonder if we would be as hurting. I apologize if that word is what is causing the trouble, that’s a word that the police department uses to mean on a given day we are going to use a lot of our energy and do this.”

It is interesting because according to Lt. Darren Pytel, the department is now also using the term "home visit" rather than "sweep" to describe the operation.

While the use of word "sweep" may have been unfortunate. It was probably not the chief cause for concern among the school board members. It is also unfortunate the way the meeting itself was conducted. First, the board was provided with exactly one paragraph of written documentation for a fairly complex policy that required a good deal of coordination and explanation.

Second, if all of these agencies (police, school district, district attorney) were involved, then why not have representatives from all of these agencies present at the school board meeting. At the very least, if Lt. Darren Pytel and Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven were present at this meeting, they could have responded to some of the concerns. Instead, we are having to ask questions of them outside of the public setting. Normally an interjurisdictional presentation would have each of the participants as part of a broader presentation. None of this happened. Instead there was a paragraph delivered to the school board.

It is only now that there is any kind of clarity about this policy and that in itself remains a source of discomfort not only for community members, but public officials whose duty it is to run various bodies.

There are actually two parts of this operation according to Davis Police Lt. Darren Pytel. The first part is that when the district recognized they had a truancy problem (Lt. Pytel said that the truancy problem began before the computer glitch and extended past it) and the police quickly discovered that a large portion of the students who were skipping class had actually gone to the park right next door to the school, and so with minimal effort of increasing patrols by the police, they could transport those students back to class. Therefore, this was a relatively simple and straightforward way to get a good percentage of students back to class.

The second part of the effort, which was what they were calling the "sweep," actually were these home visits, where the worst of the truancy offenders would receive home visits by the police and a school administrator. They would make contact with the parents and hopefully get the students back in class. According to Lt. Pytel, this was very successful last year.

Their goal for this year was the top 20 offenders at the high school, the five worst offenders at the Junior High, and all of the elementary school students who were truant.

That brings us to the next question: why do the police have to do this rather than merely the administration? There is a concern that some of the truants are not merely students who are not wanting to go to school but some may also be involved in criminal activity. Therefore a home visit by an administrator alone may introduce an element of danger and risk that they should not have to undertake. That is the job of the police. (The real question that we will discuss a bit later is whether we are to the point where the police need to become involved).

Therefore, again according to what the police are saying, there is no general sweep in this plan. A general sweep would be a broader crackdown within the community whereby the police would look for minors who were supposed to be in school and bring them back to school. Again, the claim by Lt. Pytel is that this was not in the offering.

That said, there is a degree of skepticism by some officials about this claim. Some of whom believe that it is possible that the original plan did call for a more general crackdown on truancy which did involve the police going into the larger community and attempt to find students who were not in class and bring them back to class. And that this represents a bit of backtracking on the part of the police after getting some negative feedback from the community. (I am not really in the position to judge this now, all I can tell is you is what I have been told.)

Lt. Pytel also claimed to not have knowledge about the proposed use of PDAs to identify the students who were supposed to be in class and those who were not suppose to be in class. This was mentioned by Pam Mari but it was not clear who would be the jurisdiction that used the PDAs and how they would be used.

Lt. Pytel did say that in general it was fairly easy to determine which kids were out legitimately and which were not. That most of the students were actually very honest when they were caught. A few of the students did however lie about their identity, but that was quickly discovered as well with a radio to Marc Hicks, the School Resource Officer.

As I said, the questions and concerns now raised by the school board have put this on hold for now. We need to have future discussions in the school district and community at large about the problem of truancy. It may be a serious problem. But the way that this policy came together is also equally concerning. The lack of communication to the policy makers is a serious problem that needs further inquiry. The school board should never have been put in the position that they were on Thursday.

Originally the police were going to conduct their truancy sweep, I mean home visits, on September 19, 2007. As we discussed previously with our look at the education code, legally, the code provides that certain steps be taken before such actions could occur. So there would not be sufficient time to send out the right number of letters or follow the steps laid out. That would mean, that legally the police could not enforce the truancy laws, all they could do would be to go to the home of the students and attempt to get them back into school that way.

I think this is an important that bears consideration. The justification for this was that by the time they could get the letters out, the students would be hopelessly behind in their studies. Therefore, if they could get to the students in September who were already having serious problems with truancy, they could get back into school and be able to catch up.

In theory that sounds good, in practice, there are two important considerations. First, that the law is very specific about the protocol that needs to be followed, in such a way that law enforcement involvement necessarily comes at the last possible step. And second, there is a reason why many of these students are missing class. So even if you get them back into class early on, you still have to deal with those contributing problems. In other words, merely getting them back into class is not a solution but rather a step in the process. There is an advantage to getting to them sooner, but not at the expense of process.

During the course of the meeting on Thursday, Pam Mari was dismissive of the creation of a School Attendance Review Board (SARB) as a means deal with this issue. However, Lt. Pytel offered it as perhaps the ultimate direction that they want to go. The concern though was that it would take time to set it up and it is by its nature a bureaucracy that relies heavily on the coordination between a large number of jurisdictions.

Here is a good definition of SARB:

"In 1974, the Legislature enacted a statute to enhance the enforcement of compulsory education laws and to divert students with school attendance or behavior problems from the juvenile justice system until all available resources have been exhausted. This statute created School Attendance Review Board (SARBs), composed of representatives from various youth-serving agencies, to help truant or recalcitrant students and their parents or guardians solve school attendance and behavior problems through the use of available school and community resources. Although the goal of SARB is to keep students in school and provide them with a meaningful educational experience, SARB does have the power, when necessary, to refer students and their parents or guardians to court."

It seems that the reason that they did not attempt to create a SARB was that it would take a good amount of time, large amounts of efforts and cooperation to create. But this would be a body that would have the authority to do what was needed to get kids back into school but it would not begin at the law enforcement level.

And this remains my concern with this process. I believe that the goal of getting students who are not attending school into class is a very admirable one. But I do not like the way this was approached. Without board direction, an administrator with the school district reached out to law enforcement bodies for help. Law enforcement has a very specific role to play in our society and that is to enforce the laws and punish people who break those laws and who represent a danger to society.

However to put it simply, they are a blunt object. Their presence is marked by fear, intimidation, and authority. In some cases, that presence can be helpful in being the two-by-four that wakes up parents and students and gets their attention. But as Lt. Pytel acknowledged, kids are not a one-size-fits-all subgroup. Rather different kids will respond to different stimuli. For some kids, this type of action may help them. For other, it may push them into other directions.

I think the statement made by School Board member Tim Taylor remains crucial for those of us who are still concerned about this policy.

"One of the things we are struggling with is that regardless of whether the law allows certain things to be done, if they haven’t been done, we have two choices, we can hit the ground at 100 miles per hour or we can have a discussion with ourselves and the community and the public and discuss what are we going to do and I think what you’re hearing and certainly what I’m feeling certainly is that the 100 mile an hour approach while perhaps legal may not be the best fit. Because people are gong to feel like they are getting run over. That will cause community pullback… instead of buy-in, which I think we need, that will have the opposite effect."

The goals involved in this program are as I said, admirable. But really the middle people should not be the ones creating the policies or at least new procedures by which to deal with existing policies--depending on what terminology you want to use here. What I would like to see now is a prolonged discussion in the community, where you have parents, community members, students, the police, the district attorney, the traffic commissioner, the juvenile justice community, the city council, and the school board all sit down communicate about the issue of truancy.

First I would like talk about what the problems are. I still do not feel I have a good appreciation for what the problems are, how extensive they are, and what other problems exist.

Second, I would like a full detailing of present efforts to curtail truancy. What has been tried. What has worked. What has not worked.

Third, determine a course of action. It is my opinion, that law enforcement should be the absolute last resort for dealing with this problem. And quite frankly, law enforcement in this case was not the last resort. Pam Mari argued strongly during the meeting that she exhausted everything and therefore was forced to bring in law enforcement, but that is not true in the least. The next step should have been to take it to the school board. Another step would have been to take it to the public in terms of community forums. Another step would have been to create a task force. Another step would have been to create a SARB. All of these are things that were not done prior to an effort to outreach law enforcement.

It may be that at the end of the day, we do need to be law enforcement. But at the point when we will have done that, we will have engaged the community on this issue and will have brought them along in the process toward that conclusion. As it stands now there is confusion, there is anger, there is fear, and there is trepidation. That does not lead to community buy in, it leads to community pull back.

And let me be very clear, my complaint here is not with law enforcement. It may not even be with this policy. It is with the process by which this policy was created. There are key lessons to be learned here, and the biggest one is that the best of efforts and intentions can be undone by failure to communicate and failure to follow proper process.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary and Analysis: Looking Closer at the Truancy Issue

This is part of a continuing examination of the Davis Joint Unified School District truancy issue. On Monday, we reviewed Thursday school board meeting. Today, we will examine the claims made by the Director of Student Services Pam Mari regarding the need for changes in truancy prevention as well education code. As we assess some of those claims it brings up additional questions.

Pam Mari in her presentation to the board of education, made the argument that the reason that the police got involved in this process is that the district had made a number of attempts to rectify the problem of truancy and those efforts failed. Numbers were cited with regard to lost revenue by the school district in the form of ADA (Average Daily Attendance). One number that floated around was $500,000 was lost at the high school in ADA dollars due to truancy.

However, information that was present in April 11, 2007's Davis Community Advisory Board (CAB) through the police department, raises serious questions about these claims.

According to the minutes from that meeting, Lt. Darren Pytel, one of the innovators of this program, said:

"At the beginning of the school year Davis High was having problems with their telephone computer. Parents were not notified about attendance issues and the students figured it out. Around November, December the district informed parents of the problem and let when know what outstanding absences were not dealt with."

As the result of this computer glitch, up to 200 kids had missed five or more full school days.

My reading of this situation is that a one-time computer problem made it difficult for parents to be notified about attendance problems. The students figured out there was a problem with the computer (the administration did not) and that they would not be caught and therefore took full advantage.

If that is what happened, there was a known cause from a known problem. That would differ from an ongoing problem of truancy. If this interpretation is correct, do we really need to change the way that we are enforcing truancies? Do we really need a radical approach? Shouldn't this issue have been assessed by the policy making policy (i.e. the school board) prior to changes in procedure?

The basic question here is was this a one-time problem as the result of the computer glitch--which was not mentioned at the school board meeting--or is this an ongoing problem? And why did the administration not cite statistics for the board to put numbers on this?

What happened next was largely a result of the truancies caused by this computer glitch. The claim in the school board meeting on Thursday was that the truancy sweep would only involve getting the 15-20 worst offenders into school.

This is not what happened last spring.

"When officers saw school aged kids, they were to ask, “Where are you supposed to be right now?” Then they would verify with School Officer Mark Hicks, who has a police radio and can tell from the school computer if the student should be in school. If so, the officer would give them a ride back to the school" (CAB Meeting minutes April 11, 2007).

This does not sound like an action limited to a few students who are the worst offenders, it sounds like a blanket sweep of the community.

The other problem at this point is that the police have really conflated the issue of truancy with the issue of students driving accompanied by friends in the vehicle--which they are not supposed to do if they have had their license for less than a year. Previously, police did not stop students solely for the purpose of checking whether their friends should be in the car.

That policy has now changed and the police are cracking down on this. They are specifically pulling over cars with young drivers and looking to see if their should be able to drive with friends. That has been a focused effort on the part of the police. That of course leads me to the question and I understand the law, but is there a compelling reason that the police need to expend a large amount of manpower to enforce this law, other than it is the law?

Reading the notes from the CAB meeting which occurred back in April and was actually referenced in March, leads people to a further question--why is it that the school board was not made aware of the changes in policy? This meeting by the way, was one of the first attended by new police chief Landy Black.

However, these discussion appear now to go back six months. How is it that all of these changes in procedure could occur without school board input?

Of all of my concerns about this policy, that is the biggest. The school board is elected to represent the interests of the public on the school board. They are accountable to the public. If they fail to do their job, they can be voted out of office by the public or even recalled under extreme circumstances of dereliction of duty. Administrators are not accountable to the public directly however. They do not have to face the voters. The administration works for the Superintendent and the Superintendent is hired by the school board.

The argument made by Pam Mari is that this is authorized by the California Education Code and therefore they did not need board consent to change their procedure for dealing with truancy.

School Board Member Tim Taylor nailed it on the response:

"One of the things we are struggling with is that regardless of whether the law allows certain things to be done, if they haven’t been done, we have two choices, we can hit the ground at 100 miles per hour or we can have a discussion with ourselves and the community and the public and discuss what are we going to do and I think what you’re hearing and certainly what I’m feeling certainly is that the 100 mile an hour approach while perhaps legal may not be the best fit. Because people are gong to feel like they are getting run over. That will cause community pullback… instead of buy-in, which I think we need, that will have the opposite effect."

However, the other question is whether or not this is even allowed by the law and authorized through ed code.

My reading of the education code does not suggest that it "authorizes" this kind of approach. It does not appear to prohibit this kind of approach necessarily. But it does not automatically authorize it.

What it does specify are definitions for truancy and recourse that the district can take for habitual truants. According to the education code, no pupil can be classified as habitually truant without an effort to have a conference with the parent.

"Any pupil is deemed an habitual truant who has been reported as a truant three or more times per school year, provided that no pupil shall be deemed an habitual truant unless an appropriate district officer or employee has made a conscientious effort to hold at least one conference with a parent or guardian of the pupil and the pupil himself" (EC Section 48262).

The prescribed penalty for habitual truancy:

"(c) The third time a truancy report is required within the same school year, the pupil shall be classified a habitual truant, as defined in Section 48262, and may be referred to and required to attend, an attendance review board or a truancy mediation program pursuant to Section 48263 or pursuant to Section 601.3 of the Welfare and Institutions Code. If the district does not have a truancy mediation program, the pupil may be required to attend a comparable program deemed acceptable by the school district's attendance supervisor. If the pupil does not successfully complete the truancy mediation program or other similar program, the pupil shall be subject to subdivision (d)." (EC Section 48264.5 Subdivision C).

The penalty phase according to the education code appears after the fourth truancy. Penalties at that point include community service, fine of no more than $100, attendance in a court-approved truancy prevention program, and only then suspension or revocation of driving privileges.

So to repeat, after reading through education code, one could probably argue that school policy is not prohibited by the code unless they are attempted to revoke driving privileges earlier than allowed. However, it is not clear that ed code authorizes this approach or that this approach could be undertaken without board approval. I am not familiar enough with the law here to be able to assess what control a school board has in implementing education code policies.

Regardless, it would have been helpful for the administrator in presenting this program to have a written citation of the relevant sections of education code for the school board to see in advance and help them in understanding the new policy and how it fits in with the requirements from the state.

Many questions still need to be answered. Some of these questions include what is actually going on, what this policy will actually do. Other questions include who knew what and when and why was neither the board of education nor the city council aware of these activities by the school district and law enforcement. Answers to those will hopefully occur at the next City-School District two-by-two meeting and a subsequent school board meeting.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

School Board Not Informed About Changes in Truancy Policy

Apparently in May of last year, the Davis Joint Unified School District in actions to a large degree unbeknownst to the Davis School Board began a multiagency approach to crack down on truancy.

On Thursday of last week, the school board received a one paragraph report from Pam Mari who was Principal at DaVinci High School and now is District Director of Student Services. In her presentation, Ms. Mari laid out what the policy consisted of and in some detail what was going on.

What we have learned stunned many of the elected officials on the Davis School Board. This will be the first in a several part series looking into the actions of the school district and the policy that has led to police presence on the Davis High School campus and truancy sweeps in the Davis community. This first installment focuses heavily upon the school board meeting itself.

According to Pam Mari, there is "grave concern" in the school district about habitual truancy. The district has struggled with a number of students that they simply could not get back into school. These new policies came about through a multiagency approach that to find ways to get students back into school.

Ms. Mari claimed to have derived this policy from Section 6.4 of the California Education Code:

"The measures that I am suggesting are not of my invention, they are explicitly stated in ed code."

This policy is simply an extension of what is already laid out in the education code, according to Pam Mari. The district did not have a lot of success in creating a multiagency approach; that changed last May when the Davis Police Department led by Sgt. John Wilson and Lt. Darren Pytel and district personnel decided to take a step together.

The policy involves a complex web of steps beginning with a letter that the family receives after the three full days of unexcused absences. Then the family will receive a second letter after another three unexcused absences. Along with the letters, each day, there are phone calls to the parents including now on their cell phones where the kids cannot intercept the phone calls. Further steps include a report of the numbers of absences on the students progress and grade reports. If these problems continue there will be more severe punishments culminating in-home visits by police and district personnel and also these truancy sweeps whereby the police go around and “if they saw a child out of school, they approached that child and escorted that child to the school, taking custody of that child.”

According to Pam Mari:

“It’s not the severity but the surety of the consequence that has an effect, so if we can specify the punishment, the warning has no effect.”

The bottom line in her presentation was that they were following the letter of ed code.

“Bottom line is we are doing what we need to do.”

Once Pam Mari finished her presentation, she responded to questions from the members of the school board, it is here that we start to get a fuller picture of the policy and where we might start getting concerned.

First of all, it becomes clear almost from the start that the school board has very little written information about the policy.

At the beginning of her presentation, Pam Mari says:

"As you look through your packet..."

And Board President Jim Provenza responds:

"I don’t think we have a packet, I have a paragraph."

Ms. Mari says just the summary, that's it. But is it?

Responding to questions about detention, Mari has this response:

“Detention I think frankly went the way of ‘all teachers must be married’ and ‘we will all wear boots to school’ it frankly is not a believed you can punish anyone into learning or wanting to be in school. So those have not proven to be effective.”

She may indeed be correct with regards to detention. But is not the policy she is advocating seems to be directed toward forcing and punishing people into learning and being in school. How else could this policy be interpreted other than to punish students and force them to go to school?

It was when the student representative on the board spoke, Amanda López-Lara, that it became more clear that what was being described by Pam Mari looked very different from the student perspective.

"Today was probably the first day most students were actually told these rules. We had never heard of them before, we were not aware of them. I agree it is very good to kid the kids into class again, because I do know there’s a problem at the high school especially with a lot of kids just skipping class and going to parks. But one concern I do have is that a lot of people appreciate Mark Hicks, and I know a lot of kids who are at-risk students who really respect him, but one concern that I had is that I know today during lunch, the whole high school was scared. We were scared because we went to lunch, we weren’t necessarily scared but we were made nervous, because we went out and I don’t think I’ve see that many cop cars at the high school. I saw one across the street, and two and each entrance, and then once I went down the street I’ve had my license for a year, so I wasn’t nervous, but what did make me nervous is that there were cop cars going up or down and I know that there were some students pulled over. I know one student who actually had his license for year and there was a misunderstanding between himself and the police officer. But I do know that a lot of students afterwards were feeling very nervous and had a lot of apprehension towards the police officers."

Furthermore she stated:

"I’m an A student, I have no truancy problems, and I know that made me nervous."

Pam Mari responds that "it is a paradigm shift" and it’s going to take some doing at first. She believes if we can get the kids to come in and then they can work with somebody on a personal level, we just need to get them there. “And then the other half of that story, for kids who are apprehensive because they’ve been misbehaving, that would be a logical consequence.”

Amanda López-Lara however responds,

“Relations I feel as a student, are already prestrained between students and police officers. Good students and bad students... The relations to be completely honest as a student with you, they’re not that great... I know there are some high school students who once they feel apprehensive, they don’t want to listen, they just want to act out.”

At this point, Ginni Davis, who is the Associate Superintendent interjects with a lecture:

"Part of our job Amada, if I could just say that quickly, is that we are teaching people how to be citizens in our society. And when people are out of high school and become adults, they have to get along with police, and the police work for the public to make our environment safe for everybody. So the sooner that people are to understand that police are there to enforce laws that we make in this country, and work with policemen, the more people can be good citizens, and that’s part of the education that we’re responsible for."

School Board Member Keltie Jones also defended the policy:

“[The] missing piece here is to facilitate some positive interactions as well to develop the types of relationships where people won’t necessarily feel apprehensive, they’ll feel like it’s somebody that they know and they’re connected to.”

Keltie Jones advocates facilitating ways to get police officers in with the student leadership groups. But, what Jones appears to be missing is that students are not going to have positive interactions with uniformed police officers who are making a show of force.

School Board Member Tim Taylor however, does not miss this point.

“All I want to say is that we all need to listen very closely to what Amanda is saying because she’s right, there is a very fine line insuring compliance and intimidation. And no matter how well intended they are, police officers can be intimidating. In fact, that’s part of what they are there for, it can be a good thing but it can also be a bad thing. The student perspective… on this is a very important one and how that presence is felt by the student collective is something that we should be very cognizant of.”

School Board President Jim Provenza advocated the need to be able to differentiate between those with legitimate reasons to not be in the high schools and those who are truant.

“We don’t want the fact that you are of high school age [to lead to] everyday being stopped by the police. That would be the exact opposite of what I would want.”

Pam Mari dismissed that concern:

“It would be hard to believe that there is even enough resources to do that.”

However, she then went onto address ways by which students who had legitimate reasons for being off campus could get that straightened out. First, school personnel would be able to receive calls if someone claimed that either they did not go to that school or they had a free period. She also discussed a "Lifetouch" system whereby images are stored into a “hand-held device that would load all of the students schedules so that right on the spot that could be determined and keep any kind of misunderstanding and I want everyone to be respectful of each other.”

Tim Taylor however interjected:

"Pam with all due respect that is interesting, but Jim’s point is that a student with all the reason in the world to be going to the bank, shouldn’t be stopped… It doesn’t matter that once their stopped and police run a check on them that fifteen minutes later they are let out of police control, the problem is the being stopped in the first place. I have a huge concern about it… [He stated he is supportive of the mission to reduce truancy] but there are limits, and I think the limits that Jim is identifying in his question are the ones that I am concerned about.”

This part of the discussion seems to suggest a fairly wide net employed by the police. My concern here is that the moment a student is stopped by the police and checked, that will be a very serious event in their day. They may get angry, humiliated, or afraid. There is a strong likelihood that they will think about this event all day long instead of focusing on school. And so the policy meant to get kids into the classroom to learn may end up in fact disrupting learning.

Once confronted on this point by Tim Taylor however Pam Mari become a bit standoffish while at the same time appears to back off her previous statement.

"Let’s not dance around it, what you’re saying is when does stopping for a very good reason become harassing, and the police don’t want to get there, they don’t have enough humans to get there I don’t think."

And yet as we will see in the future installments of this series, this may be exactly what is going on.

Pam Mari then directs the next comment to the student representative:

"The reason that you haven’t heard about any of these things until today is this discussion right here, so you’re really hearing it first and there’s a lot of just simply communication that needs to follow this. And secondly, I absolutely here you about what you’re saying, so you do have that. And interestingly enough, there could have been an incident that happened today that had nothing to do with anything about this topic, but the last perception is crucial."

Board Member Gina Daleiden then talks about the confusion involving the open campus policy and whether students and parents even know what the policy is--this apparently came up at a PTA meeting.

Pam Mari responded:

“I can’t imagine how they don’t know, but let us assume all things being equal… It is a closed campus with an open lunch… It says so in the guide. If you do not have a class period… then there are two options, one is to have a study hall and the other is to petition for an actual free period where you don’t have school obligations.”

Those require the student meet a grade threshold and unit threshold. But the bottom line is yes, there are students who have a free period and are free to leave campus and could go to the grocery store or the bank.

Jim Provenza then expressed his concerns about the policy and the lack of board notification. He stated that he wants district counsel to take a look.

“This is the first time this has come to board and we saw nothing in writing, just the one paragraph. I’m not comfortable at this point."

Ginni Davis interrupts:

"Jim, this is not an action item, it’s for information and we’re happy to back to you and give you in writing what we’re going to do, but we do need to enforce ed code.”

Provenza more forcefully responds this is "something that needs to come back to us."

“This has never come before the board and I wouldn’t assume that you have board authority…”

Keltie Jones once again strongly defends the policy.

"I have to say that I think this is a very detailed well-thought out administrative approach to this. This is something they’ve been looking at and studying for a long time. They’ve got public agencies that are well-informed about codes and what the requirements are in following the codes… As Pam said, this is not about students who are going to the bank at lunch time, this is about students who are not showing up for school on a consistent regular basis, this about students were are losing. If there’s any way that we can make the connection to get to them and talk to them and find out what their needs are and find out how we can meet there needs, then I think this is something that is worth doing and I think it is within the realm of the administration to do it."

Mr. Provenza responds:

"I don’t disagree with anything that you said except the last statement. This is something that I think is a policy item that should be approve by the board. We should have some sort of memorandum of understanding in force with the police department. We should know exactly how it’s going to be implemented and we should have procedures to guard against unintended consequences… As a board member, I will bring this back to the board… At the very least, we have to something in writing, guidelines, something that all parents and students can understand."

Now Pam Mari responds:

"Jonathan Raven, traffic office commission, the entire Davis police department, this is black and white."

While she stated this Ms. Mari holds up a stack of papers that are paper clipped together and one has to wonder if this is information that was not provided to the board. It sure seemed like she had something there that they did not.

Provenza firmly and forcefully responds:

"We have one paragraph in front of us, I’m sorry that’s not enough for me. If you feel that you have the authority to go ahead with it, you can do that, but it won’t be with my blessing, I’m going to place it on the agenda and ask our attorney to review it, there’s too many lawsuits against the school district we want to make sure we do it right and maybe we are doing it right, but I don’t have enough information before me now, not after the discussion."

Keltie Jones again defends the policy:

"We’ve been talking about the sweeps, and [I] want to clarify that’s it is not just about tagging somebody who looks like they’re a particular age, my understanding… is that the sweeps are for specific students that the district has identified as… here’s the fifteen students, here’s the twenty students who have missed x number of days so far, here are the students we want you to see, here are the homes, see if you can bring them in. So it’s not just random let’s pull out anybody who looks like they may be of high school age."

However, Tim Taylor responds:

“I don’t know what the sweeps are. Based on the paragraph the sweeps are of 15 or 20 students. But based on Amanda’s comments perhaps other things are going on that are beyond the 15 students. I don’t know what is and I’m not trying to find out tonight.”

He further states:

"I have a problem with the school district supporting some kind of action that I don’t really understand or know who it’s about or where it’s going to be or who gets caught in the net until we have a discussion with the city."

The story at this point shifts from sweeps to 15 to 20 students who are the worst offenders being targeted.

Pam Mari at this point feels the need to back of her more hard-line stance from earlier as it becomes clear that the board with the exception of Keltie Jones is very uncomfortable with all of this:

"Perhaps we are really hurting on this word sweep... And if the word sweep were eliminated and it was home visit, I wonder if we would be as hurting. I apologize if that word is what is causing the trouble, that’s a word that the police department uses to mean on a given day we are going to use a lot of our energy and do this.”

Tim Taylor however clarifies why he is uncomfortable and it does not have to do with the word, "sweep."

"One of the things we are struggling with is that regardless of whether the law allows certain things to be done, if they haven’t been done, we have two choices, we can hit the ground at 100 miles per hour or we can have a discussion with ourselves and the community and the public and discuss what are we going to do and I think what you’re hearing and certainly what I’m feeling certainly is that the 100 mile an hour approach while perhaps legal may not be the best fit. Because people are gong to feel like they are getting run over. That will cause community pullback… instead of buy-in, which I think we need, that will have the opposite effect."

The board is determined to have discussions with both the city and to have an action-item placed on a future agenda to discuss this. From my perspective, there are problems with this policy.

First, it was put into place without the elective body of this community even having knowledge of what was going on.

Second, when the board expressed concerns about this both administrators insisted that they had the authority to do this administratively and the perception I go from this meeting, their attitude was that they could legally do this and they frankly did not care what the board said.

Third, and this will be examined much more closely, I really do not believe we know what is actually going on, at the school level with regards to this policy. Pam Mari backed way off the claim this was some kind of general sweep to suggest this was a 15-20 student operation. But what I hear from the students and others on the campus, that is not necessarily accurate.

Furthermore, it is not clear this is in fact directed by ed code. It is clear that the police and the DA's office were in on the planning of that, but that is not the full extent of juvenile services in this community, and it is not clear that they were involved in planning this and in fact, just the opposite, there are indications that they were not.

Finally, I am simply uncomfortable with this policy. Pam Mari claims that everything was done to exhaust the alternatives, but then she and Ginni Davis made the call as to what to do, rather than have community discussion on the issue or bring the board in. So we have a choice--we can take them at their word or we can ask questions. Mari claims this is non-punitive, but the students do not believe that is the case. This looks to me to be sheer intimidation.

As Tim Taylor suggested, that is not going to lead to buy-in and cooperation from the community, it is going to lead to pull-back. He made, I believe the most pertinent point, even if they have the legal authority to do this, the very fact that this is a change of direction--we have not done this before--should necessitate a discussion as to the right approach. That did not happen here.

Now we will need to learn what this policy entails and what impacts it is having.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

First School Board Debate Draws Sharp Contrasts on Valley Oak and Truancy Policies

The first school board candidates debate of the 2007 Election cycle took place at Davis High School. It was organized by the Davis High Democrats and Students for Freedom. The debate was moderated by a representative from each of the sponsoring clubs. There were about 25 students in attendance, a very good showing for just the second non-full week of classes. Not only was it heavily attended by students, but the questions, for the most part written down on placards were also submitted by students.

So you might think there would be odd-ball questions under this format, but judging from the questions that the moderators asked, the questions were fairly standard and in fact not completely different from those asked by someone like myself.

Frankly there were some issues that all of the candidates brought up on a continual basis. For example, all the candidates want to forge a consensus and work at collaboration. They want to bring all sides together and talk. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but given the fact that all sides want to do it, it does not seem to draw much distinction between the candidates.

The general consensus among several of the candidates was that these were all committed individuals running for the school board who wanted to improve and serve our schools. There seemed to be mutual respect within the group of candidates. Will this feeling of good will continue or will tensions rise at some point, hard to know.

All of the candidates also spoke to the issue of the achievement gap in general and non-specific terms, to the point where one of the follow up questions finally asked what specifically they would do about it. Even here, the answers did not diverge greatly. Joe Spector talked about this as an issue "about helping those who don’t have access to education not about skin or minority status." The key to him was early intervention, broadening access to programs for all students and a mentoring program.

Bob Schelen probably gave the most divergent answer using some of the studies to argue that the achievement gap is not about economics but rather it is about race. He said no one knows just why this is the case but his goal is to follow through on the achievement gap task force's recommendations particularly in looking to hire people of color and from diverse ethnicities. And if they find that people of color do not want to come to Davis and teach, then it is the board's responsibility to change that.

Susan Lovenburg argued that the achievement gap exists before students even start school, therefore early intervention is a key. She mentioned the need to continue community discussions now to empower teachers and administrators to work together collaboratively to find out what is working well and what isn't working well.

Finally, Richard Harris talked about the unconscious bias training and also the Japanese Lesson Study training. He liked the Japanese model because he felt it got teachers out of teaching in "silos" and into the community. The idea here is to bring in parents and having them watch the teachers teach. (Here's probably a better explanation of Japanese Lesson Study than I can provide).

The two strongest areas of disagreement occurred during discussions of the closing of Valley Oak and the relationship between the High School and Davis Police, particularly the new practice of truancy sweeps that is about to become the biggest issue in this entire community.

On Valley Oak, if that is your main issue, there is a clear choice. If you believe that Valley Oak needed to be closed Susan Lovenburg and Richard Harris believe as you do. If you were opposed to the closing, the Bob Schelen and Joe Spector are on your side.

Susan Lovenburg spoke about the process of the Best Uses of School Task Force and how she went from supporting the nine campus option to supporting the closure of Valley Oak. According to her it was not for financial reasons but rather because it was the “educationally best decision for those students at valley oak.” Leaving Valley Oak open would have created a school that was over 50 percent title one and she did not think this was the way to support the students remaining at Valley Oak.

For Richard Harris, it "really came down to money." He supports the decision based on declining enrollment. He said "it's done, that's the decision and we're moving forward."

Joe Spector on the other hand, “feels really lousy about it.” He said he had worked in and around Valley Oak for a number of years, felt it was extremely effective school. He used numbers on the chalk board to suggest that declining enrollment is a more tenuous assumption by demonstrating the increase in students in 06-07 compared to 05-06. He also strongly supports the charter and believes it is a way that the district can bring in students.

Bob Schelen pointedly called “closing of valley oak a mistake.” He said it is the only majority-minority school in our district. He said, this “sends the wrong message to close only school with majority-minority school in district.” He disagreed with Susan Lovenburg that having a majority title one school was a bad thing. He believes this is the only school in the core area and therefore with talk about infill development, this could actually be an area of growth. With the school closed he believes a Charter School is a great opportunity to keep Valley Oak open and he is looking at alternative types of programs to be housed there as a result.

The other major issue of concern for the students that brought about sharp differences is the newly emerging issue of the increased use of police presence to insure that kids are attending school. The students believed that they are being pulled over if it looks like they are out of class even if they have a legitimate reason to be out of class. There was much discussion about this last night at the school board meeting and this will be a major story that we will be covering heavily in the next several days.

In the meantime, the school board candidates spoke on the issue. Richard Harris admitted that he did not know a lot about it but said that the law is the law and he did not think that police were doing this as a punitive matter. He also suggested that he is in favor of a lot of responsiblity until you prove you cannot handle it.

Joe Spector has talked recently with the police chief and assistant police chief about it in trying to understand their perspective on this issue. He said that the School Resource Officer (who some of the students spoke very highly of) was here not for enforcement but for support and he would rather someone like the School Resource Officer than a uniformed officer play a large part in this.

According to Bob Schelen there needs to be good relationships between the school district and the police department. He thinks there are better uses of human resources officer than have truancy sweep. ADA is reason for truancy sweep as way to get money for ADA program. But a truancy sweep can harm relationship between student and police department and make it a combative relationship (something echoes by the student representative on the board last night). Truancy sweep breaks down trust and relations. Apprehensive about truancy sweeps and city police presence on campus.

Finally Susan Lovenburg said this is a new topic for our community. And pointed out this would be discussed at the board meeting last night. This part of planning for declining enrollment, dollar to support educational programs and close achievement gap. She pointed out that there was nearly $500,000 lost to missed classes at the high school alone last year. That said, what was demonstrated last night at the high school PTA meeting, only school administrators would have access to the new information provided in the truancy sweeps. Parent concerns expressed was that this was too punitive. Need to have that discussion about this policy if this is what we want to do. Said "there is a lot of rumor about this, let’s see what happens."

Two other questions that I will briefly mention here, there was a question about support for a confidential teen clinic on class. Bob Schelen was the only one really supportive of this. Both Joe Spector and Susan Lovenburg suggested this was outside of the mandate of schools. Richard Harris said he was in favor of information but not services on the campus and felt there were plenty of off-campus resources.

Then Richard Harris was pointedly asked whether he would run for higher office and how he would fund his green school plan which he again laid out in some detail. Mr. Harris told people that he is not planning to run for higher office and was forceful about it. He felt there were a number of ways to fund the green school plan which he ultimately thinks will save a large amount of money. Specifically he suggested capital facility money to purchase solar panels that will eventually save the district money.

Joe Spector said he had no plans to run for other officer. Bob Schelen said it would be disingenous to say, if the opportunity presented itself, that he wouldn't consider running for other offices. He did not plan to at this time. That said, you never know what is going to happen. He never knew he would run for school board either. Susan Lovenburg said six months ago she had no plans to run for school board. However, as she got involved in volunteer activities she developed a passion. Things change and she wanted people on the school board who reflected her values. She said she has no plans to do more than that, but also that she had not had plans to do this.

Overall a good debate and good questions from the students who were very attentive. As I suggest, the truancy issue is going to be a huge one coming in the next few days. In fairness, no one knew a lot about this issue even at the current school board level, however it is informative to see the initial reactions of the candidates involved.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting