Board of Education members hear out issues concerning schools

Much of the conversation revolved around communication between staff and parents, school safety and student drug use.

Several parents of West Brunswick High School (WBHS) students spoke out about their troubles with communication among school staff and parents.

“The survey that the county sent out about communication, I found that to be pretty much useless because you can’t answer survey questions about communication that doesn’t happen… But that option wasn’t in there to say, ‘I don’t have any communication…’,” one WBHS mother said.

The mother explained that the questions seemed to assume that there was already open communication between teachers, staff and parents when she felt like there wasn’t any.

“I started [the survey] then I was like there’s not even a way to really properly answer the question because there is no communication,” she said.

She noted that the only time she received notifications from WBHS are in times of emergency situations or if there is an issue with her child.

Multiple parents said that WBHS teachers only reached out to them when a bad situation or bad behavior occurred and disciplinary action were being discussed, instead of reaching out to them for a sit-down meeting to talk about why the situation happened or how the student was doing in general.

Robinson said that he and Barger have addressed the importance of parent-teacher meetings recently. Robinson said he has gone as far to meet with WBHS Principal Jonathan Paschal and Superintendent Dr. Jerry Oates.

“Steve and I both have an expectation that these staff meet with parents when they ask to be met with, period,” Robinson said.

Another concern of attendees was parent involvement, or the lack thereof, in high schools.

Shallotte residents and WBHS student parents Sara and Kyle Sellers shared concern over the number of fights and amount drug use happening in the school and school bathrooms.

Sara said that she doesn’t hear about the fights from the school administration like she would like to, but instead sees it plastered on social media.

She suggested that the schools allow adult volunteers inside the facility to keep an adult presence in the hallways and other areas. She said she would be more than happy to volunteer to do that.

One parent felt the high volume of fights and issues within the high schools could be because of overcrowded schools.

A few attendees told Robinson and Barger that school staff need to be more consistent, aware and disciplinary in enforcing rules to keep children safe and in line behaviorally.

One Civietown local and father said he feels as though teachers are scared to upset parents if they are strict with children.

Several parents agreed with him, and said that they will stand behind the teacher and will support them if their children were to misbehave.

“These kids have got to feel safe when they go to school,” the father added.

Barger and Robinson said that the board is working on strengthening policies and rules to make them consistent among all of the schools and on all buses. Robinson noted that the changes are to keep both students and staff safe.

“I’m going to be involved and I want to be involved,” Robinson said. “I know there’s some things I can’t fix, I can’t necessarily do anything about, but we’re going to do our best to try and address things as we can.”

Students using drugs in and out of schools was a big topic of discussion during the meeting.

Two local residents in attendance were there to inform parents about student mental health, the drug epidemic inside of schools and the importance of drug education.

They said they want to make addiction and drug education accessible to students at an early age. They also stressed the reality and need for students to know how to help in overdose or crisis situations if one were to occur at school.

Barger and Robinson said that Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) is not mandatory for teachers right now, however, they have recently put emergency and medical training as a top priority.

“Everything that we do, it needs to have ‘put the kids first,’ ” Barger said. “… Any decision we make we have to make putting the kids first. And that’s not cutting the parents out of the equation but part of putting the kids first is involving the parents…”

Robinson noted that they have also been actively working to improve staff preparedness and resources for the Exceptional Children Program (ECP).

One parent, who has a child in the ECP, shared her experience with staff.

She said that she feels ECP teachers do not have enough staff support in the classrooms to properly support every child’s needs. She said understands that it is an overarching problem for many schools, but that ECP teachers need help.

“… Even two teachers with 14 kids with anger aggression, you know, it’s a lot,” the parent noted.

“I totally hear you and I want more staff in the school to be able to appropriately interact with your [child] and everybody else’s children,” Barger replied.

Parents noted that it is a necessity for students in ECP to not only have the proper teacher support, but to have other resources like occupational therapy and speech therapy active and available in the schools.

Barger explained in regards to staffing, the school system is looking at the current job vacancies and at how many positions need to be made in order to meet student needs.

Robinson and Barger told attendees that they want to have these intimate and personal conversations with parents and guardians because they are not supposed to respond to the public during public comments at the monthly board meetings.

The two board members told attendees that they are more than willing to meet with parents and guardians one-on-one because they want to listen and figure out how to make the school system better.

“If you have an [problem] with your child that you want to talk to David about or me about, I’ll meet you at a coffee shop and we can talk one-on-one,” Barger said.

Although all board members were informed of the meeting, only two were able to meet with the group. Three or more board members would turn the conversation-style meeting into a formal board meeting, Robinson explained to attendees.

“It’s safe to say [that] we like to be in touch with the people… So, we’re not going to have solutions, we’re only two members of the board. It takes a full board — it takes at least a majority to make a decision,” Robinson said. “But we’re just trying to learn what’s on folks mind and see what we can do.”

In the posted Facebook event, Robinson said: “Meetings will be conducted throughout the County over the next several months with the goal of improving communications among stakeholders and learning more about the concerns of the parents and guardians in Brunswick County.”

Robinson said that he plans to have meetings in different areas of Brunswick County including Leland, Boiling Spring Lakes and Calabash.

No set date has been released as to when future meetings will take place or where it will gather.

For more information or to contact Barger, email him at sbarger@bcswan.net. For more information or to contact Robinson, email him at darobinson@bcswan.net.

Savanna Tenenoff is the staff writer at the Brunswick Beacon. Feel free to reach out with comments, questions and tips at stenenoff@brunswickbeacon.com.