Jefferson City Public School middle and high school principals spent Tuesday on a continuing education project - learning how to improve their relationships with their students and with law enforcement officials.
"We're expected to be perfect in an imperfect situation," Jefferson City police officer Collier Nichols told the 16 principals attending the class at the Simonsen 9th Grade Center.
Nichols has been a school resource officer and is now assigned as a field training officer.
He reminded the principals that officers and school officials are expected "to be completely perfect and not make a mistake in situations that are all but falling apart."
Tammy Ridgeway, the Jefferson City district's assistant superintendent for secondary education, said the workshop's information will eventually be passed on to teachers.
"I hope we pick up a few tools that we can use to de-escalate situations," she said, "before they get out of control - so we can work better with the police department and the juvenile office, to make sure we're referring the correct things to them."
How principals and teachers deal with students who are causing problems can make a lot of difference in that student's education career, Seth Bauman told the News Tribune.
Bauman, the Missouri Juvenile Justice Association's disproportionate minority contact coordinator, helped teach the day's program and lead some of its interactive and role-playing segments.
"I think over time, we've seen through zero-tolerance policies and the Safe Schools Act that there's ... times they can be implemented in ways that aren't fully beneficial to the outcomes of youth," Bauman explained. "We do need to keep schools safe and we do need to keep the community safe," without compromising the students so they eventually have a lifetime of troubles.
"One of the things I really want to understand is the role of the resource officer in my building, as well as my role and how we can work together," said Deanne Fisher, principal of the Jefferson City Academic Center, a program designed to help students who don't learn well in traditional school settings. "I think the more I know and understand juvenile justice law will help me understand why he has to do what he has to do on a daily basis."
David Bray, Thomas Jefferson Middle School's principal, said the training session should help principals and teachers "strengthen our resolve to address the needs of our families and to keep our students growing and moving toward high school."
All said today's students are different from the kinds of students their parents or grandparents were.
"It's harder to hide, now, for students," Bray said. "We open up relationships with students that were never opened up in the past."
Every new school year brings a different group of students into the classroom.
While that's always been true, Fisher said, there are now students acting a lot more grown up. "They may not be more mature, but they are forced into situations that make them have to respond like a grown-up would," she said.
Fisher and Ridgeway noted, years ago, most teachers and principals could command respect by demanding it - even by yelling at students, if necessary.
"Now, sometimes the response is, "Why are you yelling at me?'" Ridgeway said. "The youth culture has changed, and so we have to understand it so we can respond (and) be effective in showing them how to behave in school, sometimes."
Fisher said the training emphasized a need for adults to be better at reading body language and reacting to certain situations.
One of the big changes throughout schools and society, the educators said, is social media.
"We use interactions on social media to help understand students better and to understand their families," Bray said. "It probably can be more helpful than hurtful, if used correctly."
Ridgeway added, "Social media has made it where you can hide behind things, and you can say things that you wouldn't say face-to-face. ... As a district, we want to deal with each student as a person."
However, Nichols and Bauman offered a number of examples where the technology use could interfere with the schools' efforts to help students learn.
"Our job is to show best practice - that youth are more likely to have better outcomes if you follow these practices," Bauman said. "And it may be different from district to district."