Jefferson City Public Schools and local juvenile justice leaders met Wednesday for the last of three scheduled inclusion and equity training sessions, but JCPS Superintendent Larry Linthacum anticipated it wouldn't be the last such conversation on how the district can improve its culture and be welcoming to all students.
JCPS and other community agencies that have been part of the training - including the Cole County Juvenile Court - met with Juanita Simmons in March, June and then Wednesday to have conversations about cultural-sensitivity and inclusion, and to work more specifically toward enabling the district and the local juvenile court to examine how policies and practices may lead to African-American students' disproportionate rates of school discipline and referral to juvenile court.
Simmons is the vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville and a former public school teacher and administrator.
She said she's been hearing good things about JCPS, and commended the district's efforts to examine its own issues.
"My thing is design your own," she said of solutions.
The reading assignment for attendees coming into Wednesday was about restorative justice in schools - discipline approaches that focus more on building relationships with students and community in classrooms, and then have students who damage those relationships do the necessary repairs and understand why they should, instead of strictly punitive discipline approaches.
"We look at policies like we look at buildings" - unchangeable, Simmons said of educators' mental tendencies.
Just as buildings can be built, renovated or added on to, though, she added "I believe you can design a system where everybody can benefit."
Much of the three-hour session Wednesday afternoon at the school district's Dix Road Education Center was discussion among JCPS principals, central office staff and school board members, and juvenile court officers about what the ideal for how teachers and staff handle student behaviors such as disrespect would actually look like, and what investments in time, strategy and developing professional and mental attitudes it might take to get there.
The consensus among groups of staff seated at tables seemed to be that for educators to have constructive, one-on-one relationships with all students that benefit everyone in the classroom, it takes a lot of patience, cool heads and collaboration with families and the community.
"We have students today that don't know better, but we have staff that say, 'These kids should know better.' You're right, they should, but guess what, they don't," Linthacum said.
He added that two relationship-building expectations of staff are that students are greeted every day and communication plans with all families are in place.
Linthacum said after the session that the goal of the training was to spur conversations - about leading students versus just managing them; about implicit biases staff may have; and about how to shift paradigms.
Staff who gave feedback at the end of the session Wednesday on what they liked and what could be improved about the training said they appreciated having the opportunity and safe environment to have discussions, but would have liked to have had more community agencies involved, such as the Jefferson City Police Department, Callaway County Sheriff's Office and the Boys & Girls Club of Jefferson City.
Linthacum said he anticipated that the district's equity council - what will essentially be the resurrected form of the district's previous multi-cultural advisory committee - will lead follow-up conversations of some kind.
Bringing back such a committee or council was one of the three main diversity goals the district announced last school year - along with hosting the inclusion and equity training and diversifying its work force to better match the student body.
Linthacum anticipated giving an update on the equity council at next week's school board meeting.