KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
Last week’s Saugus Union School District (SUSD) board meeting had parents outraged at the lack of response to the administration’s absence of attention toward the problem.
Two mothers, Carissa Hyde and Elena Will, spoke on a specific situation in their kindergarten class at Mountainview Elementary School where their children were bullied.
“The administration has been aware of this problem since September. Many parents have complained time and time again to the principal and Dr. Hawkins and they assure us things are being done behind the scenes,” Hyde said. “I’ve seen my child’s love of school turn into fear because of the bullies in her class. I’ve seen the principal and vice principal handle the situation by temporarily removing the bullies and taking them into their offices to ‘discuss their behavior’. By removing a child from the class and giving them one on one time, said kid isn’t being punished and being rewarded.”
Will discussed a similar experience that she had witnessed in her child’s class.
“I have witnessed a child lie on the floor and tantrum. The other children were to walk around them as this occurred. I have witnessed one child yell out ‘school sucks’ and ‘I hate learning.’ All this is unacceptable, I am not blaming these students, I am advocating for their needs as well as the rest of their classmates,” Will said.
According to the rules of the meeting, the Board is not allowed to respond during public comment.
KHTS independently reached out to SUSD officials for comment, but had not received a response as of the publication of this article.
Rebecca Hindman spoke twice at Tuesday’s school board meeting. Her first comment was to inform board member Anna Griese on the past anonymous letter that was read on Jan. 31. This letter focused on violent behavior in school. Parents weren’t notified.
Hindman also mentioned that she had access to privileged information to a letter written by Superintendent Colleen Hawkins to Griese that discussed the policies that she broke.
At the same meeting, the SUSD board approved a $193,400 Las Vegas teacher training in July. It will pay for 100 teachers to do a 3-day conference. Board member Anna Griese questioned where the money was coming from? How often will this training happen? Is there an assortment of grades from each school attending?
The funds for the Professional Learning Communities at Work Institute conference attendance, expected to total $193,400, comes from Title II federal educational grant to support professional learning.
The conference, from July 17-19, allows “every single school site in our district to take a team of 5-8 staff members to come together and deepen their skill sets in the areas of team collaboration, analyzing data and student learning outcomes, planning quality first best instruction, creating common formative assessments, and creating/maintaining a positive school culture,” according to the attendance request.
“The timing of this training opportunity allows a greater number of teachers to attend without needing substitute guest teachers and does not cause teachers to be away from students during the instructional school year,” concluded the SUSD topic summary.
To watch the SUSD Governing Board meeting in its entirety, click here.
The next board meeting will be on Tuesday, April 11, 2023.
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I wish there was something that could be done about bad parenting as well…
I see nothing has changed snice my son had a knife pulled on him 27 years ago. It wasn’t until I made it perfectly clear, and loudly too, that my son will not be returning to this school and will not be sent to another school until the suspect was removed from the school it happened at. I went so far as to call LASD, made a police repot and then civilly sued the child’s parents and the school district = won in court.
I always like a happy ending 😃
The kids that are mistreating others by bullying or interfering with instruction should have their parents called and be sent home. Parents who have to leave work to pick up their child are incentivized to address their child’s problems. It sounds like the poorly behaved student is getting rewarded by leaving school, but at least the other kids get a break and see that something is being done about the problem.
If counseling resources are offered and refused, it’s negligence on the part of the parent.
They did away with this effective approach 2 decades ago when bully parents realized they could easily shout down school administrators who are non-confrontational by nature and on these matters. They certainly can be very confrontational on other issues they are passionate about. They also believe every child is entitled to be in that classroom no matter how disruptive unless they say something they deem offensive.