New Hanover County School Board talks student discipline, moves forward with book review
NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — The New Hanover County Board of Education is talking about student discipline and the future of a book some may consider controversial.
The board held a work session ahead of its regular meeting on Tuesday night with teachers and principals to discuss student behavior and discipline.
District staff shared a presentation on creating safe environments for learning. School administrators at the middle and high school levels also shared strategies they use to address student behavior while still ensuring the student can be successful.
Peter Rawitsch is an advocate with Love Our Children. Among other things, the organization supports reducing out-of-school suspensions for four, five, six, and seven-year-olds. While he says this discussion is a good start, he hopes to see more conversations targeting the youngest learners.
“If those students are never suspended, when they enter the middle school they’ll have a whole different skill set. They will have been in school longer, they will have been using strategies that help them with their self-management skills and hopefully we would see some benefits of that both behaviorally and academically by the time they reach high school,” Rawitsch said.
In regular session, the board held a lengthy discussion on whether or not to hold a hearing to review the book “Stamped” after an appeal was filed by a parent.
The board voted four to three to hold a hearing and then voted four to three again to allow the parent and district to make presentations during that hearing, as opposed to reviewing the appeal through documents only. Board members Stephanie Kraybill, Hugh McManus, and Stephanie Walker voted no in both votes.
“This is a slippery slope. I’ve said it before, I’ve said it tonight, it’s an un-American thing to do to start banning books,” Walker said. “We have to have respect for our AP teachers, that they know what they’re doing and that we want our students to be critical thinkers, and that there are a lot of opinions out there.”
“If you think about it, just a couple of months ago we had a big discussion about a book committee. We heard from a lot of folks — oh my goodness we can’t have that, they’re burning books, they’re banning books. We’re not talking about burning books or banning books, we’re talking about hearing a parent and a parent has a right to be heard,” Board Chair Pete Wildeboer said.
The board has not yet set a date for the hearing on the book.
