Susan Tave Zelman

Office for Exceptional Children Superintendent of Public Instruction

QUESTIONS FOR PANELISTS

MARY LOU RUSH: Supportive Learning Environments

QUESTION	ANSWER
1. What happens to the students who are in a persistently dangerous school or a victim of a violent crime and there is not another school of the same grade in the district to transfer to?	The policy clearly states that a student may transfer if there is another school in the district with the same grade level. However, if the district has a relationship with another district, students may transfer to the other district.
2. Briefly describe efforts to link Mental Health Services with special education students, especially ED students.	ODMH and ODE will enhance the state's ability to build collaboration across mental health, education and family serving organizations in developing a shared agenda for children's mental health. The goals are to *Understand the interests of each stakeholder group * Articulate gaps & disconnects across systems *Identify redundancies *Describe opportunities and resources *Build a commitment to address barriers *Initiate cross-stakeholder involvement in action initiatives that are responsive to identified issues.
3.a. Is there a process by which mediation and problem solving can occur within a persistently violent school to reduce the number of students who will enroll in another school? 3.b. It seems there is nothing in place to solve the problem at hand…	Yes. In fact, there is evidence that if all staff in a school are trained in conflict management and dispute resolution techniques (of which mediation is a technique) and those techniques are implemented school-wide, the rate of negative student behavior and resultant discipline incidents are dramatically decreased. This translates into fewer suspensions and expulsions and more time on task and increased learning time. There are other evidenced-based programs that obtain similar results. For a complete list of evidenced-based programs with descriptions and ratings on a variety of factors, see www.casel.com. It appears that common elements among programs are 1) staff training, including non-instructional staff such as cafeteria and bus personnel, and 2) school-wide implementation. I believe this answers 3.b. as well.
4. Why wasn’t a high drug area school included as a “Dangerous School Environment?”	A persistently dangerous school is defined as a school that has reached a certain threshold of incidents of “violent criminal offenses” (VCO”s) occurring on school grounds in each of two consecutive years based on the size of a school building. (See the complete policy at www.ode.state.oh.us/esea). This is a designation with great consequences. To be sure ODE was properly implementing the policy, we had to be able to define and count the number of incidents of violent criminal offenses. The definition is found in the Ohio Revised Code and the determination of whether or not an incident is or is not a VCO is made by a juvenile judge. ODE counts the number of VCO’s that occurred on school grounds for which students have been adjudicated or convicted. Districts should have policies in place that describe consequences for students (and staff) when there are drugs, alcohol, and tobacco brought onto or used on school grounds.
5. Where are students to go when Safe School Districts only have one building per level or one building per district?	Same answer as 1.