Illuminating concerns around discipline policies and strained lines of communication between parents, staff, students and board members at Bolinas-Stinson School, an eighth grader took matters into her own hands at last Tuesday’s board meeting and described her troubling experiences.
The testimony by Zetana Demmerle reflected concerns voiced by multiple teachers and parents since last fall that include the belief that student behavior is in a state of crisis and that the school’s approach to discipline is failing. Administrators have continually downplayed any problems and defended their approach. Meanwhile, the combination of board and state policies that prevent discussion about individual students and teachers or about public comments that do not relate to agenda items have frustrated parents who aren’t sure where else to turn.
Fourteen-year-old Ms. Demmerle is the daughter of board member Bob Demmerle and Bolinas-Stinson School counselor Maud Zimmer. She said she came to the board because staffers were not addressing her concerns.
“At this school I have experienced bullying starting at fifth grade until now,” she said. “Now it is much harder for me because my teachers and some staff ignore bullying and my social-emotional concerns, and do not settle issues properly. In fact, I feel they do not help the situation and can make things worse. One very popular response I have gotten from my homeroom teachers is ‘Solve your own problem.’”
A third of the way through her comment, the teacher of the combined fifth and sixth grade class, Rachel Dressler, interrupted to ask the board to stop Ms. Demmerle on behalf of the teachers’ union.
The basis for her request was the board’s policy that prevents discussion of specific school employees at public meetings. (The board adopted that standard within the last three years, though it is also state policy to only allow licensed administrators to evaluate teachers.) Ms. Demmerle had not named names, but mentioned the school principal, staff and teachers generally.
Nate Siedman, the board’s chair, asked her to finish.
Teachers at the school—which this year has 111 students, from preschool to eighth grade—have been on high alert about anyone other than administrators evaluating their performance in recent months.
A recent letter sent from the union representative to the board stated that comments from a board member at a public meeting in February that drew attention to problems in certain classes were inappropriate because that member had not visited the classrooms or spoken to the teachers directly.
“The board meeting is no place for issuing judgment calls that inevitably reflect on the teachers involved. They may leave an unfair (and inaccurate) impression in the minds of those who hear them,” the letter stated.
After Ms. Dressler’s interruption, Ms. Demmerle continued to read her comment, pausing once to ward off tears.
“I think that a lot of the problems at the school between student and teacher are teacher-driven,” she said. “If teachers are asking students to show up and give their full effort, then why can’t the students ask the same expectations of their teachers? From my teachers, I expect that they own up to their words and actions and follow the kind, respectful, responsible and safe signs that I see at school.”
She described teachers and staffers swearing, yelling at kids in front of classmates, nit-picking students with histories of behavioral problems and generally escalating conflicts.
“Some days I feel extremely unsafe and uncomfortable at school, but when I voice my concerns I have gotten in trouble,” she said. “Don’t you think that students should be able to speak their minds? Shouldn’t what students feel, think and say matter?”
When Ms. Demmerle, the youngest person in the room last Tuesday evening by at least a decade save for one fellow student, finished speaking, she was greeted by silence.
As Mr. Siedman closed the public comment period and pressed on with the next agenda item, board member Jenny Pfeiffer implored, “That was a very heartfelt comment and we need to give it the importance it deserves.”
Mr. Siedman explained that it was against the Brown Act to address public comments on items not on the agenda.
Mr. Demmerle, who ran for his seat on a campaign that promoted a social-emotional learning curriculum, suggested the board discuss his daughter’s comment during their scheduled discussion of that curriculum later on in the meeting. But when that item came around, it was clear that addressing her comments fell outside its scope, too.
Ms. Pfeiffer started the conversation. “I want to complement our district on producing such well-spoken students that can come speak before our board so articulately and well. It shows quite a bit about the skills and tools we give them,” she said. “But clearly there’s a bit of breakdown of what happens to that, and where that is received. Where is a good venue for us to close the circle of information? We need to hear students, our staff and our parents and families and find a way for that three-legged stool to be together and not sprawling out in different directions.”
But other board members pushed back on her. Georgia Woods suggested that she personally volunteer in the classroom, and Mr. Seidman said it was not a good time to talk about a public comment.
Ms. Pfeiffer became somewhat heated. “I want to support a student who takes the time to come to us and really spill her feelings on such an emotional level and I want that to go somewhere,” she said. “Here are some things specifically that a student said is going on—where are they listed?”
She turned toward Principal Jason Richardson and asked rhetorically, “Did you write them down?”
Mr. Richardson, who is completing his fourth school year as principal, announced this Tuesday to the school community that he has accepted an offer to serve as principal at an elementary school in San Rafael beginning in August.
Mr. Richardson did not directly address Ms. Demmerle’s comments during the board meeting last week. Neither did Superintendent John Carroll, though he did offer his opinions on state and board policies.
“I think we are bumping up against the frustration of a school board, and that we need to revisit and accept the idea that as a governance team we can’t solve all the problems at the school,” he said. “The idea that we also cannot address a public comment is very frustrating. An agenda cannot form organically based on public comment, and that’s hard to live with, but that’s what a board has to do.”
Mr. Demmerle persisted. “I hear that and I understand the rules,” he said. “I think what’s frustrating is that a lot of what Zetana talked about is what a lot of kids feel in the upper grades.”
He referenced a meeting held earlier this year at which teachers had read “state of the union” journal entries written by seventh and eighth graders, which described a range of disconcerted feelings.
According to Mr. Demmerle, at that meeting, staffers also cited behavioral issues in the upper grades that had led to uncertainty over whether the students would be allowed go on their end-of-year field trips. (The trips are on.)
Mr. Demmerle was interrupted by Mr. Richardson, however. “I think this is inappropriate—it is not part of agenda!” Mr. Richardson said.
When Mr. Siedman asked Mr. Demmerle why he was describing that meeting again (he had done so at the previous board meeting), Ms. Pfeiffer answered, “Because we haven’t addressed it.”
Ms. Pfeiffer once taught at the school and now has grandchildren there. She described a former openness around issues in the school that had given way to more strained relationships with families. “This is not the community school that it used to be,” she said.
Teachers, unable to find affordable housing, no longer live in the community, she said, taking a toll on the relationships between families, staff and board members. As an example, Ms. Pfeiffer said board members were not invited to the Christmas party last year, for the first time since the ‘80s.
“The way it used to be is that we would talk about these things and communicate. I can understand why the kids are upset,” she said.
Looking ahead, the board rallied around the idea that administrators could track progress made on social-emotional learning curriculum. Ms. Woods said staff could evaluate the program’s success, and Mr. Demmerle suggested hiring a part-time employee to do that work and to spend time with teachers and staff.
Mr. Carroll and Mr. Richardson agreed that tracking the program was a good idea. They also emphasized the importance of a new annual school climate survey for parents, staff and students.
Their assurances fell flat for some members of the audience, however.
Kristen Noel, a parent of a former student and a current kindergarten instructional assistant in the district, said her son “did not feel heard, and he had to leave this school because he felt so uncomfortable.”
To Ms. Demmerle, she said, “You were brave and I felt that you were speaking for my son.” To the board, she added: “I wanted to come to the board, but there was no space to voice my concerns—where is that space? This community has definitely changed: there is division, separation, dwindling enrollment… and if my only choice was to respond to an annual survey, I would not feel heard.”
Another eighth-grade parent, Cristina di Grazia, who was present at the meeting, said afterwards that both she and her daughter resonated with Ms. Demmerle’s experiences. She said there was a great need for a better platform for students and parents alike to voice their concerns.
“The board is trying to keep things in control and abide to protocol. You can have formality yet find ways to work within that formality, perhaps where things don’t have to be so black and white,” she said. “It’s their job as administrators to address that in order to support the entire school community. If not, you may find an uprising out of pure frustration.”