The Portage Township Schools’ metrics for No Place for Hate will get a new baseline next year as the district undergoes a major realignment.
“Almost everything is changing,” Director of Grants and Assessments Linda Williams told the School Board on Monday.
Portage’s new approach to discipline includes positive feedback as well as negative consequences for bad behavior. The No Place for Hate initiative, which discourages bullying, celebrates diversity and teaches students how to treat others well.
Beginning in the fall, the district will group grades differently. Aylesworth Elementary School is in its final weeks, scheduled to be razed this summer to make way for construction of a new Aylesworth Middle School, replacing the existing Willowcreek Middle School.
The remaining elementary schools will serve grades K through 4, with the current Fegely Middle School becoming Fegely Intermediate School and serving fifth and sixth graders. All seventh and eighth graders will attend Willowcreek, shifting to the new Aylesworth Middle School when it’s complete. Willowcreek will then be demolished.
“We want to support our students and staff through all of those changes,” Williams said.
In her presentation on the No Place for Hate initiative, she showed results of a student survey.
For students in grades 3 through 5, the school climate improved, ranking around the 70th percentile nationally. Some other measures showed small declines. Grades 6 through 12 showed more upticks.
Williams highlighted the 5% increase in student-teacher relationships. As that continues to increase, it will continue to impact the sense of belonging and achievement in secondary schools, she said.
The No Place for Hate initiative celebrates critical values, which schools teach in a variety of ways, Assistant Director of Grants and Assessments Sarah Pier said.
“We know that culture shifts do not happen overnight,” she said, but it’s happening.
Even though the initiative is just in its third year, Williams and Pier are looking for five-year trends.
Portage Township Schools stand out for making this initiative apply to all grades, not just secondary schools, Superintendent Amanda Alaniz said.
Third graders have had a couple of years of this initiative already. By the time they reach high school, it should be fully ingrained in them, board President Andy Maletta said.
Alaniz said the district now stresses positive reinforcement, not just negative feedback.
“You can look at discipline through a lot of lenses,” but the amount of positive referrals is overwhelming. Alaniz was getting copies via email to track them. There were so many that she had to have them turn these off. “It was flooding my emails. I could not get to my emails because there are so many at all levels throughout the district.”
Alaniz said she wants to see slow and steady progress, which is better than “huge insane growth,” because it shows who the students and employees are and how they treat each other.
When dips in the data happen, it’s important to see what was happening at that time during the school year, she said.
As a districtwide initiative, staff take the No Place for Hate pledge along with students. “When our staff feels that sense of belonging, just naturally the kids are going to feel it, that sense of belonging,” Alaniz said.
Beyond the school district, various businesses and organizations are now joining in the initiative, reinforcing the message to students.
In other business, the board agreed to purchase school buses and Chromebooks.
The district is buying three 72-passenger buses and one 54-passenger bus for a total of $692,242.
The 950 Chromebooks from Secured Tech Solutions will cost $574.90 each, for a total of $546,150. That includes putting them in cases and recycling. “Packaging and recycling, as you could imagine, would be a significant undertaking for our very small department,” Alaniz said.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
