school board meeting

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By FOSS FARRAR
Staff Writer

School district officials and administrators of Arkansas City High
School addressed the issues of fighting and rumors of violence Monday
night at a meeting of the Arkansas City Board of Education held at the
high school.
The issue of school safety was not originally on the agenda, but was
taken up after several fighting incidents and the spreading of a rumor
of a shooting have occurred in recent weeks.
"I expected that when we had the floor (for Monday's meeting) we would
be celebrating and talking about our (Breakthrough Schools) award,"
said ACHS Principal Marci Shearon.
She told the board that although school safety is a priority and a
small number of students had recently been involved in fighting
incidents, the student body had achieved great things in art, music
and academics.
"The kids bring you joy every day," Shearon said.
Arkansas City Public Schools Superintendent Ron Ballard told the board
and about 25 people attending the meeting that the school was planning
to put more staff members around the school and its parking lot before
and after school to prevent further incidents.
Ballard said video surveillance equipment that had been planned for
the school in a recently adopted $35.8 million bond issue would go to
the top of the list of projects to be completed.
One of the parents attending the meeting was Arkansas City Police
Chief Sean Wallace.
"If I were to give a status of how the school is, I'd say it's
completely safe," Wallace said today.
Those who attended the meeting included high school teachers and
parents of students involved in several fighting and bullying
incidents that have occurred recently and in years past.
Parents were given an opportunity to address the board, but nobody did
so.
Wallace said he attended the meeting to show support to the school
administration.
The chief said he has put four sons through ACHS and none have been
involved in a physical fight. "I think (reports of violent incidents)
have been blown out of proportion."
School officials told the board that they acted appropriately — and a
board member and police officials agreed — to ensure no violent
incident would occur after a rumor spread by text messaging among
students that a shooting would occur on a recent Friday.
But the rumor kept about 50 percent of the student body from attending
classes that day, according to the high school principal, Marci Shearon.
"Technology has bypassed the capacity of schools to respond with
fact," said Arkansas City Public Schools Superintendent Ron Ballard.
Wallace noted today that any communication such as texting done with
the intent to terrorize or evacuate a building is a felony.
"We need to take serious the text messaging," Wallace said.
Asked by a board member what she might have done differently after
rumors of the shooting spread on a recent Thursday, Shearon said she
would take a look at how the school communicates with parents.
"The cell-phone usage and the rate with which the rumor spread
surprised me," she said. "How fast or how horribly the rumor mill
spread would be something we should re-evaluate. Communication is
something that has to be essential."
Shearon said dealing with rumors was a discussion point among the 16
members of the high school site council. They include parents and
members of the community as well as teachers.
"At the site council Thursday we talked about rumors," she said. "We
knew about (the shooting rumor) but didn't know about it until 9:30
that night."
Another parent at the meeting, Kechia Reese — whose husband Daren is a
school board member — said her kids knew about the rumor much earlier
that day, at about 3:30 p.m.
Ballard addressed the communication issue:
"Why did the school district not put out a message to parents that
these were false rumors?" Ballard asked rhetorically. "Because we did
not know they were false at that point."
The Monday after the rumors spread, students were back in school, but
another fight occurred after school. It resulted in school board
member Daren Reese taking his children out of school.
Despite the recent fighting, police and school officials say that
overall fighting incidents have decreased over the past few years.
Wallace said over the past four years, fighting at the high school has
decreased more than 50 percent.
Assistant Principal Will Pfannenstiel presented discipline statistics:
Sixty-two students so far this year have received out-of-school
suspensions compared to 89 a year ago. Physical fights have involved
19 students, an increase of two compared to last spring. There were 18
such incidents last fall.
"The biggest issue is inappropriate items because of cell phones,"
Pfannenstiel said. "We have had 127 cell-phone infractions so far.
Those numbers are the fastest-growing category of discipline."