Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Administrator’s Corner by Chris Dibble

Every so often, a student in a school makes a poor decision. Poor decisions are part of the learning process as students test boundaries and experiment with risk-taking that makes them grow. Sometimes these decisions are small like avoiding a class or meeting a friend in a hallway while on a pass. Other times, the decisions involve a little more risk such as using a vape pen or leaving the campus to hang out.

With each of these decisions that violate a school policy or procedure comes some sort of accountability from school and possibly home. The methods of disciplinary action range anywhere from a conversation with a dean or principal to possible exclusion and expulsion from the school or district. Suspensions and expulsions are always a last resort and reserved for extremely poor decisions.

One source of frustration we often hear from students, families and the community is the fact that they see nothing being done when poor decisions such as harassment, bullying, fighting and drug use occur. In fact, it will often appear that nothing is being done about these situations to people that were even directly involved in the event.

The reason for this apparent lack of a reaction is tied to federal data confidentiality laws.

FERPA, which is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, dictates what information can be shared by a school with the public. Many different points of data are covered under this federal law. Some examples include academic records, enrollment records, health and counseling records, special education records, standardized test scores and disciplinary records. Because disciplinary records are included in this law, the school cannot disclose to anyone outside of the student’s family what they did wrong or what disciplinary actions were taken.

As a parent myself, I understand completely the desire to know something is being done when violations occur. Unless you have been in a situation where your student was assigned a consequence, you may not be aware of everything that happens because of the behavior or decision. If it were up to me, no one would ever have to need to know what happens as that would mean everyone is following all rules all the time. That is, of course, not realistic.

If any family member or community member ever has a question about a situation, I am always available to meet and discuss how we handle poor student decisions within the school. We do not try to hide what is happening or sweep problems under the rug. We do keep confidential information from being released publicly and protect the identity of those students making the decisions. We follow strict protocols and follow policy and statute at all times when working with students and families.

One shining statistic that needs to be highlighted as I discuss how we handle students who make a poor decision or two, is the fact that a much higher number of students make excellent decisions every day. Did you know that 90% of ALHS students are in class over 90% of the time and 91% of students have never been sent to the office?

These numbers give us reasons to celebrate and remind us all that it is a great day to be a Tiger!

Chris Dibble is principal of Albert Lea High School.