It’s estimated that a quarter of American students have been bullied for how they identify - like for their race, religion or gender.

Bills filed in both the Texas House and Senate are trying to prevent identity-based bullying through education. The bills would also create a formal process for school districts to follow when this kind of bullying happens.

“We hear extremely varying stories and accounts of how schools document these instances,” said Paige Duggins Clay, the chief legal analyst for the Intercultural Development Research Association, a nonprofit group advocating for the bills. “This is really critical, because what may start out as relatively low-level bullying, ultimately can, and in fact often does, escalate into serious civil rights concerns.”

That’s what happened in Lubbock-Cooper ISD, where Black students have reported being bullied for their race. The harassment has included racial slurs that have, at times, led to physical fights. Black students also faced cyberbullying.

Unsatisfied with how the school district handled the issue, parents filed a federal civil rights complaint with the Department of Education last year.

This situation, and others across the state, informed the filed bills that seek to standardize a school district’s response to reports of bullying.

The proposed framework would require district staff to report bullying to an appropriate administrator. Then, parents of both the student engaged in bullying and the one being bullied would be notified. Students and families would be offered resources as the district conducts an investigation. The proposal also states that the bullied victim should not face disciplinary action for engaging in self-defense.

The bills are supported by the Texas Senate Hispanic Caucus and the Texas Legislative Black Caucus.

“With incidents of bullying, harassment and hate crimes on the rise in Texas, it is time to provide our schools and educators with the necessary tools needed to keep our students and schools safe,” Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Fort Bend, said in a statement. ”Our schools need to be equipped with clear guidelines on how to address, document and investigate identity-based bullying reports.”

Allegations of in-school racist bullying have come from across the state. A recent report by the Charles Butt Foundation found that a majority of parents of color think students face a risk of discrimination based on their race or ethnicity.

Education has been a contentious topic in recent legislative sessions led by conservative efforts. In 2021, the focus was on how race-related subjects are taught in school. This year, Senate Bill 8 bars lessons, programs, or guidance on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Still, Duggins Clay said this is a student safety issue that should not be partisan.

“We think it's really critical that policymakers stand up and say that this is not acceptable,” she said. “Every kid deserves to feel safe and supported in school, regardless of who they are, what their ancestry is or what they look like.”

The post Bill in Texas Legislature aims to reduce bullying after Lubbock civil rights complaint appeared first on Cooper For All.

Many students started their first day of school across the three major districts in Lubbock and Lubbock-Cooper Independent School District welcomed the new year with changes they are expecting.

“Today has been a great first day of school. We welcomed almost 8000 students today and are excited to have them back,” said Keith Bryant, Superintendent for Lubbock-Cooper ISD, “We have worked really hard this summer to prepare for the school year, we have been a district that has put student safety at the forefront forever,”

Lubbock-Cooper ISD has been working all summer to stay up to date on safety procedures while also focusing on the mental health of students. All campuses have been patrolled by a police officer for the past 15 years hoping it serves as an extra level of security.

“We followed all the state requirements by checking all of our doors, all of our hardware, making sure our hardening was in good shape,” said Bryant, “We spent some time really working on how to how to meet the needs of kids who are struggling, who are dealing with things beyond the school day, you know, family situations, difficult environmental situations, to make sure that they feel safe and heard while they’re at school.”

Lubbock-Cooper ISD has also put a focus on staying ahead of the nationwide teacher shortage.

“The thing that we try to focus on here in our district is our family culture of family,

We want everyone that comes in these doors to feel like they’re part of a family. When you do that you feel the support, you feel the concern, you feel the ability to ask questions, to offer suggestions, and those sorts of things that make our employees happy to be here,” said Bryant.

The expansion to Lubbock-Cooper High School is expected to be completed in December.

The post Lubbock-Cooper ISD prepares for the new school year appeared first on Cooper For All.

As of now, school districts in Lubbock are moving forward with in-person classes beginning next month.

While it hasn’t been the case for most policies related to COVID-19, this is a local decision. Prompted by the increasing spread of the coronavirus across the state, the Texas Education Agency issued guidelines allowing school districts to teach remotely for the first four weeks of the 2020-21 school year.

After that, school districts can request an additional four weeks, meaning the first eight weeks of the school year could be online only. Classes at Lubbock ISD begin August 17, so they could be taught online until October.

The state’s more urban districts have already taken advantage of this option. According to the Dallas Morning News, school districts in the cities of Garland, Grand Prairie, Mesquite and Richardson, as well as in Tarrant, Harris and Travis Counties, will begin the year virtual-only.

Dallas’ school board voted to push back the school year three weeks, telling the Dallas Morning News the district needed additional time to hone its plans for offering virtual-only instruction.

On Thursday, LISD Superintendent Dr. Kathy Rollo told the school board they’re moving ahead with the normal schedule. Lubbock-Cooper and Frenship ISDs are also scheduled to begin classes in August. Frenship will begin classes August 17, just like LISD, and Lubbock-Cooper is scheduled to start classes on August 19.

Rollo said school districts in other parts of the state that have been asking for an extension haven’t had summer classes to prepare their new safety measures, which LISD has. She said LISD is ahead of the curve.

Rollo told the school board the summer program has given the district a chance to practice and refine their safety protocols, including the screening stations, hallway traffic and social distancing in classrooms.

“We feel really good about what we have in place,” Rollo said. “And we’re continuing to perfect those things and make them even better, as we know we’re going to have more students in the fall.”

A petition asking the school board to delay in-person classes has been gaining some momentum, and as of Saturday, it had received 340 signatures. It’s been signed by parents, teachers and concerned citizens.

Laura Deurmyer, whose son attends Lubbock High School, started the petition along with a group of other mothers. She said they’re concerned, and starting a petition was the only thing they felt they could do.

“With the statistics right now, with the rate of cases that we have, and the positivity percentage that we have, it just seems like a huge gamble to put hundreds of kids into a building with multiple adults for eight hours a day,” Deurmyer said. “If you have hundreds of people together in a building, and spread begins, we’ve seen what happens in nursing homes and prisons.”

Deurmyer said she understands school is best taught in person, said she understands that schools want kids back to make sure they’re fed and to make sure they’re learning. Deurmyer said it’s just a big risk when lives are at stake.

Deurmyer said schools have the ability to create such a broad outbreak because everyone leaves at the end of the day. She said most people in Lubbock come into contact with a student, or a parent of a student, or a teacher.

Deurmyer spoke highly to what the Lubbock school district did by providing meals for pick-up, internet hotspots and online instructions.

She said it seems like such a big risk to open up schools, especially when community spread cases reached an all time high in Lubbock this month.

Some people left comments on the petition. One signee said parents are agonizing over the decision to send their children back to school. The commenter said it’s a decision parents shouldn’t have to make.

Another warned that with Texas Tech students returning and school districts opening up classrooms next month, Lubbock is headed toward a more severe public health crisis.

Morgan Kirkpatrick teaches at Hutchinson Middle School, and she’s one of the 340 people who’s signed the petition to keep schools closed. She teaches English language and literature for seventh-graders.

Kirkpatrick said every teacher wants to be back in the classrooms with their students, but she said all signs point to the fact that it’s not safe yet.

“We want to be back in the classroom when it’s safe for teachers and for students,” Kirkpatrick said. “Our district is doing everything they can, but it’s still a danger. Classrooms weren’t built to be socially distanced.”

Kirkpatrick said cases are ballooning in Lubbock, and she wishes schools would wait until cases at least go down to a manageable level. But she understands the situation the district is in, so her biggest wish is that state lawmakers or the TEA would jump in and delay schools across the state until it’s safer.

Rollo told the school board on Thursday the district has the blessing of the mayor and health director, who could order the school districts to go remote, per the TEA’s guidelines.

“As of right now we still believe we’re ready to start school August 17,” Rollo said this week. “Right now, (the mayor and health director) are supporting the reopening of our schools with the safety protocols in place, following TEA’s guidance.”

During the past week, the Lubbock Health Department has been confirming about 100 new cases of COVID-19 a day. On Saturday there were 1,965 active cases of COVID-19 in Lubbock County. July appears to be trending in a better direction after there were some days in the beginning of the month where the health department was announcing close to 200 new cases a day.

Of the 5,014 total confirmed cases as of Friday, 161 were in children younger than 10 years old, and 533 were in people ages 10 to 19.

All the school districts in Texas are allowing students the option to take classes online or in-person for the fall semester.

As of Thursday morning, Rollo said about 4,100 guardians or students have filled out the school district’s survey asking whether or not they’ll take in-person classes. About 32% of respondents have said they’ll be taking classes online, which Rollo said is higher than the district anticipated. However, this is a small sample size.

Rollo said this is also a higher percentage that school districts are seeing in the more rural areas. She said it appears more students in urban districts are opting to take classes online.

Frenship ISD published a “Reopening Frenship Parent Guide” on Friday that featured 20 pages detailing changes to safety and health protocols, enhanced cleaning procedures, and operational and instructional adjustments.

“We really do understand that every family has a different situation,” said Dr. Michelle McCord, superintendent of Frenship ISD, before suggesting that parents or guardians read the reopening report so they can make a decision on what’s best for their child, whether it’s virtual or in-person.

LISD also outlines its safety procedures on their website. Registration at LISD for the 2020-21 school year is open. Rollo said on the final page there will be boxes for guardians to check if their child will be taking classes online or in person.

If a student opts to take classes online, LISD is allowing the student to participate in in-person UIL activities, extracurricular activities and elective courses that cannot be taught virtually.

Lubbock-Cooper isn’t allowing this option. Lubbock-Cooper’s school board voted so that a student taking in-person extracurricular activities needs to be in all in-person classes.

Lauren Smith, president of the Lubbock Educators Association, said teachers have differing opinions about returning to classrooms. Smith said it seems to boil down to whether or not they believe social distancing, sanitization and face coverings will work in a classroom with children.

Smith, who teaches second-graders, has been in a classroom for the past few weeks during the summer session. She’s been pleasantly surprised by how well the students have been following guidelines. However, she’s only teaching six children in the classroom right now, and it’ll be more than that in the fall semester.

″(The Lubbock Educators Association) stance is we want schools to do what they can, but we want it to be when it’s safe,” Smith said. “So we’re really encouraging looking at the data, looking at the number of cases, and then making the best decision you can. We want the district to make the best choice they can.”

When schools open back up, Smith said teachers will be more susceptible to the virus. She said teachers have serious concerns if they’re at high risk, or if one of their family members is high risk. LISD said virtual students will have assigned teachers, and if teachers request it, they can be a virtual teacher.

“I feel like Lubbock ISD, for what they’re having to do, which is super unprecedented and has never been done before, has done a really good job of thinking through procedures and processes and things like that,” Smith said. “I feel like we’re in a good place as a district, but as for how people feel about that, it’s hard because everybody feels differently based on their personal situation.

Rollo said schools and teachers are facing a challenge they’ve never faced before, and she’s grateful for everybody’s understanding. She said guidelines are constantly changing, and they’re warning teachers to be prepared for changes at any given time.

The district is working with the health department for testing and contact tracing, and they have plans for deep cleaning procedures. Teachers are preparing to go remote immediately when there’s a positive case.

Rollo said she believes LISD schools can be a safe place. She also believes there’s students that need to come back to school.

“Our kids have been out of school for five-plus months, and 3/4 of our students are students living in poverty,” Rollo said. “We’ve kept them fed and we had some remote learning, but a lot of those students don’t have the resources and support at home to help them with their academic learning. Having these kids back at school is crucial.”

The post Lubbock’s school districts still moving forward with in-person classes next month appeared first on Cooper For All.

School safety measures are starting to expand from physical security to improving the mental health of students. 

That is evidenced by Gov. Abbott signing House Bill 18 into law.

It will increase funding, training, and access to mental health programs in school districts across the state.

Lubbock-Cooper ISD Assistant Superintendent Macy Satterwhite said its approach to school safety is not just about hardening facilities, but it is also the softening part of it. 

"What we've found is that if we can put one caring adult in the pathway of a child, then they're more likely to be successful because they have someone who cares about them, who's checking up on them, and making sure that they're okay throughout their school year," Satterwhite said.

In fact, she said school security should always start within, as student well-being is the top priority. 

"Until you actually solve the mental health crisis that we have in this country, there's really no building or security that's going to be 100% foolproof," Satterwhite said.

This is why Satterwhite said the district's counseling programs are 24-7, especially with social media becoming more prevalent.

She said they must adapt to fight the evolving issue of cyberbullying.

"We are now sending out, through our social media outlets, digital citizenship tools for parents and how to set those controls on the students' devices, where parents can take an active role in what they're accessing," Satterwhite said.

The post Lubbock-Cooper ISD emphasizing mental health awareness as part of school safety appeared first on Cooper For All.

All three of Lubbock’s largest school districts said they are already working on many of the ideas espoused by Gov. Greg Abbott’s “School and Firearm Safety Action Plan” -- in particular his call for school counselors.

Some Texas school experts said in a Texas Tribune article that they are heartened by Abbott’s proposal, but think the governor should go further to improve mental health resources in schools. Texas is one of 20 states that does not require schools to have counselors, and has the fifth-highest student-to-counselor ratio in the country, according to the American School Counselor Association.

Kathy Rollo, superintendent of Lubbock Independent School District, said the district is doing a lot of things that Abbott’s plan suggested. Every Lubbock ISD school has a counselor, although some of the district’s smallest elementary schools share a counselor split between two schools. Each middle school has two counselors, and high schools have several.

“High school is where there is more of a challenge,” Rollo said.

When House Bill 5 was passed in 2013 in Texas, it restructured the state’s graduation requirements. At that time, she said, the district added new high school counselors to mitigate all of the additional college preparatory requirements, allowing the district to still have counselors available for social and emotional issues.

“Counseling is something that’s always been important at Lubbock ISD,” Rollo said. “That’s not a void in our district. I’ve been with the district 28 years, and we’ve always had counselors.”

Macy Satterwhite, deputy superintendent at Lubbock-Cooper ISD, said all Cooper schools have at least one full-time counselor, with the high school having more.

But she said she doesn’t think the public understands that school counselors have diverse duties, including mental health, scheduling, class rank and college preparations.

“Many times they’re pulled from their duties of counseling children to perform administrative tasks such as STAAR testing,” Satterwhite said.

If the governor can come through in the next Legislative session and provide funding for more counseling services, she said Lubbock-Cooper would love to provide it.

“If funding came through, we could do so much to help the social and emotional growth of kids,” Satterwhite said.

She called mental health a “critical area” for students” who come from varied backgrounds.

“Whenever kids are struggling with mental health issues, in my opinion, that takes a priority over anything else, because they can’t perform well in a classroom if they are in turmoil,” Satterwhite said.

One thing that LCISD is doing, Satterwhite said, is making sure to connect every student. Students who don’t have a relationship with at least one caring adult are identified and connected with a mentor. Satterwhite said she has personally connected with a student who needed a mentor.

“I think it lets them know that someone is watching, that they care, that they’re going to check in on you, check in on your grades,” she said.

She said she meets on campus with the student she is mentoring, sometimes bringing a breakfast burrito or a drink.

“We can always do more and more and more. I think it’s a good start, to start with the counselors,” Satterwhite said, noting that if they had more administrative help, perhaps they could free up more time to deal with students.

Frenship’s superintendent, Michelle McCord said like the other districts, Frenship has counselors in every school, with multiple counselors at the high school. She and Satterwhite both sang the praises of the Communities in Schools program, a partner with the Lubbock-area United Way that places representatives in schools to help with academic gaps and that can intervene to provide wrap-around services to help students and parents.

McCord said Communities in Schools can intervene in some ways that school officials cannot. They can take parents to a state office where they can apply for food stamps, or they can take kids to get glasses if needed.

“What Communities in Schools does, it’s not a replacement for a counselor, it’s just additional support, for students and parents,” McCord said.

However, McCord has a unique perspective on counseling. Long before she became Frenship’s superintendent, she worked as a school counselor and also in a private practice as a licensed professional counselor.

As someone who trained in both professions, she said academic counselors don’t have a lot of training on mental disorders. They are actually expressly prohibited from providing a diagnosis to a child unless they have the additional professional counseling license to do so.

School counselors can be good about connecting families and students with outside services, if there is an issue that seems to be outside of the school’s realm of expertise, McCord said. She said when a family needs food stamps, Medicaid, assistance from a food bank, family counseling or other services, the school connects them with someone who can help.

Mental health is important, McCord said. So is academic counseling. The primary role of counselors in schools is academic, she said.

“I don’t know if the answer is more counselors” or different training, she said. “Here’s what I do know: Counselors are busy all of the time. We need somebody to do the work they are doing.”

Since Frenship High School had a gun-threat scare in December that turned out to be a prank, the district has made several changes, including working with law enforcement agencies. She said the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office, Lubbock Police Department, Wolfforth Police Department and Frenship Police Department have all been helpful and reviewed the school’s plans and infrastructure.

“They have increased their presence on our campuses,” McCord said. She said that specifically, police have been coming to schools on their beats, building relationships with staff and students and becoming more familiar with the buildings.

She said she appreciates the governor’s plan, and noted that it is a start. Like other districts, Frenship officials have been reading Abbott’s plan and looking for new ways to improve safety.

“We just have a mindset of continuous improvement,” McCord said, noting that schools have to have a growth mindset at all times. “Safety and security is the same way. We do a lot of things very well, but we are not complacent.”

The post Lubbock area schools on board with counselors in Abbott’s safety plan appeared first on Cooper For All.