St. Paul schools looking to ease concerns about discipline, disorder

[kickysnana]

http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/265064091.html

...At Murray Middle School, Bill Mills, a parent, said he believed the school’s new leaders were given a tough, multifaceted assignment without adequate planning at the district level, leaving a “mess” that administrators and teachers had to figure out. For his son, a sixth-grader at the time, the lesson became: “How do you get by in a less-than-perfect environment?” Mills said.

Principal Stacy Theien-Collins said that 2013-14 was a year of “monumental change” for students and the difficulties were shared by all district middle schools. The key in the year ahead, she said, is to adjust and improve.

Last Thursday, a school discipline committee that included Mills put in motion plans to enlist mentors to help 25 eighth-graders with their academic, social and behavioral needs, and to add a special-education staff member to each of the school’s academic teams to “consult around the needs of learners with disabilities,” Theien-Collins said.

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5 new support staff with a coordinator. Before school planning. My grandson starts here next year. Fingers crossed. His Dad went here too.