VIERA, Fla. - With students and staff out of school until the new year, leaders at Brevard Public Schools are hoping they take some time to review the discipline policies on the books as the school board looks to implement new policies.

Following Tuesday’s special school board meeting, the seventh board meeting this month, representatives from the district and supporting unions held a press conference to talk about the changes to the discipline policy students, staff and teachers can expect in the new year.

“We had 31 other school districts along with three that were actually here with their school board members at the last meeting on Dec. 8 to talk about this,” said Board Chair Matt Susin said. “Part of the situation that you have is that discipline coming off the heels of the worst pandemic in the history of the United States is actually part of the problem.”

“The other part is that we have a lot of new teachers that need a lot of training and stuff like that. And they’re getting pushed into a situation that they need some help.”

One of the first points highlighted by Susin was allowing principals the ability to suspend up to five days.

“That’s been cleared by the deputy superintendents,” Susin said on Tuesday. “There’s also the opportunity to have more site-based management for the discipline.” 

Susin also said there would be more stringent enforcement of the cell phone policy. According to the 2022-2023 Code of Student Conduct, which was approved by the board on Sept. 8, 2022, unapproved use of a cell phone falls under the “Electronic/Telecommunications Device Misuse” category.

Susin said that principals will have more say so over how cell phones are removed from students when the situation arises. He stated that a number of teachers expressed “a lot of concern” regarding how that would literally happen.

“If your student is in there using a cell phone inappropriately and disrupting a class, where other individuals are trying to be educated, we’re going to remove that from you. And that policy is going to be with each one of the schools,” Susin said.

He noted that the policy was one that began under former Superintendent Dr. Desmond Blackburn who resigned from the district in 2018. 

New discipline policies, new discipline committee

Susin also pointed to their intention to create a discipline committee that will come together in January as they discuss implementing a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to violence against teachers and staff.

Anthony Colucci, the head of the Brevard Federation of Teachers, said this topic is part of a “hard conversation” that he said is needed not only in Brevard County, but in many places across the country.

“I encourage districts everywhere to start having this conversation because what this is all about is keeping our students, our teachers and staff safe,” the union president said. “And when we know those things are in place, we know that our students will do better. We will have better outcomes in our community and our country when we have good working conditions and learning conditions for our students.” 

The stricter policy took the spotlight during an announcement video led by Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey set in front of the county jail. That led to a lengthy discussion with many choice words during a Dec. 8 school board meeting.

With the stated desire of the school board to move towards a zero-tolerance policy on violence, Paul Gibbs, the general counsel for the district, and Dr. Beth Thedy, the district’s deputy superintendent and chief human resources officer, send the board a memo on Dec. 15 to talk about what they thought should come next.

They said in reviewing policies related to removal, student discipline, student conduct and wireless communication devices, “much of the direction of the Board would require revising the Board’s current policies.”

The memo went on to advise against a quick change of direction since that could cause some students to file complaints with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

“Should a student make a complaint to OCR regarding any practice and changing mid-year from discretionary practices where discipline could be more progressive (warning, followed by warning with parents present, followed by final warning, followed by minor consequence, etc.) to no warning, but expulsion or 10-day suspension is imposed could elicit a complaint regarding discrimination,” the memo stated.

Gibbs and Thedy also noted that any move towards “zero-tolerance” needs to “consider state and federal laws regarding ESE [Exceptional Student Education] students and disciplinary actions.

“As such, it would be our recommendation that the Board reiterate these policies to staff and the community and begin workshopping these policies to provide direction in how the changes should be implemented before moving to a different system of enforcement,” the memo stated.

Those suggestions seemed to be manifested in the discipline committees that Susin and others announced on Tuesday. He said the district wants to make sure student voices are at the table.

“So, what we’re going to do is meet tight as a group, right, just select under 10 people that are going to set the tone and then come up with what exactly the next step is,” he said. “We’ve also sent the auditors, RSM, to have conversations and audit our disciplinary policies to bring us back best practices. And the Office of Safe Schools is doing the same thing currently.”

RSM is an international audit, tax and consulting firm with nine offices around Florida, including one in Melbourne. The Office of Safe Schools was established as part of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act (SB 7026).

That smaller group is set to meet in January to set that direction with a larger meeting happening in mid- to late-February, according to Susin. The larger meeting will be chaired by the newly signed interim superintendent, Dr. Robert Schiller.

“One of the things that I’ve been involved with all over the nation, in multiple states and multiple districts, is helping to assure the fidelity of implementation of a board’s policies, or writing the policies, bringing them to my boards, and also state policies with regard to discipline and best behavior in multiple states,” Schiller said.

A date for the first meeting of the discipline committee has not been announced.