Not ready to learn: Student discipline breaks down in Winnisquam schools

NORTHFIELD — Southwick Elementary School has hired a behavior specialist to operate a student support center as part of its efforts to address what Superintendent Shannon Bartlett called “extreme” disciplinary problems among the district’s youngest pupils.

Bartlett said the school staff has been “working really hard” to get students to re-engage in learning. Responding to concerns expressed during the Winnisquam Regional School Board’s public comment period in December, she said, “We have students with really unique needs and we are working to get staff the training that they need, and paraprofessionals the training they need, and come up with specific behavior plans that help address some of these behaviors, but they’re unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”

The extreme behavior occurring throughout the elementary school apparently includes both verbal and physical assaults upon students and faculty members, but Bartlett declined to elaborate.

"It is inappropriate for me to comment on student behaviors beyond what I said during the board meeting,” she wrote in an email response to further questions.

Some residents have suggested that the shortage of paraprofessionals to work closely with students might be part of the reason some of them have been acting up. The closing of the Union-Sanborn Elementary School which resulted in its students moving to Southwick also might be contributing to the problem, they said.

School Board Chair Sean Goodwin said the board has no intention of reopening Union-Sanborn, which has been on the market for sale, and added, “We’re trying to hire staff.”

One parent commented, “I do know the teachers in the school are doing a phenomenal job with handling it. Trying to evacuate kids while having students literally destroying classrooms is not easy.”

He continued, “This has been a record year and a crazy year with behaviors. If it wasn’t for my 7-year-old son’s telling me, I wouldn’t know any of this. I wouldn’t know they’re being evacuated. I wouldn’t know there was an ALICE drill. That’s a very easy way to set up a very bad situation — it’s not telling parents there’s an ALICE active-shooter intruder drill. ... That’s something you really want to make sure because 7-year-olds have phones now, and it just takes one wrong text from a kid to a parent and it creates a huge incident.”

Schools across the state and throughout the country have been reporting increases in behavioral problems since the pandemic, with mental health challenges emerging from the isolation that some students experienced. Exclusionary discipline in the form of out-of-school suspension and expulsion not only has causes children to fall behind in their academics, but often results in further anti-social behavior.

Pierre Couture, superintendent of Newfound schools, said his district has not seen much of an increase in disciplinary problems, and those that do occur generally have to do with drugs.

“We are using a restorative justice program in the middle and high school now for students caught with drugs or vapes,” he said. “That is helpful, as students will get a reduced suspension if they agree to working with CADY in that process. Sadly, not all parents agreed to the process and simply let their child receive the full suspension.” CADY is Communities for Alcohol and Drug-Free Youth.

Gilford Superintendent Kirk Beitler said he has not heard of any increased disciplinary reports in any of his schools.