Terry Bibo’s article in the Journal Star today is one of the most disturbing things I’ve read about District 150 (and that’s saying something). The gist of the article is that a Peoria family who had been sending their kids to Peoria Christian School decided to give District 150 a chance. So they put their kids in Glen Oak school, only to have them be bullied and discriminated against because they were white. The daughter even got threatened by a group of three girls in a restroom once. The last straw for this family was when a fourth-grader (one of the three girls in the previous restroom incident), armed with a box cutter, threatened to kill their daughter.

What’s most troubling to me is the school’s response. Bibo talked to Associate Superintendent Cindy Fischer about this situation and was told:

. . . the district has policies that were followed in each of these instances. Every one was addressed, in large part through a nationally-recognized program that teaches and reinforces appropriate behavior. District-wide, 150 has four committees exploring various aspects of discipline problems. And for this family, offering [to let their kids attend] Kingman [Primary School] is a respectable option: It is late in the year, so the district is reluctant to make any transfers. But Kingman has fewer discipline problems and several openings. Hines Primary School . . . has none.

“It certainly is our regret that we were not able to bring satisfaction to this parent,” Fischer says. “As consumers, when we’re not satisfied with one product, we go to another. I think that is what this parent has done.”

Is it just me, or does that response leave something to be desired? First of all, if the district followed all its policies and the level of hostility toward this girl escalated as a result, isn’t that an indication that the district’s policies don’t work?

And what about those policies? They’re part of a “nationally-recognized program that teaches and reinforces appropriate behavior.” Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for the principal or administrator to punish the student’s inappropriate behavior? Are we to believe that this girl didn’t know that threatening another student with a weapon was inappropriate? If that’s true, then this girl has bigger problems than a lack of positive reinforcement. She really should be in another school that specializes in problem children.

Which brings up another point. Why is it that the well-behaved students were asked to leave Glen Oak and go to Kingman? Doesn’t that reinforce the behavior of those kids doing the threatening? I mean, they wanted those white kids out of their school, and now they are. I guess they won, huh? Why aren’t the delinquent students being removed from the school (sent to remedial school, suspended, or expelled)? Are we to believe they aren’t threatening other kids — that this is an isolated incident?

They have “four committees exploring various aspects of discipline problems,” which gives me mixed feelings. In one sense, it shows that they’re acknowledging the problem and trying to do something about it. But on the other hand, is effective school discipline really such a conundrum that it takes a cadre of administrators to figure it out?

I seem to remember the kids in my grade school being reasonably well disciplined. Of course part of that discipline was getting punished for wrong behavior, up to and including corporate corporal punishment. We were so unlightened back then, weren’t we? Unenlightened, but well-behaved.

One last thing this episode points out (as if we didn’t know): District 150’s problem is not aging schools. People aren’t avoiding the district because the buildings are not energy-efficient. They’re worried about safety, discipline, and education. This is where the district needs to be spending its time and resources.