GOOD STUFF
Polar plunge a win for special athlete – Columbia Daily Tribune, Feb. 14, 2010
Service to focus on children lost – Columbia Daily Tribune, Oct. 26, 2009
The Great Communicator – Columbia Tribune, Feb. 21, 2009
Hartsburg wife accused of sex with teen boy – Columbia Daily Tribune, Jan. 16, 2009
Schools face learning curve on discipline – Columbia Tribune, Oct. 21, 2009
Supplies with Obama logo surprise school – Columbia Tribune, Dec. 3, 2009
Tripping over downtown – Columbia Daily Tribune, Feb. 27, 2010
Omaha’s prize position – Omaha World-Herald, June 23, 2008
Progress goals only tell part of MAP story – Columbia Daily Tribune, Aug. 18, 2009
Polar plunge a win for special athlete
By JONATHON BRADEN
jbraden@columbiatribune.com | 815-1711
Kendall Scheidt had been there twice before, clenching his fists wrapped in Valentine’s Day-theme sleeves, swaying back on forth in his black aqua socks as his lips quivered because air temperatures were in the 30s.
Scheidt and about 360 other people again waited in the cold yesterday before diving into Stephens Lake in the third annual Polar Plunge, a Special Olympics fundraiser that generated about $48,000 for the organization this year.
The two previous years, Scheidt, 24, kidded with his teammates. He recited the Special Olympics athlete oath, and he even dashed into the frigid lake waters. But when the water splashed his feet, he stopped and backed away.
This year’s Polar Plunge would be different, he said, as he waited with other members of the SOMO Derby Dames and Dudes team.
“Today, his goal is to actually do the plunge,” said his mom, Rose Scheidt, as she stood next to her son.
“We’ll see and find out,” Kendall Scheidt replied.
To be sure, his costume was unlike that of years past. Yellow braids dangled past his shoulders, matching a yellow tie that hung loosely around his neck. A camouflage bandana warmed his head, and he wore Valentine’s-theme socks and boxer shorts over navy leggings. The shorts and sox had messages such as “I’M YOURS” and “KISS ME.”
Waiting in line, Scheidt mostly maintained a serious demeanor when not posing for a photo or chatting with his mom or Terri Hilt, his swimming coach for the past 11 years.
“Kendall never gives up,” Hilt said.
But Scheidt didn’t always swim five additional laps at the end of a workout just because Hilt asked him to — as he does now. About four years ago, Hilt said, Scheidt changed his work ethic after he was nominated for the national Special Olympics but failed to qualify.
“At that point,” Hilt said, “we told him what he needed to do and he did it.”
In April, Scheidt will compete in bowling at the National Games.
But as he focused on the plunge yesterday, Scheidt swayed from left foot to right foot, mostly keeping to himself as teammates munched on strawberry wafers. Then a man arrived wearing a black-and-white striped shirt similar to Scheidt’s. Justin Wright, 26, approached Scheidt, grasped his closed fists and looked into his eyes.
“You ready?” Wright asked.
“I’m ready!” Scheidt replied.
After more jokes and chatting, it was almost plunging time. The team moseyed past a beach entrance, their feet sinking in the wet sand. An announcer introduced Wright and Scheidt as “the referees,” and Scheidt raised his right arm, pumping a fist into the air.
Scheidt exhaled noticeably and stepped with teammates to form a line with other plungers. The sun popped out from clouds that had hidden it for an hour. As Scheidt bent his right leg preparing to accelerate, an announcer shouted, “One, two, three, plunge!”
Scheidt’s teammates passed him to reach the water, but he entered the lake and waded in to his hips.
“Look at him,” his mom told a friend. “He’s still standing out there!”
Scheidt stood his ground, then turned to face his mom and hundreds of spectators before raising his arms, grinning.
“Look at him,” his mom said. “He did it!”
Scheidt later waited as his mom placed a coat over his shoulders. He could hardly believe what he had done.
“I went in, Mom,” he said. “Way in!”
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Service to focus on children lost
BY JONATHON BRADEN
jbraden@columbiatribune.com | 815-1711
Kelli Thomas stood near the front door of her family’s home off Stadium Boulevard watching something she thought she might never see: Cooper, her 15-month-old son, resting on her husband’s thighs and zipping toy cars across the carpet.
Kelli’s mother-in-law, Marlene Thomas, sat across from them, having spent an hour racing cars with the boy.
A decade ago, Kelli Thomas thought these moments were simply a pregnancy away — a father holding his son, a grandmother looking on with glowing eyes. But now, after three miscarriages, an adoption and the births of two more children, Thomas has experienced the joys of having babies and the grief of losing them.
At 7 p.m. tomorrow at Missouri United Methodist Church, 204 S. Ninth St., Thomas and other women are planning a pregnancy and infant loss remembrance service, inviting women who have lost a baby to share their stories. The service, which is being held for a second year, is hosted by the Columbia chapter of MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) International.
“It’s just nice to take a moment to remember those babies,” Thomas said.
In 2000, Thomas became pregnant. A miscarriage came 10 weeks later. Her doctor suggested she try again. Maybe it was a fluke.
Thomas’ next baby was due March 15, 2001. About 10 weeks into the pregnancy, though, came another miscarriage. This time, a routine ultrasound revealed no heartbeat. Thomas wondered: What had she done wrong?
About a year after she was first pregnant, she was carrying yet another child. Again, an ultrasound showed no heartbeat 10 weeks later.
Three pregnancies, no babies.
She spent nights crying. Jealousy consumed her when she gazed at other moms pushing their baby carriages. She felt like she was failing as a wife.
“For me, all I wanted was to be a mom,” she said, “and I thought it was never going to happen.”
She and her husband, Tim, decided to adopt and welcomed Hannah to the family on Dec. 15, 2001. “We just essentially decided that we could not accept losing another baby,” Thomas said.
On April Fool’s Day 2003, though, they learned she was pregnant for a fourth time. Afraid to share the news because it might end sooner than planned, Thomas waited 30 weeks to tell many of her friends. On Nov. 6, 2003, her first biological child, Meghan, was born.
Cooper, the family’s youngest child, was born July 7, 2008.
Tomorrow night, Kelli Thomas, 35, plans to recount her story in front of other women who have had similar experiences. Whether their mourning is a result of miscarriages, sudden infant death syndrome or another cause doesn’t matter, Thomas said.
“Their grief is real, and they’re not alone,” she said.
Ten percent to 25 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriages, according to the American Pregnancy Association.
Many times, Thomas said, these losses go unspoken. The family is just expected to move on. A day after her first miscarriage, Thomas said, she was expected at work.
“When anyone loses a child, they are in a very deep place of grief,” said the Rev. Michael Will, an associate pastor at Missouri United Methodist who led last year’s prayer service. “To be able to bring a sense of comfort, to be able to be part of an anointing that might bring healing is a great gift.”
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The Great Communicator: Superintendent Chris Belcher is off to a good start
BY JONATHON BRADEN
jbraden@columbiatribune.com | 815-1711
Around 10 a.m. on a recent Friday, kids trudge through the hallways of Paxton Keeley Elementary School, dragging sidewalk slush onto the gray and green carpet in the school’s wide entryway.
The students complain that they’re even there on this day, considering they woke to a fresh layer of snow in their yards. But Chris Belcher could not be happier.
It is his favorite time of the week — the half-hour or so that the Columbia Public Schools superintendent gets to “aimlessly wander” around one of the district’s 30 schools. On this day, Belcher has chosen Paxton Keeley as his surprise destination. He never tells the schools he’s coming.
He strolls around the building, stopping by classrooms and peering over children’s shoulders.
After a few stops, Belcher walks into Sally Widbin’s room full of fourth-graders.
“I came out to make sure you’re learning,” he says. “Do you like Paxton Keeley?”
“Yeah,” some of the students say.
“Oh, come on,” Widbin says. “We need some enthusiasm!”
“Yeah!” the class replies.
Belcher’s presence in Columbia’s schools represents what teachers, board members and residents say they enjoy most about the new superintendent: his communication skills.
A year after the Columbia Board of Education voted 6-1 to hire Belcher instead of former Assistant Superintendent Skip Deming, the community also has had time to observe Belcher’s management style, to see how he has transitioned to a school system about five times the size of his former district and to see how he interacts with an independent school board.
Residents have chatted with him out in public and learned more about Belcher’s vision for the Columbia school district.
So far, even one of his first critics approves of his performance.
“I do think there’s been like a sea change,” said Ines Segert, the lone school board member who voted against hiring Belcher a year ago. “I feel like we’ve gained back a lot of credibility.”
MORE COMMUNICATION
Belcher’s communication efforts with staff and the community have been wide-ranging and frequent.
He records and sends videos to teachers every couple of weeks and updates board members and other staff with an e-mail every Friday. He makes it a priority to visit schools, meet with parents and talk with whatever group will have him.
“Any time leaders are willing to sit down and listen to ideas and talk with folks, that gives you a positive impression, and that’s what I have of him so far,” said Mary Ratliff, president of the Columbia and Missouri chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
As Columbia superintendent, Belcher succeeded Phyllis Chase, who retired in August 2008 after voters rejected a proposed 54-cent tax levy increase that April. Residents’ concerns about poor communication were among the complaints that hampered Chase’s tenure and led to the failed tax measure.
Chase has since come out of retirement and works as the associate superintendent of teaching and learning in the North Kansas City School District. Jim Ritter led the Columbia district on an interim basis last school year.
After once saying no to a search consultant last year, Belcher agreed to talk with the Columbia school board. At the time, he was superintendent of the mostly homogenous Kearney R-I School District north of Kansas City.
The Columbia board interviewed Belcher once and named him one of two finalists for the job.
But it wasn’t until the public talked to Belcher that it become obvious how hungry people were for a communicator who could lead. At his interview at Paxton Keeley, he had the crowd of 100 or so laughing, clapping and complimenting him — an outsider they had just met who had nothing to do with past criticisms over poor communication in the district.
Hickman High School Principal Mike Jeffers said Belcher has been available, visible and approachable.
“Those three things have led people to believe that they can follow him,” Jeffers said.
West Boulevard Elementary Principal Peter Stiepleman recently complimented Belcher on his communication skills.
“I like how open you are with us,” Stiepleman told him.
Belcher responded, “I’m too stupid to manipulate things. I figure I’ll just tell the truth.”
LESS BUREAUCRACY
Belcher’s past, including his time at Kearney, has dictated many of his actions here.
When he worked in the Blue Springs and Warrensburg school districts, he hated how long it took plans to gain multiple committees’ approval — only to watch the school board table the idea.
But in Kearney, a school district about five times smaller than Columbia, he loved how quickly items were conceived, approved by the school board and implemented.
In other words, he loathed bureaucracy.
Then Belcher moved from Kearney, a district with 3,600 students and about 280 certificated staff, to Columbia, a district of 17,200 students and more than 1,570 certificated staff — a bureaucracy.
To negotiate the bureaucratic tangle of Columbia schools, though, Belcher has established three advisory committees: one with elementary school staff; one with secondary school staff; and one composed of middle managers, such as principals and district subject coordinators.
He meets with them about once a month. The committee members mostly choose the discussion topics.
Mary Margaret Coffield teaches drama at Rock Bridge High School and represents the school on the secondary advisory committee. “I really appreciate that for the first time since I’ve been in this district, I have an opportunity to represent my school directly to the superintendent,” said Coffield, who has been with the district for seven years.
As a leader, Belcher pushes the idea of ownership — removing layers and making teachers and administrators take responsibility for the programs they use and the scores their students produce.
“We can easily disassociate ourselves from responsibility,” he said. “But when it’s ours, we can take responsibility.”
The community already has seen an example of Belcher trying to nudge ownership to the schools, although they might not have liked the change.
This month, the Columbia Board of Education cut $5.2 million from the district budget, including about $625,000 that paid 11 elementary science specialists. For the past 50 years, such specialists have exclusively taught science to fourth- and fifth-graders twice a week.
Of all of the district’s reductions — the equivalent of some 75 full-time positions and cuts to several other programs — no other cutback garnered more public discussion than the specialists.
Next school year, without the specialists, classroom teachers will teach science. It will be implemented back into the regular school day, similar to how instructors teach math and language arts.
Instead of specialists being responsible for fourth- and fifth-grade science, Belcher wants principals and classroom teachers to seize responsibility for ensuring science is taught and for the subject’s test scores.
“They will become more in control, and it will work because they created it,” Belcher said.
But the data show otherwise.
Sandra Abell is the director of the science education center at the University of Missouri.
She has pored through studies that show science is the least-taught subject in elementary schools, regardless of whether classroom teachers and principals are supposed to own the results.
In Columbia, lower-level elementary teachers have said they’ve been instructed to focus on math and language arts, not science.
“It’s a nice sentiment that the buildings might be taking more responsibility,” Abell said, “but they haven’t as of yet in terms of grades K, 1, 2, 3. So I don’t know why we would expect that to happen in fourth and fifth grade.”
‘I’M GLAD TO BE WRONG’
Belcher has used the word “independent” to describe his bosses, the seven school board members who govern the district. And no board member is more independent than Segert, who voted against Belcher a year ago.
She was nervous about how well he would adapt to a multicultural and larger Columbia, coming from the mostly homogenous, smaller western Missouri community of Kearney. She wondered about his ideas to fix the achievement gap between groups of students.
But mostly, Segert said, she voted against Belcher because she worried how much he would be able to change a district in which almost all of the assistant superintendents have close to 30 years of experience.
“He’s been really good at balancing his authority as superintendent with letting them keep some responsibility and autonomy,” Segert said. “He’s not afraid to be a superintendent.”
It is a role Belcher feels comfortable in as CEO of a larger school district. He terms his time in Columbia as the start of the “best year of my professional career.”
He enjoys not having to worry about whether the substitute teachers will show or whether the schools will cancel class because of snow. His wife, Jackie, also said Belcher vents less about work at home.
“It’s been amazing to realize how much that stuff was a part of being stressed in a smaller system,” Belcher said.
Segert also has been pleased. “I’m glad to be wrong,” she said.
Of course, seven months is a short time frame on which to judge a leader.
We haven’t seen a year of Missouri Assessment Program scores while Belcher has been in charge. As a new superintendent, any program or curriculum that has not produced results has not been his idea.
“He’s on his honeymoon period, too, and he knows that,” Jeffers said.
Jeffers also remembers Columbia’s former superintendent. “Dr. Chase was in the buildings quite a bit,” he said.
He recalls Chase giving building leaders some freedom over which programs they use, just as Belcher does. “I’m not sure it’s changed; we’ve always had a degree of autonomy,” he said.
And after a year with Chase, some had expressed satisfaction with her communication skills.
“I was very impressed at the way she made such an effort to reach out to the community when she first came to town,” said Cheri Ghan, then the outgoing president of the Columbia Council of PTAs, as reported in a Tribune story published June 30, 2004.
As Ratliff said, “We always have to wait and see.”
Coffield said teachers plan to do the same. “I think teachers went through a year of some reassurance and healing while” former interim Superintendent “Jim Ritter was in charge” last school year, Coffield said, “and now they’re waiting and wondering how things will be.”
Back at Paxton Keeley, Assistant Principal Patti Raynor persuades Belcher to make one last stop to hear students sing a Valentine’s Day jingle. Belcher hears the tune before he opens the door to Room 124, where Beth Luetjen leads the chorus.
“Be my Val-en-tine. Be my Val-en-tine,” the students sing to the tune of “B-I-N-G-O.”
Luetjen stops singing and shuffles over to Belcher, who’s observing near the door.
“What’s the real name of this song, Dr. Belcher?” she asks.
“ ‘Bingo,’ ” he says.
“All right, you pass,” she says, writing a check sign in the air. “A-plus!”
Reach Jonathon Braden at 573-815-1711 or e-mail jbraden@columbiatribune.com.
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Hartsburg wife accused of sex with teen boy
By JONATHON BRADEN
Of the Tribune’s staff
Wanda Leach didn’t think anything strange was going on at her neighbor’s house near Hickman High School, even though she has seen teenage boys come and go from the residence on a regular basis for months.
But Columbia police say the residence at 200 E. Forest Ave. was a hangout for high school students to drink alcohol, smoke marijuana and, for at least one teenager, to have sex with a 47-year-old married Hartsburg woman.
“I thought maybe students lived there and these kids were just going there, maybe visiting,” said the 71-year-old Leach.
Melody Link, 47, of 5740 E. Eagle Trace, was charged this morning with three counts of second-degree statutory rape and one count of second-degree statutory sodomy after police alleged she engaged in sexual acts with a 16-year-old boy at least 50 times. She was arrested at her home yesterday and released from the Boone County Jail on $27,000 bond.
Each count is a Class C felony punishable by up to seven years in prison and a $5,000 fine, Boone County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Andy Scholz said.
Police were notified in mid-December of the alleged activity, Columbia police Sgt. Ken Hammond said, when the father of a 16-year-old boy told police that he suspected his son was having an “ongoing sexual relationship” with Link.
In an interview with police, the 16-year-old said the relationship included intercourse and oral sex and occurred on near-daily basis since August at the Forest Avenue house Link was renting near Hickman High, according to a probable cause statement written by Detective Joseph Jackson.
Scholz said he thought the most recent alleged sexual activity took place on Dec. 12. Link is married to Columbia dentist Brian Link.
Hammond said the 16-year-old boy had a key to Link’s rental house. “They pretty much had free rein of the residence – food, alcohol present, satellite TV,” Hammond said this morning. Link’s residence was “basically a squat house where they would come and hang out and do as they please,” he said.
The 16-year-old told police Link provided him and his friends with “food, cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana as well as providing them with the capabilities to view adult movies,” the probable cause statement says.
When police interviewed witnesses, two of them said they observed Link and the 16-year-old boy having sexual intercourse at the Forest Avenue residence, the probable cause statement says.
The owner of the residence, Steve Wenger, declined to comment this morning. The house now has a “for lease” sign in front of it.
Leach, who has lived at 106 E. Forest Ave. for 21 years, said she would sometimes see four or five boys go to the residence during the noon hour. “But I never thought anything was going on,” she said. She thought the boys were probably Hickman students. The residence is about 400 feet from Hickman.
Link has been accused of illegal activity with minors in the past. According to the Tribune’s archives, in September 1999, she was accused by Southern Boone County Middle School parents of serving alcohol at a 14-year-old’s birthday party. No criminal charges were filed.
Reach Jonathon Braden at 573-815-1711 or e-mail jbraden@columbiatribune.com.
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Schools face learning curve on discipline
By JONATHON BRADEN
jbraden@columbiatribune.com | 815.1711
One sunny day years ago, Carl Hayes strolled to the playground of West Boulevard Elementary School with a classmate, headed off to do what fourth-graders do: play.
Hayes reads through a core curriculum book while studying Sept. 30 at Columbia Builds Youth. He is working toward a GED.
But before the two hit the swings, the problem that would come to plague Hayes’ academic days materialized.
“He got smart to me, bumped into me,” Hayes said. “I got smart to him. I bumped into him.”
The two landed a few punches before teachers intervened. West Boulevard administrators suspended Hayes from school for four days, he said.
Since then, Hayes has been suspended more than 10 times.
“I knew what was wrong,” he said. “I just didn’t have the motivation to fix what I was doing.”
Some of Hayes’ suspensions were for 10 days, a few requiring an extended-suspension hearing to see whether his stay away from school should last longer. Hayes’ misdeeds helped contribute to what has been a spike in those hearings during the past decade in Columbia Public Schools.
In the past year alone, the number of such hearings almost doubled, increasing from 98 during the 2007-08 school year to 192 last school year. In the 1999-2000 school year, the district recorded 17 hearings.
School officials hold an extended-suspension hearing after a student has been suspended for 10 days or more because of a “very, very serious” action, Assistant Superintendent Wanda Brown said, such as fighting a few times, punching a teacher or dealing prescription drugs.
The recent increase in hearings indicates a rise in the number of serious infractions on school grounds, and such incidents have had a wide-reaching effect on schools.
Students feel less safe, according to one school’s survey. Administrators devote more time to discipline issues. School and juvenile officials see Columbia’s youths respecting adults less and less, forecasting a frightening future.
And frequently suspended students, such as Hayes, fuel the achievement gap and the dropout rate, researchers say.
“The kids that are getting suspended repeatedly need to be in school more than anybody else,” said Tim Lewis, a professor at the University of Missouri.
There’s also the effectiveness of suspensions to consider. Educators mostly agree that suspending a student does not discourage disruptive behavior. Students go days without school and return further behind in their classes. After more than 10 suspensions, Hayes stopped going to Hickman High School last spring.
“It just keeps adding up until the point where they didn’t want you in school,” he said.
The spike in suspensions also has police and school officials discussing alternatives.
“Sending kids home for two days doesn’t change behavior,” Lewis said. “It’s predicated on assumptions that just don’t hold true for a lot of kids.”
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Principals can suspend students from one to 10 days. The superintendent of schools can suspend students anywhere from 11 days to 180 days, the entire school year.
In the past few years, Brown said, six or seven students have received the full school-year suspension, which usually happens when a gun is involved. The school district has not expelled a student in decades.
In 1996, after the Missouri General Assembly passed the Safe Schools Act in 1995, the school district started reporting each incident when a student was suspended for 10 days or longer.
At an extended-suspension hearing, Brown serves as chairwoman. Brian Gaub, principal of Douglass High School, and typically another principal also sit on the panel. The school whose student is affected brings a representative, the student and a parent or guardian. The panel decides whether the student should return to school or remain suspended.
During the late 1990s, the number of these hearings hovered in the teens to the low 20s until the 2002-03 school year, when the number jumped to 44. Two years later, in 2004-05, there were 86 hearings, and since, the number has stayed above 72. But last year’s increase to nearly 200 hearings still stands out.
Brown said the two main reasons for hearings last year were prescription drugs and fighting. Students might bring pills to school from home, hand them out or be using the drugs, she said.
Last year’s numbers also might have had a boost from administrators.
In October 2008, Hickman student Diamond Thrower tried to break up a fight between two other teens. Mark Brotemarkle, the school’s resource officer, pulled Thrower away from the fight and tossed her to the tile. Video of the brawl was captured on a cell phone, and MSNBC aired it later in the day.
Less than two weeks after the fight, administrators instituted a mandatory 10-day out-of-school suspension for fighting.
It’s unclear how effective the new rule was, though, as Columbia’s two comprehensive high schools have seen varying results.
At Rock Bridge High School, Principal Kathy Ritter said administrators recorded 11 fights between 22 students during the 2007-08 year, totaling 82.5 suspension days. Last year, six fights were recorded between 13 kids, but the total suspended time equaled 113 days, with the new 10-day suspension rule having gone into effect a few months into the term.
But at Hickman, the number of fights spiked. During the 2007-08 year, the school had 48 fights. In 2008-09, the number rose to 55. Jeffers said eight of 10 fights at Hickman were between girls.
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Community and school officials have varying opinions on why more extended-suspension hearings have been needed.
For 13 years, Lynn Barnett hosted every extended-suspension hearing. She retired in June as assistant superintendent of support services. “It’s a reflection of what’s going on in our community,” she said of the increase in hearings.
But data suggest juvenile crime might not be rising at the rate of hearings. In 2004, the Boone County Juvenile Office received 3,394 referrals in the county. In 2008, the office had 2,754 referrals from the same area.
Columbia police statistics also have seen a decline in juvenile offenses during school months, according to Missouri Uniform Crime Reporting statistics. From September 2002 to June 2003, police reported 1,700 offenses for individuals younger than 18. Since then, the number has never hit more than 1,719 offenses for the same period. From September 2008 to June 2009, police reported 1,619 offenses.
Officials observe, though, that many youths act more recklessly than in the past. Rick Gaines, director of the juvenile office, said he sees kids challenging authorities more often than he did when he started 23 years ago.
Jeffers said kids fight more out of fear of losing respect than actually having a disagreement. “It’s more about face,” he said.
Hayes — a slim 18-year-old, maybe 5 feet 6 inches tall — backs that idea: He didn’t back down from brawls, whether at school or at the Dairy Queen down the road. “I fought all my days,” he said.
Hayes was 3 or 4 years old the last time he saw his mother. He grew up in foster homes, including recently in the home of Ann McCauley for six months.
“If he backed down, then they picked on him more,” McCauley said. “If he didn’t back down, then he got suspended.”
When Hayes lived with McCauley from October 2008 to March, she said, he was suspended for five days at least once a month.
The higher number of fights at Hickman overall led to some students feeling unsafe. In a survey of 1,500 of Hickman’s 2,114 students last year, students ranked how safe they felt at school on a 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the safest. During the past five years, Jeffers said, the number has ranged from 3 to 3.9.
Last year, the school rated a 3. “They just felt it wasn’t really safe,” Jeffers said.
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To combat fighting and other disciplinary issues, schools have long used suspensions as a deterrent, despite their questionable effectiveness.
Lewis, the MU professor, specializes in preventing punishments such as suspensions. “In theory, a suspension is supposed to decrease that behavior,” he said. “What we know is it doesn’t.”
Hayes remembers suspensions well. “I kind of look at it like you get to go home and hang out,” he said. “I stayed home, slept in my room, ate” peanut butter “and jelly.”
When Hayes was living at McCauley’s home, he was smoking marijuana and getting drunk a few times a week. When he was suspended and not at school during the day, McCauley said, she didn’t know what to do with him.
“I was always bothered that the school system would suspend the student and offer no alternatives that were constructive,” she said. “It was almost like a reward.”
For a while, the Missouri Department of Social Services arranged a caretaker for Hayes during the day. But once he turned 18 in March, he was sent to a residential center in St. Louis to work on his drug and alcohol problems.
The center kicked Hayes out for fighting. He then moved back here, living with his brother.
Unlike Hayes, for kids who consistently have had strong parental support, Lewis said suspensions might work. “You have to be a kid who doesn’t want to get kicked out of school.”
Administrators don’t disagree with Lewis regarding suspensions. In previous districts where Columbia schools Superintendent Chris Belcher worked, he said he saw how students fell behind in classes when suspended.
Jeffers said he doesn’t like handing out suspensions. “But at the same time, it’s the only thing we have to really get their attention.”
Lewis tries to offer alternatives for schools. He does not blame the teachers or staff, but rather the school systems themselves. He helped create a process called Positive Behavior Support, or PBS, which works with schools to identify troubled students before bigger events happen.
In Columbia Public Schools, almost every building uses the process. Rock Bridge High School does not, but Jeffers said Hickman is in its second year of using it, aligning discipline policies and talking with students.
For punishments, PBS focuses on using in-school suspensions, in which a teacher or counselor homes in on what got the student suspended. PBS also emphasizes data-based changes.
Jeffrey Parker wanted to fix the numbers he was seeing. In 2006-07, the year before Parker took over as principal at G. James Gholson Middle School in Landover, Md., the school handed out 867 out-of-school suspensions. In 2008-09, about 275 out-of-school suspensions were given.
The difference came after Parker started a “student referral intervention center,” in which students receive an in-school suspension but still work on homework. For minor offenses, the middle school hosts a Saturday morning program, during which students might copy down the Constitution. Parents have become more involved as well.
“I can’t get that education for them if, in fact, they’re not here,” Parker said.
The Columbia school district has alternatives in place, such as a three-hour period Hickman hosts at Jefferson Junior High almost every Saturday for issues such as skipping school. This year, Hickman also had its in-school suspension program restored, replacing out-of-school suspensions for less serious offenses.
Douglass High School also hosts an after-school credit-recovery program. Students try to obtain credits in a subject area needed for graduation, Douglass Principal Brian Gaub said. Eleven students, including some suspended students, enrolled in the computer-based program this quarter.
Hickman also has an after-school program for students with an individualized education plan, and most attend for a disciplinary reason, Jeffers said.
School officials have discussed other options, including a diversion program with police that would cut a 10-day suspension in half, with the other five days being spent on a behavioral program.
And fewer jabs have been recorded this year at Hickman. So far this year, faculty has recorded 11 fights, down five from this point of last school year.
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For students like Hayes, though, the goal is trying to move past the days of suspensions.
After first being denied, Hayes has been accepted into Columbia Builds Youth, a program for 16- to 24-year-olds who seek an education and career construction skills. He works another job in addition to the program, and he plans to get his GED in May at Columbia Builds Youth.
Graduates of the program have opportunities to earn $25 to $35 an hour at construction jobs.
McCauley, Hayes’ former foster mom who encouraged him to enter Columbia Builds Youth, is the assistant director of the program.
“Over here, he’s probably one of the most peaceful students we have,” she said of Hayes, who has also passed every drug test he’s taken at the program.
For Columbia Public Schools, the 192 suspension hearings last year represent a relatively small number, considering the school district hosts more than 17,000 students. But for a superintendent and a Board of Education that offer much rhetoric on narrowing the achievement gap between groups of students, these statistics seem to carry more meaning and could lead to more action in the future.
“It’s a systems breakdown,” Lewis said. Of the kids who keep getting suspended, he said, “we’re basically just passing them onto the next system. It’s going to be either juvenile justice, it’s going to be mental health, it’s going to be somebody else that’s going to take these kids.”
Reach Jonathon Braden at 573-815-1711 or e-mail jbraden@columbiatribune.com.
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By JONATHON BRADEN
jbraden@columbiatribune.com | 815.1711
Pencils and notebooks resembling President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign ads have been sold in at least one Columbia school and other public schools, causing the company that distributes the materials to travel around the state yanking the supplies out of machines.
“Don’t be mad at us,” said Greg Jones, a sales representative with Pencil Wholesale. “It was a total accident.”
Pencil Wholesale distributes supplies to six Columbia schools: Parkade Elementary, Cedar Ridge Elementary, Paxton Keeley Elementary, Mill Creek Elementary, Smithton Middle School and Hickman High School, said Linda Quinley, the district’s chief financial officer.
At Mill Creek, at least one pencil and a notebook with designs similar to Obama campaign advertisements have been sold out of a supply machine. Two families have complained about the politically tinged materials.
Three Missouri schools have contacted Jones since the beginning of the school year asking that the materials be removed, and Mill Creek Principal Mary Sue Gibson this week said she also planned to call Pencil Wholesale.
“I just don’t want to get into that political arena at all,” she said.
The bound three-ring notebook bears a photo of literal change — pennies, quarters, dimes and nickels stacked into piles. Above the photo, white text reads “CHANGE” over a navy background.
Below the photo, “WE CAN BELIEVE IN” sits above a logo similar to Obama’s campaign image — three red stripes separated by white stripes in front of a white circle with a blue background arching over the circle.
The supplies were designed by the art department of Harcourt Pencil Co., based in Milroy, Ind., Jones said.
“The art department was trying to be cutesy,” he said.
There was no response this morning to a phone message to Harcourt.
Jones delivers the supplies to about 800 schools. He remembers seeing the Obama-esque notebook when it was first designed, but “I didn’t think one thing about it,” he said.
Jones has agreed to go to schools that might have received the supplies and remove them.
“I wish I could do it over,” he said. “But, for now, I can just make it right.”
Harcourt plans to give Jones a refund on the supplies as well, he said.
But first, Jones has to find the supplies. Out of a case of 72 notebooks, three of the controversial notebooks can be found, he said.
“It’s turned out to be really ugly,” Jones said. “We’re trying to get them out of the schools as fast as we can.”
He also wants to be clear that neither he nor his company created the design. In fact, he said, he’s a registered Republican who voted for John McCain in last year’s presidential election.
“It’s a total nightmare,” Jones said.
Reach Jonathon Braden at 573-815-1711 or e-mail jbraden@columbiatribune.com.
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Tripping over downtown
BY JONATHON BRADEN
jbraden@columbiatribune.com | 815-1711
It’s a little after 2 p.m. The sun is shining as Timothy “Speed” Levitch and Gabe Williams stand at the corner of Broadway and Eighth Street. They are discussing the City Hall Addition, with its new, red bricks, and how it looks next to the Daniel Boone Building, with its old, yellow bricks.
“You can see it’s an old and a new building conjoined,” Levitch says. “It clashes.”
The men walk across Eighth, once thought of as the artery of Columbia. “The grid plan, to see it actualized, it’s always a little different than when it’s laid out on paper,” Levitch says while doodling with his blue pen in his notebook.
Williams and Levitch say those words often, “the grid plan,” how people designed our cities with right angles and squares. “I’m always suspicious of the right angle,” Levitch says.
They crave alleys, those “semiautonomous” pathways of our cities that seem more like our blemished selves, with potholes present and bits of broken asphalt.
“In a grid, just to the human mind, can start to feel like imprisoning,” Williams says. “The way we lay out our cities affects the choices we make. They predetermine the routes we all take.”
This is what they plan to do four times this weekend, try to decipher what the geography of Columbia tells residents about themselves, about the people who live in the city and travel on these streets.
Today and tomorrow at 11:45 a.m. and 4:45 p.m., Levitch and Williams will offer tours titled, “The Speculative Stroll: A Psychogeographic Walking Tour of Broadway.” The tours start at the True/False Film Fest box office at Cherry and Ninth streets.
“Broadway is a song line singing,” Levitch says. “What are the lyrics?”
Usually, the person who gives a tour is an expert of the area. Levitch, however, is not. He grew up in New York and starred in the 1998 documentary “The Cruise,” which followed him offering bus tours of New York. He now lives in Kansas City.
“The tour guide is a visitor who needs direction,” said Levitch, 39.
This is where Williams helps out. He grew up here; he graduated from Rock Bridge High School and lived here until seven years ago when he moved to Chicago.
Williams, 35, knows Columbia’s history and has heard of its high school dares and urban legends.
The two have been learning together, spending hours at the Columbia Public Library and talking on the phone about the tour since November. They met when they conducted a vehicular tour of Columbia during the first True/False Film Fest in 2003. Levitch calls that their “pilot episode.”
“This is a launch,” Levitch says of their walking tour.
After observing the City Hall Addition, the men continue prepping, walking west on Broadway until Sixth Street. They then saunter past the Boone County Courthouse on Walnut Street and use Eighth to reconnect with Broadway.
They say their prep route is far from their final tour path, which will be known just before the tours begin.
On this True/False Film Fest weekend in which documentaries that took years to film and edit to perfection, Williams and Levitch offer something different: “a rough draft.”
“I don’t feel prepared at all,” Levitch said yesterday afternoon, “but I do feel like I’m having a conversation with the place.”
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Omaha company makes all of NCAA trophies
BY JONATHON BRADEN
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
The 10 men and women who work on Frank Pankowski’s crew are far from famous.
But when a College World Series team is crowned champion this week, the eyes of the college sports world will be on their craftsmanship.
In a nondescript factory a few blocks from Interstate 80 in southwest Omaha, these workers are now creating every NCAA trophy presented year-round, from Division III women’s ice hockey to the CWS.
“The NCAA sponsors 88 championships,” said Mike Johnson, rough mill manager at Midwest Trophy Manufacturing. “And we provide trophies for all 88.”
Altogether, the company’s Omaha factory makes the NCAA’s 400 team trophies and almost 15,000 individual trophies.
“Omaha is so proud of the College World Series,” Johnson said, “and nobody knows that the trophies are getting made here now.”
The smell of wood filled the air and sawdust covered the floor late last week in the small factory near 67th and F Streets. Stacks of lumber rested on metal shelves. Wood-cutting machinery buzzed continually.
Al Vasiliauskas, 59, fed long, thin pieces of wood into a machine that forms them into picture frame edges.
About 30 years ago, this factory produced about 42,000 9-by-12 frames a year, said Pankowski, the location manager. The company – then under different ownership – supplied businesses that handed out certificates and photographs for employee recognition awards.
Now, it’s lucky to get orders for 500.
In April 2007, Midwest Trophy Manufacturing, headquartered in Del City, Okla., signed a five-year, $2 million contract with the NCAA.
The contract has salvaged the factory’s slacking demand. Companies want cameras and computers these days instead of trophies and plaques, Pankowski said.
“Fortunately, the NCAA wanted a wooden trophy,” he said, “and we were here to provide it.”
Once the trophy wood – maple – was ready for sealing, staining and lacquering, Dee Ebeltoft took over, rolling a wheeled table of wood to her work area. On Friday, Ebeltoft was teaching Alma Denton, a temporary employee, how to add a coat of sealer to the risers, or edges, of the individual trophies.
“Use the same speed,” Ebeltoft told Denton. “Don’t slow down or go fast.”
The risers were stacked on a pole similar to a paper towel holder. Denton twisted the pole as she aimed a spray hose at the wood.
It took the crew about two weeks to make the eight team trophies and almost 340 individual trophies for the College World Series.
Making a team trophy involves at least 112 steps, Pankowski said. Individual trophies take 73.
The factory has changed hands over the years. Opened in 1958 by Craft Guild, it was sold to Jostens in 1969 and to Midwest Trophy in 1993.
The way the work is done has been altered, too.
Twenty to 30 years ago, three shifts of 60 people worked on an assembly line. Now, all the members of the small crew perform multiple tasks.
The company has made everything from clocks to plaques to trophies for companies ranging from General Electric to McDonald’s to Union Pacific.
“Just about anybody in the country that’s had a recognition awards program,” Pankowski said, “we’ve made stuff for them.”
In the assembly room, Charley Trout, who has worked here since 1975, and temp Elma Semmons were whistling away as they packaged and labeled individual trophies for Division I women’s basketball.
“Getting close to the end, Elma,” Trout said.
“I see that,” Semmons replied.
“I don’t think I’ll make it before break, though,” Trout said.
“I know I won’t. That’s OK. I’m not going anywhere.”
For each smaller trophy, Trout cleaned the glass, placed the risers, set the base of the trophy and put a block of wood in between to stabilize the risers. Then he screwed the trophy together. After removing the wood block, he wiped down the glass again and used an air hose for the final cleaning.
In his 33 years at the factory, Trout has earned some bragging rights. He helped make the extra-large box that holds William “The Refrigerator” Perry’s extra-large Chicago Bears Super Bowl XX ring and the 2004 World Series Championship ring boxes for the Boston Red Sox.
He also helped make the base that holds the pen and ring given to the Washington Redskins for Super Bowl XVII.
After Trout and Semmons finished packaging the basketball trophies, they started wrapping wooden plaques in newspaper, preparing them for shipping. Trout warned Semmons to steer clear of paper with colored ink, which could stain the wood.
“Got to be black-and-white, not colored,” Trout told her. “Don’t make the same mistake I did when I started in 1975.”
This summer, the crew will concentrate on fall sports trophies almost exclusively. They hope to stay ahead of the pace so that when they need to make the 8,000-plus trophies for winter sports, they’re not working 15-hour days, which is what happened last year.
Employees say they feel proud when they see players hoist up their trophies in celebration.
“To see something you made, and it’s in the national limelight, it makes you feel good,” Pankowski said. “Even my family members get excited when they see it.”
They’ll be especially proud every year when June rolls around.
As Vasiliauskas said:
“’College World Series: Made in Omaha.’ That sounds good, doesn’t it?”
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Progress goals only tell part of MAP story
By JONATHON BRADEN
jbraden@columbiatribune.com | 815-1711
West Boulevard Elementary is the most improved school in the district, according to Missouri Assessment Program scores from 2006 to 2009.
Yet the federal government has placed the school on improvement level 1, meaning students have public school choice and the school must create a two-year improvement plan. The school’s rising performance hasn’t been enough to meet federal progress goals.
“You can’t just go by what the MAP score is,” said Ines Segert, a member of the Columbia Board of Education.
An examination of individual school data reveals the false simplicity of judging a school purely based on whether its students met annual yearly progress, or AYP, goals set by the federal government. Some schools that have continually reached federal goals have declined more in the past three years than sanctioned schools. Other schools that failed to achieve the federal benchmarks continue to show a steady rise in test scores.
“You definitely have to look at growth over time,” Segert said.
This year’s MAP scores, released last week, measure how many students score proficient or better in a subject according to the MAP standards. If one subgroup at a school does not meet the federally set goals for communication arts or math, the entire school fails to meet its progress goal. This year, those goals were for 59.2 percent of students to score proficient or better in communication arts and 54.1 percent proficient or better in math.
At West Boulevard, 14.8 percent of students scored proficient or better in math in 2006, compared with 22.2 percent this year. The school experienced similar improvement in communication arts, improving from 17 percent in 2006 to 25.6 percent in 2009.
“Even though you’re not meeting AYP,” Chief Academic Officer Sally Beth Lyon said, “you’re still seeing growth.”
Lyon said administrators were happy but cautious about the improvement because MAP scores don’t measure year-to-year student growth.
Other Columbia schools that escaped federal sanctions have shown declines. New Haven Elementary received no sanctions this year, but its math and communication arts scores have fallen 10.3 percentage points and 12 percentage points, respectively, from 2006 to 2009.
Some of the school district’s high-achieving schools, according to MAP scores, also have experienced setbacks, including Ridgeway Elementary. The school’s math and communication arts scores have fallen 9.8 and 8.7 percentage points, respectively, since 2006. But the school still scored the third-highest of all elementary schools in math and the highest in communication arts.
And then there’s Mill Creek Elementary, a top-performing anomaly. The school’s math scores have jumped 4.7 percentage points, and its communication arts scores have dipped just 0.6 percentage points. In 2009, 63 percent of its students scored proficient or better in communication arts, and 65 percent of its students scored proficient or better in math, making it the district’s best-performing elementary school in math MAP scores.