Stubans to PTA: Commit to FCPS Reform

Editor's Note: This letter has not been edited. Click for more information on Monday's meeting.

Dear fellow FCPS PTA members:

My wife Sandy and I would like to thank the Fairfax community for the outpouring of sympathy and support you've extended to us since our son Nick's death on January 20th. Nothing could have prepared us for such a loss and it is only through the support of our family, friends, neighbors and pastors that we have been able to maintain any sense of composure thus far.

In reflecting on what may have prompted Nick to take his life, we fear we may have missed early signs of depression and then, when he first acted upon an actual threat on December 30th, that we and the healthcare professionals who attended to him underestimated the severity of his despair. There is nothing anyone can do to return Nick to us, but we are committed to helping other children and families avoid suffering a similar tragedy. In the months ahead we will establish a foundation dedicated to combating teen depression and preventing teen suicides.

In addition, we seek to change those things that contributed to Nick's decision. A significant factor was the nature of the FCPS disciplinary process Nick and we endured. Our near term focus therefore is to remedy FCPS's discipliary process - a process we believe to be broken.

To do so, we agreed to publicly share our experience in an article that was published on the front page of the Washington Post on Feb 20:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR201102...

We then worked with The Rutherford Institute (a non-profit Civil Liberties group) to notify FCPS Superintendent Dale of our own experience with FCPS's disciplinary process, what we believe to be deficiencies and what we would propose as remedies. A copy of that letter can be accessed here:
http://www.rutherford.org/pdf/2011/02-21-2011_Jack_Dale.pdf

To date Superintendent Dale has been generally non-responsive if not in outright denial that any shortcomings exist with the FCPS disciplinary - a process that is still being conducted, unchanged today.

With the help of the Fairfax Zero Tolerance Reform (FZTR) group and that of several other FCPS parent groups, a strong showing of parents at the School Board's Feb 24th working session pursuaded the School Board Members to accept the topic of Reforming the FCPS Disciplinary Process as a topic for their next working session to be held on Monday, March 14th.

Just as our belief that we would encounter reasonable people at some step of the FCPS disciplinary process with Nick was dashed, so too are we now finding that the Superintendent and many (perhaps a majority) of the School Board are reluctant to admit that there are any problems with their disciplinary process - despite our own experience and the testimony of dozens of other families who have come forward and revealed that they too endured similar brutal treatment.

Getting FCPS and the School Board to refom the disciplinary process will not be the timely effort we had anticipated and for which we had hoped. Rather, it will require a commitment by parents to voice their concerns at numerous points until change is effected or a new School Board membership is elected. Some School Board members are supportive of true reform, but we fear theirs is a minority view.

Nick was our only child. In all likelihood, we will never have another child, and how FCPS goes about its business will have no direct impact on us. Why then do we care about this?

It is because we do not want any other family to endure the same kind of tragedy we did, nor even to be put through the same kind of humiliating and mean-spirited process that causes wounds that affect a child's view of the world (especially a child's view of adults in positions of trust and responsibililty).

Like you, we strongly believe and support FCPS in maintaining a safe learning environment for our children.

Like you, we never believed we would be ensnared in FCPS's disciplinary process.

Like you, we never could have imagined how brutal it would be.

It doesn't need to be so - especially in one of the wealthiest and most educated counties in the country, and in one of the school systems with the highest objective measures of academic achievement.

If you agree that a review is needed - if not an outright reform - we'd ask that you participate (or at least be present) at the relevant School Board sessions and, if you can't attend, to email the School Board to voice your support for reviewing/reforming FCPS's disciplinary process.

Here is a fact sheet on the immediate and long term reforms being proposed:

http://www.fairfaxzerotolerancereform.org/missionandgoals.html

Well over 500 Hearings are conducted each year - and they are still being conducted today employing the same harsh, demeaning manner that we encountered and which caused Nick to lose faith in the process's fairness and his trust in the adults who conduct it.

We hope that no other students or their families have to endure a similar experience. We ask for your support to engage the Fairfax County School Board and Superintendent at every opportunity to convince them that the community believes reform is necessary and urgent.

What follows is an announcement about the next School Board work session.

v/r
Steve and Sandy Stuban

ALERT! School Board Work Session Mon. March 14, 9:00 am to Address Student Discipline.

Open to the public to witness. PLEASE ATTEND. This topic will be the first addressed in the all-day session. Fill the room to let board members know we mean business! Work sessions are used to discuss topics, request information from staff, review staff reports, and determine what further action to take. We want the school board to take immediate action on seven "stop-gap" changes (see Mission and Goals). Please write the board and demand these. SchoolBoardMembers@fcps.edu Also ask for a joint Board of Supervisors / School Board task force to begin a full review of every aspect of the discipline process, with community engagement. Location: Gatehouse Administration Center, 8115 Gatehouse Road, Rm. 1600, Falls Church, VA.

For more information about Fairfax Zero Tolerance Reform go to http://www.fairfaxzerotolerancereform.org/