Federal Way school district, parents address challenges at Sequoyah Middle School

Published 10:00 am Friday, December 4, 2015

School district officials and parents are working together to figure out why there has been a perceived increase of behavioral problems at Sequoyah Middle School this past fall.

The school took on 78 new students this fall with the recent development of Park 16, an apartment complex on 16th Avenue South.

“Here’s the challenge, we’re still trying to figure out what the challenge actually is,” said Federal Way Public Schools Superintendent Tammy Campbell. “It’s not just about new students.”

Campbell noted other schools experienced the same influx of students, if not more, and hadn’t had the same problems. Todd Beamer High School enrolled 72 new students while Rainier View Elementary enrolled 158 this fall.

Since the issue was brought to the school board’s attention on Nov. 10, there’s been multiple community meetings on the issue.

Parents at Sequoyah Middle School also formed a volunteer group to help teachers and staff manage the new students and concurrent behavioral issues.

Amy McGraw got the idea to form Guardians and Parents as Partners after her sixth-grade daughter began telling her stories of teacher frustration, student misbehavior and chaos.

“My daughter, who really likes school and was really happy and really liked her teachers, started coming home and saying, ‘We didn’t do that activity because everybody was bad. The teacher had to stop class, had to start all over again,'” McGraw said. “… Then she commented that the boys at her table took some of her supplies when they were supposed to be doing an experiment.”

McGraw, a PTSA volunteer, wanted to see for herself what was going on so she offered to sit in a science classroom to help corral the kids, which the school welcomed.

“What I can tell you is there is an alarming state of crisis at the school right now,” she told the Federal Way Public Schools board at that Nov. 10 meeting. “If you were to spend anytime there, I can guarantee that you would come away with the same feeling, same alarm, same frustration, depression and anxiety that I and many of the families, parents and virtually all of the staff are feeling at this point.”

McGraw was impressed with the teachers and saw them working very hard but said there wasn’t the level of learning happening that needed to be.

In the beginning of the school year, McGraw said there were new students spending time in the commons area drawing because there wasn’t enough space in the classroom.

Inside the classroom, she witnessed a student call a teacher a “f****** b****” in the middle of class. In the office, she witnessed a substitute walk in and quit.

“Last week, a fight broke [out] in the middle of a seventh grade class and another student broke it up,” she said, adding that same day she was taking a child to the nurse because a rock had been thrown at him and she saw emergency medical services coming in to help a student whose hand had been crushed in a fight. “… We can’t expect our wonderful teachers to teach in this atmosphere.”

Concerned parent Jennifer Cox, a PTSA member, also spoke at the Nov. 10 board meeting and said there are students who have left the school because their families don’t feel they are in a safe learning environment.

“I’m upset to no end about that,” she said. “I don’t know what to do about it.”

McGraw said she didn’t know what to expect when she and Cox voiced their concerns to the school board but has been very impressed with the district response.

“I really didn’t expect much but at the end of the meeting, several school board members and the superintendent approached us,” she said. “From the next school day on, there was an increased presence.”

Principals at Todd Beamer and Sequoyah hosted community forums, which were well attended, to assess how the transition and collectively think of areas to improve.

Campbell said the district will provide more professional development training to teachers and staff and are asking what resources they need.

The school district is also working ahead of the curve, as they expect the same influx of students to come to Panther Lake Elementary and Illahee Middle School when another apartment complex opens in January or February.

District officials are letting Panther Lake administration hire new teachers now and are preparing for registration.

Overall, they expect 900 more new students throughout the district in the near future.

“Our families are coming together to recognize it will take a community to support every school,” Campbell said.

Guardians and Parents as Partners

McGraw said Guardians and Parents as Partners is not associated with the PTSA and will be free to parents and community members who want to help out and can pass the school district’s volunteer background check.

“This is its own entity that’s expressly for building relationships, [maintaining] safety and helping in classrooms,” she said.

McGraw said she estimates about 50-60 people are interested in helping with the group. Her goal is to get some tangible numbers on the frequency of fights per week and to see a “good decrease” or as few as possible.

“I would like to see as many lunches during the week have one or two parents there interacting every day,” she said, adding that she’d also like to see parents helping teachers as needed.

“Another goal is to provide a more official mentorship type program where parents and community members could come in where they have a few students they could meet with each week that need some additional mentoring and support.”

The roll of a volunteer in Guardians and Parents as Partners will be to assist the teacher in getting the help they need – calling security, not acting as security – and being a second set of eyes and ears.

For more information on the group or to learn how to join, email gappseq@gmail.com.