JCPS offers rare glimpse inside troubled Minor Daniels Academy

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) - The first bell is about to ring and inside the front doors of Minor Daniels Academy, students are lining up to go through a metal detector.

One by one, they take off their shoes and chat with security officers and staff members. If the detector goes off, the student is pulled to the side and staff members use a wand to conducted a more detailed search.

The school located on Bashford Manor Lane has long been used by Jefferson County Public Schools as an alternative school for high school students with behavioral problems.

This year, it has been combined into middle and high school and is the centerpiece of district's effort to reshape alternative education. On Wednesday, JCPS offered the media a rare walk-through tour of Minor Daniels Academy, but cameras were not be allowed inside.

“Our kids are going to make mistakes, but I think we are all public servants,” said Don Dillard, who took over as the school’s principal two weeks before school began in August.” And I think being public servants that's why we get paid to deal with kids and get them on the right track.”

The first two months of the 2015-16 year have not been pleasant. One teacher has been locked in a closet, another teacher has had her car stolen. Several other teachers and staff members have been assaulted. Nearby businesses have been ransacked.

"I don't we have given enough time to really let it get wings and fly," said John Marshall, the district's chief equity officer. "But we do understand that the stuff we're putting in is research-based and is proven to help students in any school, particularly schools with fragile students like this one."

New plan for alternative education

The Jefferson County Board of Education voted in March to move forward with the plan to merge Buechel Metro High and Kennedy Metro High and make changes at three other alternative sites -- despite concern about increased class sizes and few details on how the work would be implemented.

District officials say the changes will better meet the needs of individual students, as well as reduce the drop-out rate and increase the graduation rate of the district's alternative students as well as help ensure safe and orderly environments in the district's other schools.

The school is using a method called "restorative practices." According to the International Institute for Restorative Practices, the premise behind restorative practices is that people are happier, more cooperative and productive when those in positions of authority do things with them, rather than to them or for them.

Instead of strict discipline, they're requiring teachers and staff to not just punish bad behavior but help kids resolve their issues, said Cherie Dawson-Edwards, an associate professor in the Department of Justice Administration at the University of Louisville who has been working with JCPS for about 18 months to implement restorative practices in its schools.

In addition, staff at Minor Daniels Academy has been trained on Positive Behavior Interventions & Supports -- strategies for defining, teaching and supporting appropriate student behaviors to create positive school environments.

Last month, the Jefferson County Teachers Association surveyed teachers at Minor Daniels about the working conditions at the school. Out of more than 30 on staff, 22 responded.

Results show 86 percent of them do not feel safe in the building, more than half would transfer right now if they could and 90 percent plan to transfer at the end of the school year.

In addition, two teachers addressed the school board at Monday's meeting, saying they want to leave the school because of the violence.

Marshall and Dillard say they need more time to reach the students and get more of the teachers and staff on board with the changes.

"A lot of teachers and educators want to move kids around and not deal with the problems," Dillard said. "We have challenging kids, they would not be in this school if they were not challenging."

Rare walk-through of Minor Daniels Academy

The school has two floors and currently has an enrollment of 174 students -- 79 in middle school grades and 95 in high school.

Middle and high schoolers are separated from each other and are taught on separate floors.

On each floor, there is a Positive Action Center -- a place for students to go to "calm down" after they have been removed from class. There is also a Transition Center -- a place where students go as they "transition" in and out of the school.

The centers and transition rooms are being used at most JCPS schools, Marshall said.

At a non-alternative school, the transition rooms help students who have come back from long-term suspensions, truancy, medical leave or any other issues before they are placed back into a regular setting.

Dillard says students are placed in the Positive Action Center for "no more than two class periods" and work with an instructor or counselor on "any issues they might be having."

"It just gives them enough time to recompose themselves and then hopefully get back to class," he said.

The new program was implemented very quickly. Dillard, who was previously an assistant principal at Farnsley Middle, was named principal just eight days before school started, and he hired only two of the school's teachers.

“I wish I had more time. I'll be honest with you, I wish I had more time,” he said.

Dillard acknowledges he has often run into problems with some teachers who have been "resistant to change."

"We have (some) educators that concentrate on the problem and not the actual kid or the potential of the kid," he said.

One day earlier in the year, Dillard said there were more students in the office or in a transition center than there were students in classrooms.

"I can't live with that," he said. "We have to educate our children and that can't happen if they are being sent out of the classroom. We are trying to keep kids in class, not send them out or suspend them."

Dillard said in some cases, that has made some of his teachers mad.

"Some teachers just want to remove whatever the problem is from their class," he said. "My biggest challenge is trying to change the culture of the entire building. And that is going to take some time."

Since the current school year started, there have been 26 suspensions of high school students and 73 middle school student suspensions at the school, according to JCPS data.

Despite the district’s new approach towards alternative education, Marshall said JCPS “does not tolerate abuse or other assaultive behavior towards staff.”

"That kind of behavior is not acceptable," Marshall said. "And we are dealing with those cases on an individual basis."

On Wednesday while the media was interviewing staff outside the school, there was commotion from inside a second floor classroom. Students were yelling and screaming, papers trickled out window and the window shattered.

Bonnie Hackbarth, a JCPS spokeswoman, said the window shattered when a student closed it.

"It was not slammed, nor was the student angry," Hackbarth said.

Parent concerned about daughter's education

Charrika Gray's 16-year-old daughter has been assigned to Minor Daniels Academy. So far, Gray says she is not impressed.

“They're not disciplining them," she said. "They've given up on them. They send them home. As soon as they do something, they don't want to deal with it. They just push them away."

Gray, a single mom who works full-time in the evenings at Jewish Hospital, said it "feels like they have given up on my daughter."

"I'm worried that when she goes back to Shawnee (her resides school) she is going to be way behind," Gray said.

Gray said her daughter never brings home books or work.

"It's all done on the computer," she said. "We don't have a computer a home. I have taken her up to the library, but I work second shift. It's hard to help her. I need the school to help me so I can help her."

Reporter Antoinette Konz covers K-12 education for WDRB News. She can be reached at 502-585-0838 or @tkonz on Twitter.