BY BRAD A. HODGES
SALISBURY POST

Staff lost control and didn’t care; some children left for high school unprepared, parents said.

The Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education asked a state safety team to evaluate the school and shuffled its staff.

New Principal Vicki Booker wants parents to know all that’s history.

“Everything that has happened is in the past,” Booker said. “I want the parents to know this is a brand-new North Rowan Middle School. These kids are no different than kids in any other part of the county. They can do it.”

Booker took over North Rowan Middle in February, when Dr. Lamont Foster resigned the position during the investigation into discipline and academic problems at the school. He left the school system two months later.

Booker, formerly an assistant principal at Landis Elementary School, has worked in the school system since 1988. She spent seven years as an attendance counselor and social worker.

In the first five months, Booker has concentrated improvement in three areas: safety, test scores and teacher training. Teachers hold a retreat this Saturday, for example, to discuss plans for the coming school year.

“She has high expectations and I respect that,” Assistant Principal Johnny Brown said.

When North Rowan Middle opens on Aug. 7, it will begin a block schedule of four daily classes rather than last year’s seven. That means less time for disruptions — the times when drugs are sold and fights erupt, Booker said.

The schedule will double the time students spend in core subjects of reading, writing and math.

Every student at North Rowan and Knox middle schools will be able to eat free breakfasts this coming year. The meals will be delivered to homerooms to cut down morning disruptions in the cafeterias.

“The cafeteria in the mornings can be a breeding ground for problems,” Booker said.

Each morning, North Rowan Middle will introduce the Channel One program. In exchange for free televisions, VCRs, a satellite dish and free maintenance, the school has signed a contract with Channel One Communications of New York, N.Y. The contract requires the school to air a 12-minute news segment produced for children in each classroom during homeroom.

Channel One, once owned by Whittle Communications of Knoxville, Tenn., enraged education groups a decade ago. Critics said it created an audience of captive children in public schools for advertisers — and had little educational value.

Tony Helms, Knox’s principal, said his school has benefited from Channel One for two years.

“It provides us a big financial help. They keep up the equipment and maintain it,” he said.

North Rowan Middle has eliminated a mass gathering in the gym each morning for those who ride buses. It restructured afternoon dismissal, reduced student time at lockers and required students to wear plastic hall passes around their necks during class to increase visibility.

Cultural diversity training will help teachers bridge gaps between the races. A bulletin board in the hall will feature faculty members to help students get to know them better.

Reducing the amount of time children spend out of school for suspension is one of Booker’s most difficult tasks.

Last school year, North Rowan Middle suspended students and sent them home more days than any other middle school in the county. Between August and December 1999, 303 of the school’s 759 students were sent home suspended at least one day.

Early this year, teachers said suspensions and disruptive behavior such as fighting were cutting into students’ instructional time in many classrooms. Teacher Patty Secrest called about 100 students “hardened, habitual disrupters.”

“Students refuse to accomplish academic assignments or expectations and they welcome parental contact or suspension,” she said earlier this year. “Clearly, suspension is not working.”

Ex-principal Foster had proposed putting three trailers on the campus for administrators to use as a “camp” for the worst offenders. Problem students would have spent two to six weeks isolated from the rest of the student body, their meals and instructional materials brought to the them. Students would earn the right to re-enter the regular classrooms with good conduct.

Booker likens that idea to a form of segregation — where expectations are lower for the removed students and the solution is temporary.

But she doesn’t think out-of-school suspension is always appropriate, either. Students should continue to work in a normal school environment when possible, but still need intervention for disciplinary problems, she said.

“Suspension shouldn’t be punitive,” Booker said. “When you suspend a child, it’s like a revolving door when there isn’t any kind of intervention.”

Parent Eric Lentz, whose daughter enters the eighth grade, agrees.

“Previously they had the idea of putting all the bad eggs in a trailer,” he said. “But I think once they get the discipline working, they’ll step in line and shape up.”

Because of such challenges, Secrest and other teachers — and some parents — have asked school officials to give experienced teachers at North Rowan Middle a bonus for good attendance.

Three-fourths of the school’s teachers have less than three years of experience or are lateral-entry — unlicensed teachers who have entered teaching from other professions.

The Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education is still pondering whether to give teachers a $5,000 bonus if they attend at least 178 of the required 180 instructional school days, or a $4,000 bonus for attending 175 or more.

“I was thankful that we could get a principal in there that could make a positive difference,” Lentz said. “We’ve got a lot of new teachers, and the ones I know will do great.”

North Rowan Middle School hosts an open house next Friday, Aug. 4, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 to 6. All parents and students are invited. For more information call the school at 639-3018.