The board cited budget cuts as the start of difficult decisions, as behavior intervention supervisors urged them to reconsider.
The Long Beach Unified School District approved a classified personnel report that included the potential abolishment of six behavior intervention supervisor positions.
Board members postponed the item at the Feb. 21 board meeting to learn more about what the support plan would be, and passed the personnel report with four votes in favor and one abstention at the March 6 board meeting.
The abstention was from board member Maria Isabel Lopez, who has been vocal against the abolishment since the previous meeting. Student board member Axel Aguilar also abstained from his preferential vote.
“I am personally in favor of positions that directly impact kids versus replacing them with positions that are not necessarily working with students,” Lopez said.
Behavior Intervention Supervisors are responsible for providing behavior support for students with disabilities. This can look like attending Individualized Education Program meetings and helping teachers with classroom management. They are also first responders when students leave school unattended.
Deputy Superintendent Tiffany Brown said the supervisor role is a management position that is not in direct service to the students the way behavior intervention aids do.
However, multiple behavior intervention supervisors spoke during public comment of their first-hand experience addressing behavioral issues with students with disabilities.
April Acuña, a behavior intervention supervisor, assisted a student whose desk was in the hallway for months because the environment inside the classroom was too overwhelming for her.
“Through my work she is now a star student, and a participant in a transition program,” Acuña said. She did not specify what steps were taken with the student.
Michelle Neilsen said she has had students with permanently scarred hands from biting them whenever they were overwhelmed or afraid and others who can’t communicate verbally so resort to banging their heads on hard surfaces to get their caretaker’s attention.
“[These stories] may make you uncomfortable to hear and I’d like for you to remember that we live these stories every day in our work,” Neilsen said. “All 24 of us do this work. Every day. We run toward the crisis that nobody else knows how to help.”
Board member Doug Otto, who made the motion to pass the personnel report, said that as the district continues to face budget cuts and the termination of one-time funds, this is just the beginning of difficult decisions the board will have to make.
“I know that it’s very personal and it’s very important to a lot of people, but I’m confident that by the elimination of these six positions, we will continue to be doing a good job in this area,” Otto said.
Since the previous meeting, Brown expressed that abolishing these positions stems from a need to reimagine approaches to student behavior. She said that the Office of School Support Services is looking at the different types of needs students have and broadening the scope to include trauma-specific behaviors.
“We do need professionals who bring a variety of training and expertise that is not just specific to behavior, but also specific to the social, emotional and trauma-informed perspectives that other professionals also bring,” Brown said.
Neilsen argued that special needs and trauma are not mutually exclusive.
“Behavior and special needs and trauma are intertwined. We have a both/and problem. We need more resources for our behavior department,” Nielsen said.
Sara Frederiksen, one of the 18 behavior supervisors who will remain if the six positions are abolished, highlighted that behavior intervention specialists have diverse backgrounds in education, counseling, psychology, family therapy and mental health.
“Please realize that our specializations, years of experience working in LBUSD and unique skill sets are assets that can contribute to the repurposing vision,” Fredericksen said.
1 comment
Comments are closed.