Beechwood Elementary first-grader Jennifer Evans, front left, and her younger sister, Carleda Walker, a kindergartner, sit together on the second seat of Vicksburg Warren School District bus driven by Willie Johnson Friday. (Jenny Sevcik The Vicksburg Post)

[1/26/04]As he visits each school in the district to poll faculty on his plan for a return to community schools, Superintendent James Price tells two anecdotes.

The first, he says, happened six years ago, when he was principal at Warrenton Elementary. Price walked out of his office and saw a woman running in the door, dressed in a terry robe and fuzzy bunny slippers. She had curlers in her hair and was headed to the secretary’s desk. She said, “I forgot Billy’s lunch money, can you make sure he gets it?” The woman then rushed back out the door.

After a laugh from his audience, Price usually says something like, “That’s the way we’ve got to educate our children. Parents must be that comfortable with the faculty and that vested in the school.”

The other anecdote regards children inside the city being bused to outlying schools.

Since becoming head of the 9,000-student Vicksburg Warren School District in July, Price has said educating children takes parents, students and the school district working together. Each party must be accountable, he says.

His story:

Administrators at Redwood Elementary were having discipline problems with a student, and the parent had not shown up for discipline proceedings.

“I was this close to signing a petition to have the mother picked up,” Price said, holding his index and thumb fingers about an inch apart. “She called me and said, Dr. Price, I want to be there, but I can’t afford the $37.50 cab fare from my house on Speed Street out to Redwood.'”

Price routinely follows with a question: “How can we expect parents to be vested in the education when they’ve never visited the school?”

High discipline figures at the intermediate schools is a reason to return fifth- and sixth-graders to elementary schools, a cornerstone of his plan that would see all elementaries include students in grades K-6 and add an elementary inside the city.

“The fifth and sixth grades are the most crucial time to have parents vested in a child’s education, as evidenced by the number of discipline referrals.”

School district figures show 12,000 formal discipline referrals reported to the administration from the first day of the school year, Aug. 11, to Dec. 5. Fifth- through eighth-graders make up 33 percent of the district’s population, but 69 percent of the referrals were from fifth-, sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders.

“These students are not socially mature enough to handle the rigors of being in a grade with 350 or 400 other students,” Price said. “The discipline rate is so high because all of those children are put together, and they feed off of one another. That compounds the problem.”

He said if students in the fifth and sixth grades return to elementary schools, parents will remain more involved in the children’s education.

Warren Central Intermediate Principal Michael Winters said he agrees with Price’s opinions on parental involvement.

“I believe with neighborhood schools we would get more because parents have a more vested interest there because they’ve been there five or six years,” Winters said. “The parents are more familiar with the teachers and the staff.”

He said moving fifth- and sixth-graders to smaller environments could decrease discipline problems.

“As long as every stakeholder is doing their part it will be successful no matter what the configuration is,” Winters said.

Principals voted unanimously in favor of returning to community schools. Price then asked the board of trustees for a vote of support to ask the community and faculty their opinions on the idea. So far, teachers have voted overwhelmingly in favor of the plan, but Price has four schools yet to visit. If the majority of teachers accept the proposal, Price will begin seeking the community’s opinions in the following weeks.