HENRICO COUNTY, Va. -- Henrico Public Schools are facing an increase in behavioral issues, a trend that's reflected in other schools both locally and nationally.
All schools in Virginia are required by law to submit a breakdown of behavior incidents to the Virginia Department of Education. Based on these reports, Henrico schools saw a roughly 24% increase in negative student behavior for the 2021-2022 school year compared to a report from five years ago.
The majority of these behavioral incidents fell into the categories of failure to comply with staff, disorderly conduct and fighting.
Dr. William Noel, who is Henrico Schools' director of student support and disciplinary review, said the district has seen a noticeable increase in incidents since the pandemic.
Noel said before the pandemic, he would have his first recommendation for expulsion hearings in late October or the middle of November. However, he said that when students returned after COVID-19, the first hearing happened the second week of school.
He further explained that the district is mostly seeing that neighborhood issues are making their way into classrooms, saying it's imperative that schools, parents and community leaders work together to teach behavior and expectations.
"Expected behavior at home may not mirror the expected behavior in school. We should not make that assumption that students know how to behave always," Noel said.
Noel believes that positive change starts with discipline instead of punishing students, saying that discipline works because it teaches students.
Patrick Miller, the president of the Henrico Education Association, said that they have seen a spike in the number of behavioral incident referrals being written for students, something he said puts a direct strain on teachers.
"It is hard to manage a classroom, keep 25 students on task when you have someone disrupting that environment. And you are waiting and waiting and waiting for an admin to put out three different figurative fires in the building before they can even figuratively make it up the stairs to address the problem you are having," Miller said.
Miller said that these situations are creating an environment where teachers feel safe is it is difficult to feel safe in what he says are schools with not enough staff members to handle incidents.
The school district said they have added a significant number of staff members to address student needs, including but not limited to the following:
- 22 school-based mental health professionals
- 2 social workers
- 9 ESL teachers
- 30 elementary school counselors
- 40 full-time special education assistants
- 22 reading specialists
- 16 math specialists
The district said they also have more schools than ever implementing "Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies".
Based on the increase of incidents and concerns of disruption in the classroom, CBS 6 asked Noel if students are being held accountable to the code of conduct in the district, to which he said they are "unequivocally".
As for parents and teachers who may be concerned by the increase in incidents impacting safety, Noel said a lot is being done on the backend, including weekly threat assessment meetings and collaboration with the police and other school districts.
"We're doing a number of things to make sure we're trying to get in front of any inappropriate behavior. So just know that we here are doing everything we can to make sure we're keeping our schools safe,” Noel said.
Most recently, Henrico Schools have begun to introduce metal detectors at three high schools within the district.
The county is testing the added safety measure and the metal detectors were put into place at Godwin High School, Hermitage High School, and Varina High School.
The metal detectors are part of a revamped school safety plan laid out by Henrico Superintendent Dr. Amy Cashwell following several gun-related incidents at Henrico Schools this school year.
