I once asked an elementary school principal if she had any students she suspected were sexual abuse victims. She looked at me like I was from another planet. "Of course we do. See that little boy over there? Three years ago I was reporting him as a victim. Now he is assaulting other students in the closet and restroom."

In my naiveté, I asked, "Why didn't you report it?" The principal shook her head. "The last teacher in this community that reported a sexual abuse case was out of a job in less then four hours. He was standing by the airstrip with all his possessions in a cardboard box waiting for a 206 to pick him up. This community will not back us up when we report."

An acquaintance, who holds a PhD in Education, was visiting a "hub community" high school. She became intrigued with the student culture and conduct and stayed for two days. While there, she conducted a survey and found that the students were addressing the teachers with the "F" word an average of four and a half times an hour. When she asked why they put up with it, she was told, "The community will not back us up, the job pays well, and I only have three more years to retirement."

Neither of the above examples happened in the Anchorage area.

Principals are often in a tough, if not untenable, position. They are confronted with angry parents who are furious that their 'perfect little child' got kicked out of school for bad behavior. If the principal doesn't get the 'poor, innocent little thing' immediately reinstated, the parent starts making calls, writing letters to the editor, disrupting Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meetings and radically altering the local demand for antacid pills and mood-altering adult substances. Some school officials, lacking integrity, courage, or both, wilt under this pressure and teacher morale plummets.

I am not a particularly sensitive person, but even I can tell a school at which the principal doesn't back up the teachers. All I have to do is hang around with the teachers for a while. A cloud of gloom hangs over the halls and classrooms. The faculty lounge feels like a funeral home and the teachers cannot wait to get off the real estate. If behavior standards are maintained and supported, the teachers are excited about both their work and their students. The kids are learning and not having the class disrupted by the children who are not able to discipline themselves and there is a cheerful, upbeat feel about the place.

Classroom decorum and reasonable standards of behavior are essential for a learning experience. It is utterly unfair and a gross misuse of resources to waste 25 students' time while the teacher deals with two students who did not come to school to learn and instead get their kicks out of disrupting the class. We must find a way to empower teachers to be able to control the classroom and protect those teachers from wimpy principals and school administrators who will cave into parental and community pressure.

When Representative Tom Brice introduced school safety legislation to try to address this issue this last legislative session, the Knowles' administration cheerfully attached a fiscal note of $63 million dollars to this pretty good bill; this action affectivity killed it. Poor Tom actively wondered about the value of being of the same political party as the Governor. Tom's bill provided for in-school suspension. The state teachers' union rightly points out that we should consider where to place kids who are booted out of class. I am not sure the school needs a parallel system for these kids, but putting them out on the streets is problematic. I like the Mat-Su district's system of having the recalcitrant kids go to school on Saturday.

Our office has introduced draft legislation (House Bill 253) on safe school issues in an attempt to solve parts of these problems at a lower price. We propose that each school district go through some process with community involvement. Their objective would be to get consensus on acceptable school behavior standards and develop a procedure for handling children who do not abide by the standards. One goal of this process would be to protect the teachers who enforce the pre-agreed standards consistently. I don't like State mandates on local schools, but I do not see any other way to get some gutless local districts to back up reasonable standards. Your input would be greatly appreciated.

On a related issue, it seems to me that when a junior high or high school student assaults a teacher or another student it should fall under police jurisdiction. I would be pleased to hear arguments to the contrary. I am consistently appalled by how cruel children can be to one another. My vivid memories of being bullied and ridiculed by other children reminds me of the fear, rage, and hopelessness that I felt. Our schools ought to be a place of safety and peace for our kids, not a gauntlet of abuse to be faced with during every school day. School staffing levels must be such that all of the students have some level of supervision while they are on the school property; assaults and harassment must not be tolerated.

Finally, a federal public policy decision to mainstream physically and behaviorally challenged children has a valid goal and often brings tolerance and understanding. This policy is also a great respite for their parents as there are far too few services for these children and families. I am not sure that we have reached the proper balance of the needs of these kids and the impact on the rest of the student body. Specifically, I am told by teachers that children with behavior-related disorders are virtually immune legally from any kind of accountability or behavior discipline. This apparent double-standard is difficult for an adolescent to deal with on a cognitive level, let alone on an emotional one. Greater minds than mine need to engage on this issue and work toward some fine-tuning of federal law and our local policy.

Blaming schools for our children's behavior problems is a logical disconnect. Blame-shifting is a handy tool for each of us to duck our responsibility and for guilt-free living, but it doesn't help much in solving the problems. Kids that go to school angry and unable to control themselves are not the schools' primary responsibility to fix. We parents need to take responsibility for our kids' behavior and demand that our schools deal firmly, quickly, and fairly with violent and disruptive behavior. Let our schools be places of learning and peace, not a misbehavior zoo.

Please visit my web site for copies of our school safety bill (HB253) and give us your ideas: http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/Dyson.htm. Click "Legislation"

We need your input.

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