A new staff member will be dealing with student misbehavior at Blue Earth Area School District next school year.
At their meeting in March, School Board members approved the hiring of an assistant principal/behavior specialist.
Superintendent Mandy Fletcher did not respond to a request for a comment on why the position is needed and how much the person hired will be paid.
Board member Mark Franta has been trying to gather information and has talked to some faculty members.
He says one teacher told him that they spend more than half of their classroom time dealing with disruptive students.
There are disruptions in elementary classes, says Franta, that are quite frequent and take up quite a bit of time.
βIt interferes with instruction and we can’t have that,β he says. βIt’s my understanding, if we could reign in some of the behavior before it becomes a major distraction in the classroom.β
According to the Minnesota Department of Education, nearly 40 percent of the schools in the state have had training, coaching and technical assistance to implement Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports.
The average annual salary for a behavior school specialist in Minnesota is $48,975 but the range typically falls between $41,940 and $58,611.
Not all student bad behavior has been in the classroom and it has resulted in court cases.
In the past two weeks, Blue Earth Area Schools has had four admit/deny hearings involving juveniles in Faribault County District Court.
County authorities investigated an incident that involved a 17-year-old student who struck a bus driver if the face last February and five fights at the high school that occurred during one week March.
The findings were then turned over to the County Attorney’s Office for possible charges.