Union: Grand Rapids school reports are misclassified to hide problems

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/04/union_grand_rapids_school_viol.html

by Dave Murray | The Grand Rapids Press
Friday April 18, 2008, 10:04 PM

GRAND RAPIDS -- Grand Rapids Public Schools leaders are hiding the number of weapons, drugs and other incidents in the city schools by describing them as less-threatening offenses on district safety reports, teachers union leaders claim.

But Larry Johnson, the district public safety chief who signs off on every report, said the teachers don't know how to read the safety documents -- and stands by numbers that show violence in the schools decreasing over the past three years.

Grand Rapids Education Association leaders have argued the schools are unsafe and said staff routinely covers up incidents involving knives, guns and box-cutters by categorizing incidents where these weapons are found or seen as "disorderly conduct," "contraband" or other phrases they said do not reflect the severity of the problems.

"It's very clear that the district has misclassified and underclassified these reports," GREA President Paul Helder said Friday. "There is no way their data is accurate. They need to stop trying to hide the truth from the voters."

Superintendent Bernard Taylor lashed out at the union Thursday, saying it is using school safety as a bargaining chip in increasingly tense contract talks through an "unnecessary, unfounded and self-destructive campaign."

Helder said Taylor challenged him to prove the schools were dangerous when Helder raised the issue earlier in the year. In response, the union requested 26,000 pages of reports covering incidents from the 2006-07 school year and the first two months of this year.

FULL story at link.