Welcome to the website of Robert Shaffer.  Please come back very often.  

I wil be updating this website from time to time regarding student behavior and attendance issues that parents and the community should be aware of.  When problems arise in these areas it is of utmost importance that we are all on the same page as we work to solve/ease them.  We want our childrens' education to go forward with as little intrerruption as possible. 

The more informed parents are of what the major concerns are in these areas, the easier it is for us to work togehter.  Please feel free to talk to me here or over the phone at 949-4218.

I would like to call student/parent attention to the following sections of our handbook: Dress (Student); Electronic Devices; Leaving School; Leaving Class; Tardiness To School Or Classes; and Assault.  Please take 10 minutes and read these sections.  They cover probably 80 percent of the problems students often find themselves involved with.  Minor disruptions of class and insubordination (not following teacher directions) involve another 15 percent.  The other 5 percent is miscelaneous.  Please read these sections and call me for questions.  If students have misplaced their handbooks, and parents would like a copy to read, also call me at 949-4218.  I would be happy to provide you a copy and amplify on any of these important handbook sections.

Please check our handbook under "Assault."  It explains the various levels of students "bothering" other students, and what the consequences are for doing so.  One area parents and students often have difficulty dealing with is when two students have a physical fight and both receive identical suspension time...regardless of who throws the first punch.  The school's position is, if both are swinging at each other, both are fighting and receive the same discipline.  There are so many "drama" variables at work which result in a fight, so many "he said, she said" issues, that it becomes impossible to accurately determine who really starts a fight. As we are suggesting, the person that starts things may not be the one who throws the first physical punch, but the one who verbally assaults another student.  Further, it is our position that there are many ways students can avoid getting into physical fights.  It comes down to their individual decisions on whether to do so or not.  The best way to avoid fighting is, of course, for students to tell us...parents and school officials... in advance that a problem is brewing, and asking us to intervene and head off a potential fight through counseling. 

Let me be clear.  There is no official senior skip day.  Yet, each year about 60 seniors (56 this past Monday) "skip" on a certain day and call it that.  Strictly speaking, it's a day of truancy.  On a day of truancy students normally can't make up missed class work, and they are suspended.  However, on this day most of those 60 or so parents "cover" for their students with various "legitimate" excuses for their absences.  This bothers me as we are sending the wrong message to students about being responsible and telling the truth.  Several parents do not "cover" the absences, and go along with the school's aspproach to discipline in such matters.  My hat is off to them.  I don't want to get into a description of the tragic happenings students have become involved with from other schools on "skip days."  If we continue to "cover" these skip days here at Brookside, and offer no deterrence, as the saying goes... it's an accident waiting to happen.

Our rules are clear.  Check the handbook.  Yet, there have been 39 instances already this year where we have had to confiscate these electronic devices.  One student has already had a 2nd offense and chose to forfeit the phone for the rest of the year. These devices are very disruptive to the educational operations and the building atmosphere.  Our counterparts at the JVS have as great, or greater, problem, and are harder on students than we are with consequences.  Please...they have absolutely no place at Brookside during the school day from 8:05 a.m. to 3:09 p.m.