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Highlands Today

Elementary Level Measures Vary

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By MARC VALERO | Highlands Today

Published: November 26, 2007

AVON PARK — Individualized Study Services sounds like an educational plan tailored for the particular student.

In a way that is exactly what it is, but years ago ISS was short for In School Suspension.

So as that former name implies, it's a program for students with disciplinary problems that are not serious enough to merit an Out of School Suspension or, at the secondary level, assignment to The Academy at Youth Care Lane alternative program.

But at the elementary level some schools, such as Lake Country Elementary, don't have ISS.

"We really never felt the need for it," said Assistant Principal Judy Dyer. "Our [discipline] referral rate is pretty low and it's a matter of how we choose to use our [teacher] allocations. We'd rather use the money on a classroom teacher instead of ISS."

In lieu of ISS, each grade-level has a policy and there are steps that occur when a child misbehaves.

An intermediate step would be moving the child temporarily to another classroom to take them away from their "audience," she said. If that doesn't work, then they are sent to the front office to a supervised area with either herself or Principal Majel Bowerman, but that is rare.

"Our philosophy is that the teacher is the one who should be seen as the authority figure, not the principal or assistant principal or the dean," Dyer said. That keeps the child looking to the teacher for approval, for bonding, for consequences and that seems to work well at the school.

"We are just very, very blessed with a calm atmosphere here ... so we don't really need an ISS," Dyer added.

Park Elementary School's ISS requires students to do their regular classroom work in an isolated area. But students also are assigned to yard or trash duties.

"It's a very rigid schedule," said Park Elementary Dean Pam Spears. "It's tighter than their normal daily freedom."

It's a retraining day for the students as the ISS teacher discusses the student's particular disciplinary issue.

Typically, the school has one to three students in ISS each day.

"We're trying to dwindle down those numbers and they are dwindling," Spears said.

Students are assigned to one day of ISS, but if they don't follow the rules, they will have ISS the next day.

Fred Wild Elementary has an Individualized Study Services room, in the front office area, where the teacher presents a comprehensive curriculum and format designed to encourage students to earn their way out of ISS.

The students do a lot of academic work while they are in ISS, Principal Ruby Handley said.

"We have days where there is nobody [in ISS] and we have days where part of the day it's full," with six students, she said.

Handley has also worked at schools that did not have an ISS program.

"You work with what you've got to provide an alternative setting for the child, because the ultimate goal is that you keep them in an academic setting; you don't want to send them home," she said.

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