E
vanston i an August 15, 2022
Evanston, IL.
Evanston Township High School
Vol. 106, Issue 1
After year in isolation, student discipline plagues District 65
By Jessica Sehgal, Bridget Baker, Marin Ubersox, Sophie Milner-Gorvine, Zoe Kaufman Executive Editor, In-Depth Editor, Assistant In-Depth Editor, Staff Writers The 2021-2022 school year bore hardships for students across the country. Returning to a full-fledged school schedule after a year of isolation proved to be challenging for various reasons, and student behavior was representative of this difficulty. A July report by the National Center for Education Statistics revealed that 84 percent of public schools believe that the pandemic negatively affected student behavior, and 87 percent of public schools reported that the pandemic took a toll on student socio-emotional development. The Evanston community was no outlier in the midst of this trend. “[With COVID-19] and being remote and coming back to school [in] August and September, [there] was a lot of readjustments, both for us as teachers and for the students,” one District 65 teacher, Riley*, shares. “For many of [students,] being away for those 16-18 months, they hadn't really interacted with a peer in front of an adult, maybe at the park or online, but never face to face, and never certainly with [school rules] like, ‘No, we don't use that kind of language here at school,’ or ‘No, you cannot touch them,’ ‘No, you can't fight.’ They really struggled with getting socialized and normalized back into what a real school day looks like.” *The teachers in this article spoke to the Evanstonian despite a rumored mandate from District 65 that prohibited employees from talking to the press about some of the events
that made headlines during the 2021-22 school year. As such, these teachers’ names have been changed to provide anonymity. In alignment with Riley’s perspective, some students noticed their peers struggling to adjust to the behavioral standards of in-person school. When two recent graduates of Haven Middle School considered their time in eighth grade, they both separately described this past year as “crazier” than previous years. One of those students, freshman Paula Hlava, recalls the increase in physical altercations amongst students. “There [have always been] fights at Haven—like that’s just always been a thing,” she prefaces. “But it got a lot more violent and more intense this year and more frequent. On the first day of school, there was already a fight, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, this school’s crazy’ … That [became] a constant thing—the fights.” In late March, a Haven staff member required an ambulance after being punched by a student for attempting to break up a fight. In early April, a Haven teacher was sent to the hospital after her attempt to deescalate a student fight resulted in injury. The altercation caused the school to enter a soft lockdown, and Evanston police officers and paramedics were called to the scene. At the following Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Board of Education meeting, parents and guardians rallied for stronger safety precautions and protocols in District 65 schools. “We, as a District 65 Board, share a concern for safety at Haven. Physical and emotional safety are a top priority given that it’s foundational to the ability to learn. We have made sure that we are fully up to date
and are authorizing and encouraging the necessary deployment of resources,” Board President Anya Tanyavutti responded at the meeting. Weeks later, in early May, Nichols Middle School temporarily locked down after a student became violent with a staff member.
tor who used to teach. I am very much connected to teaching, learning and connecting with students, and so I still carry some grief around not being a classroom teacher.
I think that being visible, being proximate, being responsive to phone calls, emails, going to games and other things that are happening in town is really important. Because it shows that the leadership at the high school showed up to this particular event because it matters to the community. And I think that's how we strengthen our bonds, by being proximate and showing up and having genuine and authentic conversations with people.
Various reports disclose that the student was allegedly involved in a sexual assault case that occurred off campus, and the staff member sustained injury when confronting the student about the case. [Continued on Page 8]
Illustration by Ahania Soni
Campbell talks new role, fresh vision
By Ahania Soni, Ethan Ravi Executive Editor, Assistant News Editor
As Marcus Campbell steps into the role of District 202 Superintendent, the Evanstonian spoke with him about his passion for education, his vision for ETHS, and his hopes for his time as superintendent. What prompted your interest in education? I started to be interested in education when I was a junior in high school. I was taking AP Language at the time. And my AP Lang and Comp teacher asked me to teach Camus’ The Stranger…And I led discussion in that class. I had so much fun. I felt so at ease in leading a conversation that I decided that maybe I should become a teacher. Did you have any difficulty giving up your job as a teacher for that of an administrator? There was some grief associated with that transition. And there's still grief, I still hold grief around teaching, which is why I try to connect with students as much as I can whenever I can. But the loss of not having a classroom and curriculum and doing that thing, it still exists. But I teach now at Northwestern, and [I’m] teaching in preparation classes, because it's still very much a part of who I am. I see myself more as a teacher that happens to be an administrator, instead of an administra-
What do you like about your job as an administrator? I really like working with teachers to create the kind of environments that they need to be successful with students. And then [I like] to create the conditions that are ready for school, to set the culture, to climate, to be able to talk about instruction, to be able to coach teachers, to be to have conversations with safety, whomever it is, [I like] having teaching and learning at the center of that. So I really appreciate those aspects of the job. What don’t you like about your job as an administrator? What I don't like is when we're just faced with tough decisions, decisions that have all of these unintended consequences. You want to do a good job, and you want people to feel supported, but a lot of times there are decisions that have to be made that I would rather not have to make. And sometimes you have bad and worse decisions to make. The pandemic really showed us that. How do you try to stay involved in the ETHS community and Evanston in general?
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What was your experience starting as a young teacher at ETHS? While I was teaching in Evanston, I noticed that I had a lot of students of color, and I had a lot of white students. And I just felt at home. I felt like this engagement and interaction that I had with students matched my sentiments as a teacher, and the engagement and interaction that I had with the staff matched my sentiments as a young teacher. I had a lot of people here looking out for me, taking care of me as a young kid starting my career here. So I felt right at home. The school really embraced me. People that have been here for decades really extended themselves to me to show me the ropes, to give me some good pointers as far as how to start class, how to end class. All of those are things that were really, really very important to being a successful teacher. How do you plan on working towards racial equity at ETHS? So we’ve had a lot of professional devel-
opment, a lot of conversations about it. There’s training that our new teachers go through for three years that is central to their instructional practice. I [have filled] a position that I’ve created as the equity director, who would be responsible for more equity programming, professional development, opportunities to talk about race and other aspects of identity that come along with that, because we’re intersectional beings. And so there will be more to come. There’s a lot of history that has to be confronted, as we move forward to create a new way forward. And I think the only way we do that is to understand our past, to understand our present, and then to move forward. So that comes through a lot of conversation, observation, a lot of vulnerability, a lot of holding up mirrors. [Continued on page 6]
Superintendent Marcus Campbell Photo courtesy of ETHS
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