When I was in school over 20 years ago if you were written up with a referral you went straight to the office where the principal would take care of the behavior issue of that student. Now it seems that LISD has a system in place called L.L.R meaning Low Level Referrals. This policy states that a teacher must have written up a student a total of 5 times before this student is sent to the principle. This is crazy. Teachers don’t just write up children for nothing. How is this creating a better learning environment for or children? By keeping the trouble making child in the class it is disrupting the learning process. Teachers are also told if you can put a monetary value on an item stolen by a student under $50 this is considered a minor offence and is thrown away. So we are teaching our children it’s ok to steal. Regardless of the cost of the item stolen, stealing is stealing, and is wrong and should be handled appropriately. Also threatening a teacher with physical violence, and long as no weapon is produced is considered a minor offence. What will it take the ESC to change this policy, a teacher or student getting shot, stabbed, or beaten? The ESC is not protecting our teachers or students. Case in point at one LISD elementary school Johnston McQueen the principal goes through the referrals the teachers give her on a problem student and throws them in the trash in front of the teachers and tells them that the offences are only minor and the student needs another chance. By doing this the referral numbers are low at this certain campus. The Principal has the nerve to falsify information to the ESC telling them that discipline issues at the school are holding steady or going down. How is this helping create a better work environment for our teachers and students? Since taking on this mission I have learned one thing. The ESC doesn’t care about what is truly going on in our schools, their only concern is the numbers. Numbers show our schools to be doing well, but in actuality we are failing as a district. Many laws are being broken on a daily basis that if the TEA knew about this over half of the staff at the ESC would be in jail. Now here is how they get away with this without leaving a paper trail. It is all done through word of mouth, with no hard evidence to be seen by the TEA. This is not a conspiracy theory. All of my sources tell me this is how business is conducted on LISD campuses. We the LISD community are allowing this to happen. We need to change our discipline policies to better protect our students and teachers. I have told you about many of the issues that are happening on our campuses. From all the information I see on an everyday basis here is what I am asking to happen. The ESC needs to change their discipline policies, and the special education director needs to step down. We seem to forget about our special needs children who are being mistreated every day by a district that doesn’t care. Special education teachers are not given the tools they need to help these children. Some are even using money out of their own pockets to give these children what they need. I will never quit trying to protect our teachers and students, and I make this promise to the ESC: The day you slip up and leave a paper trail I will find it so cross your “T’s” and Dot you “I’s” because this parent is watching every move you make. To my loyal and brave teacher’s thank you for the job you do. Please share this with as many people as you can to get this message heard by the people who are destroying our school district. Thank You, Jason Bates