LOWER POTTSGROVE — The Pottsgrove School Board recently offered a lengthy look at what it is doing to combat violence and misbehavior at Ringing Rocks Elementary School, and parents continued to speak up about their concerns.
For much more than an hour on Oct. 14, administrators from the district outlined the steps taken since parents last packed the board meeting last month and demanded action from the board.
Two experts with the Montgomery County Department of Public Safety also spoke about audits that they did, both in-person and a look at records and policies.
Superintendent David Finnerty shared that “there are a small number of students, 14, who have significant behavioral needs” at the school and Pottsgrove has been “applying progressive discipline, as well as support, so there are consequences.”
The district has also hired additional staff specific to addressing those issues — a feat made much harder by Pennsylvania’s perennial shortage of teachers, particularly special education teachers, said Ann Marie Lucas, the district’s director of pupil services.
Both Lucas and Finnerty said district officials thought they were ready to address these problems when the school year started, but things went south quickly.
“None of us thought we would be here,” Finnerty said. “We thought the planning we put together last spring and this summer,” would be adequate to deal with the ongoing problems at the school. “We walked into this year feeling great. We really did. But when we hit that first five-day week, we saw some behaviors that were unexpected.”
He added, “We had some students move in who were not what we planned for and we had some behaviors that increased drastically from what we were seeing last year. We recognized early, we needed to pivot.”
“We thought we would be off to a great start,” said Lucas, “but student behaviors pushed us to respond.”
Part of that pivot included more training for staff, as well as monthly “town hall” meetings between teachers and administration to allow teachers to talk specifically about what they are seeing in the classroom and suggest ways to deal with it,” said Lucas.
Ringing Rocks Principal Stephanie Myers, the fourth principal the school has had in three years, said one result of those town halls was a plan to restructure recess. “It’s now a zoned playground, with more structured supervision per zone,” she said.
The district is also offering rewards for good behavior and more breaks for students who seem to need it, and many classrooms have a “calm down corner.”
The district has partnered with YWCA Tri-County Area to bring pre-K Counts classes into the district, in part to help the district identify students who may need more support before they even enter school. “There are some children who get identified at birth,” she said.
There has been an increase in the number of students who are identified as special education students. “In the last four years, we have seen an increase in special education students. Just this year, there has been an 18 percent increase year-to-year,” she said. As a result, Pottsgrove has added emotional support teachers in the classroom and in the autistic support classroom.
Some of the measures seem to be having a positive impact. Finnerty showed a chart indicating that from Sept. 8 to Oct. 6, there has been a 60 percent decrease in referrals and a 75 percent decrease in aggressive behaviors.
Lucas also outlined some state-wide and national trends that indicate “it’s not just Ringing Rocks.” There has been a 13 percent increase in “the high-need categories” of special education statewide.
Special education students also enjoy extra protections in the law when it comes to discipline, said Lucas. A student suspended for 10 days “is considered a change in placement and triggers a review.” There are exceptions for incidents involving weapons, drugs and “serious bodily injury,” which is defined as things like “a coma or disfigurement.”
That said, Pottsgrove has suspended or expelled so many students that for the last three years, Lucas said, it has been monitored by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and “cited for over-suspension of students with disabilities. We’re above the state average.”
But the state audits that follow show the district has followed all the appropriate protocols “to a T,” said Lucas.
Transferring those students to special schools is also not always easy, she said. “Some schools are only licensed for certain categories. And distance can be an issue. An hour or an hour-and-a-half on a bus is not always ideal. It’s not like we can immediately find a place and a student can go there,” Lucas said. “None of this is simple.”
It is also hard to find teachers, although Pottsgrove has seen an exodus of staff in recent years. In the same meeting where the board voted unanimously to hire more staff to address the behavior concerns, they also approved eight resignations or retirements, all of them from the elementary levels and four of them from Ringing Rocks.
“There is an educator shortage in the nation, and it’s not going away; it’s getting worse each year,” said Lucas. In October of 2023, there were 839 special education vacancies in Pennsylvania. In 2024, there were 1,379, she said.
Pennsylvania is not alone in these behavior issues, especially among younger students, Lucas said. “These are the COVID babies, born during the pandemic. Between that and increased screen time, they may have missed out in those early, formative face-to-face interactions and peer-to-peer interrelational skills,” she said.
It’s not just the Department of Education that has audited the district, but the Montgomery County Department of Public Safety, was invited by the district to have a look
Specialist Beth Sanborn said “opportunities for growth” include “expanding family and community engagement beyond simple notification,” some the district is already attempting. She also recommended making “equity and cultural responsiveness more implicitly part into your protocols.”
School safety specialist Carly Duco conducted two on-site audits, sitting in classrooms, observing both structured and unstructured time and said the school “has a strong foundation.”
However, parent Robert Bissio said he had heard from multiple sources that some of the students with the worst behavioral problems were not in class and additional staff were in the classroom when Duco conducted her audits. “It kind of sounds like we put our finger on the scale and celebrated a win that wasn’t there,” he said. “If that’s the case, I have to question the validity of the results.”
He also said he has heard from multiple teachers that there is a fear of retaliation against those who speak out about the problems and how well the solutions are, or are not, working. “If teachers are concerned about retaliation, then the feedback they are giving at these meetings has no value.”
Brianna Robinson, a teacher at Ringing Rocks, does not seem to fear retaliation. For at least the third time, she appeared before the board to speak her mind.
“There have been some improvements and adherence to the discipline code has improved,” she said. “But I am absolutely dumbfounded that not a single board member has chosen to come into our buildings to observe or interact with educators and what they face every day.”
Lower Pottsgrove parent Darius Clemmons, an alum of both Ringing Rocks and Pottsgrove High School, asked if the number of students who are misbehaving is so small, “why is this so challenging? My kids are scared. Your teachers are upset, your teachers are sad, your teachers want to leave but they can’t because they feel like they would be abandoning students,” he said.
He also pointed out that there is a possibility that the students who are experiencing behavior problems at school “may not be safe at home. Why aren’t you protecting them? Just call Child Protective Services.”
Parent Lee Ann Gravinese criticized what she called the district’s “façade of transparency. There is a lack of accountability at the very top.”
She said she has pulled her younger child from Ringing Rocks “indefinitely” and is “watching very closely” her other child at Pottsgrove Middle School, who told her there had already been three fights on his school bus. “If I could pull both of my kids and place them out of this district, I absolutely would.”
Parent Eric Orwell noted that most of the reasons given that night for problems at Ringing Rocks “are outside of your control. It was like here’s all the reasons we can’t keep your kids safe.”
Parent Amanda Disheski said she has one student at Ringing Rocks and another at Lower Pottsgrove Elementary, “and I’m exhausted,” adding, “we just want our kids educated and to be kept safe in the classroom. That’s not a lot to ask.”
“As a board, we will demand accountability and continued updates,” said Board President Jay Strunk. “We are focusing on the things we can control.”
“We all want the same for Ringing Rocks — for students to be appropriately supported, for everyone to be safe, to learn, grow, and to feel great about their school environment,” Strunk said. “Again — these are not simple issues. And we know that the solutions will take some time — theyare not overnight fixes. But, we will not be satisfied until we’re sure that the solutions are working.”
He added, “My impression is there is not a cover-up going on, and if there is, I’m a bigger fool than people think I am. I challenge people to show me where it is.”
Further, said Strunk, “it’s amazing how fast negativity flies on social media and how fast rumors spread. We need to continue to fix what’s wrong with this district, but also celebrate what’s right.”
