The current version of the 2013/14 Dallas ISD budget is adding one student per teacher at the middle school level. That is an idea that will only add to the record level of chaos already damaging achievement in DISD middle schools!
The three middle schools grades have the most discipline problems of any grade in DISD. They EACH already account for over 19% of all DISD referrals, EACH! 6 out of every 10 referrals in DISD originate against middle school students! This is not what used to happen when the old "highest referral grade" was the 9th grade going back decades. The 9th grade now for the second year in a row only accounts for less than 14% of all referrals. This progress happened since 9th grade coordinators worked to eliminate the damaging "9th grade bulge." Now all of those 9th grade coordinator positions have been eliminated. Will the 9th grade bulge return?
Until we can decrease the discipline problems in middle schools, we must not add another student to each middle school teacher's workload. Middle school teachers are already dealing with multiple times more discipline problems than the average DISD teacher!
