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Schools

Gibbs High turns a page: 'Follow the rules or else'

The school will add police officers and monitors and remove disruptive students.

By DONNA WINCHESTER and THOMAS C. TOBIN
Published January 8, 2007

The second semester starts today at more than 140 Pinellas public schools, and none could use a new beginning more than Gibbs High.

District officials say the historic St. Petersburg school will reopen as a much different place than it was just 20 days ago, when student defiance, vandalism and teacher frustration reached levels that prompted superintendent Clayton Wilcox to send in district help just before winter break.

Starting this morning, Gibbs principal Antelia Campbell plans a new approach that includes:

- A stronger adult presence in hallways and courtyards.

- A tougher policy against tardiness.

- Tighter enforcement of existing rules on profanity, personal electronics and dress.

- Work details or suspensions for students caught vandalizing the school.

Campbell and other officials spent the holidays identifying the school's most disruptive students and making plans to move them to alternative schools, where they would be able to learn "life skills" and work at their own pace toward a diploma.

Wilcox said educators would make the transfers with "deliberate speed" but added: "We're not just going to cut kids loose, because that's not consistent with what we're here to do."

The school also will crack down on students lingering in hallways during class time. In addition, Campbell has instituted a "zero tolerance" policy on bandannas and other garb that gang members use to "show colors."

She announced that additional police officers will be on campus, though more as deterrents than enforcers. The school also will double its staff of campus monitors to four. Monitors are trained adults who help keep order.

'Nothing new'

"I think this will be nothing new for the many students who are used to following the rules," Campbell said. "For those select few who aren't, it's going to be the turning of a page. There will be that expectation of, 'You're going to follow the rules or else.' "

The first-year principal announced the changes in separate letters last week to parents and staff. Today, she will outline them for students during an extended morning announcement.

"Things definitely will be tightened up," she said in an interview. "We'll really be enforcing the policies that we have in place. Some teachers do a good job of doing that, but others are kind of lax."

Campbell announced the changes after meetings last week with Wilcox and other top district officials.

The negative publicity that resulted from the superintendent's intervention was a blow for Gibbs, a beloved local institution, particularly among the city's black residents.

It also was bad timing for the school's arts and business magnet programs, which count on drawing students from all parts of the county. The magnet application period for the 2007-08 school year begins next week.

Part of the spotlight has shone on Campbell, 34, who told parents in her letter that a Dec. 22 St. Petersburg Times story detailing Gibbs' problems unfairly singled out the school.

"Yes, we have problems," she wrote. "But so does every other high school in this district."

Other officials, including Wilcox, have said the problems became so severe they needed to be aired and addressed. Though reticent about making them public last month, Wilcox said it was hard to ignore an unsigned letter from frayed teachers that echoed what he had seen in his own recent visits to Gibbs.

"We do need to put the word out and solve the problem," said School Board member Peggy O'Shea, an Oldsmar resident whose daughter graduated from Gibbs in 2000.

O'Shea served on the Gibbs School Advisory Council for six years and helped persuade the district to rebuild the school. In late November, she urged Wilcox to investigate after attending a Gibbs faculty meeting with Jade Moore, executive director of the teachers union.

The teachers' concerns focused on student discipline, she said.

"You didn't hear about this stuff in years past," O'Shea said. "It's always a small percentage (of students causing problems), but if they do it consistently it disrupts the class. ... It's time to just reel it back in."

She referred to Gibbs' place at the heart of Pinellas' efforts to maintain racial diversity in schools, and to the district's $58-million investment in rebuilding the school.

"There's a lot at stake right now for this kind of stuff to be happening," said O'Shea, who does not blame Campbell for the problems.

Others, however, have questioned how a young administrator with no previous experience as a principal would be chosen to lead one of the district's more challenging high schools.

Wilcox hired Campbell over the summer, drawing from a pool of seven candidates.

"When I looked around for rising talent, she just came to the top of the list," he said, citing her expertise in curriculum and her talent at building relationships.

"She has the kind of wisdom of somebody older," he said. "I think if people would talk to her they'd see that right away. ... She gets it."

Neighborhood ties

Campbell's father graduated from Gibbs in 1970. However, she was zoned to attend Northeast High, where she later became a teacher.

Her grandmother still lives in the neighborhood along 16th Street S where she grew up, and she maintains close ties with community leaders. Campbell credits Lew Williams, a retired district official, for helping launch her administrative career.

She bristles at the idea that she wasn't ready to become a principal. Stints as assistant principal at Oak Grove Middle School and Largo and Tarpon Springs high schools more than prepared her for the job, she said.

One of her mentors agrees. Former Oak Grove principal Patricia Bell described Campbell as gifted and competent.

"She addresses problems immediately and she addresses them thoroughly," Bell said. "She wouldn't back down from any challenge."

Campbell appears to have won the approval of many parents as well. Wendy Hedeen, whose son Tyler is a senior at Gibbs, praised Campbell for taking charge of a situation she says has gone unchecked for too long.

"Since my son's freshman year, there has been talk of, 'What about these kids who are causing problems?' " Hedeen said. "She's done more in the few months she's been there than anyone did in the prior three years."

Campbell said most Gibbs students are achieving and on track. She estimates that as few as 20 students are responsible for the vandalism that has occurred on campus.

"The frequent fliers are in the office once, twice, sometimes three times a day," she said. "But most of the kids have a great pride in where they go to school."

She also worries that the school's problems could discourage parents from applying to the school in the forthcoming application period.

Pinellas Park resident Nelson Morris, who attended Gibbs in the late 1970s and whose daughter Kelsey will graduate from the school in May, said he always assumed his son would go there as well. Now he's not so sure.

"Unless we see some changes, I may encourage him to choose another school," Morris said.

Moore, the teachers union director, said he liked much of Campbell's plan, but was critical of the consequence for vandalism: a suspension, one or more days of work detail and a demand to pay repair costs.

Student vandals should be expelled, Moore said. "At a campus that beautiful, there should not be even a hint of vandalism," he said.

O'Shea and Wilcox said the Gibbs episode could lead to broader discussions about several issues, including how to staff high schools.

"I think you'll see us as a system learn from this," Wilcox said.

Gibbs High

Enrollment: Fifth largest Pinellas high school with 2,318 students.

Finances: Most expensive Pinellas high school, operating at a cost this year of $12.1-million. Operating costs at most other high schools run between $9-million and $10-million.

Quote: "My expectation is we are going to act civilized on campus." - Antelia Campbell, Gibbs principal.

[Last modified January 8, 2007, 05:45:29]