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'New day' hopeful

Returning students mostly heed a renewed emphasis on behavior.

By THOMAS C. TOBIN and DONNA WINCHESTER
Published January 9, 2007

Gibbs High School principal Antelia Campbell, center, helps point students toward their classes onthe first day back from the winter break.
	[Times photo: Willie J. Allen Jr.]

ST. PETERSBURG - Michelle Hoffman, a second-year teacher at Gibbs High School, stood at the door of her classroom Monday, doling out hugs, high fives and mini pep talks to students returning after the winter break.

"You've got to put that away," Hoffman told a boy with a cell phone to his ear. "I will pounce on you."

She is smiling but insistent.

"PUT. IT. AWAY," she said, stomping her foot with each word. The boy stuffed the phone in a pocket.

The students in Hoffman's first-period yearbook class say she is always like this about tardiness and dress code violations. But she tells them things are going to be stricter than ever.

"It's a new day," Hoffman said, outlining Gibbs' renewed focus on the rules, including a tougher tardy policy to stop students wandering the hallways.

Students apparently got the message. The school handed out two or three tardy slips, compared with the usual 200.

"They're definitely watching," said Chelsey Hood, 14.

The "new day" at Gibbs arrived after Pinellas school superintendent Clayton Wilcox responded just before the winter break to reports of discipline problems and vandalism that, according to some teachers, had risen to disturbing levels.

Gibbs reopened for the second semester Monday with a stronger adult presence in the hallways and a staff rededicated to campus civility.

The school also drew support from off campus as several of the district's top administrators arrived before dawn to support the new principal, Antelia Campbell.

Other supporters included some of Campbell's fellow principals as well as School Board chairwoman Mary Brown and her husband, Norm Brown, president of the St. Petersburg chapter of the NAACP.

"The community I feel is going to rally around the school," Mary Brown said. "Respect is the key word here. ... Our expectation is proper behavior, and there is no room to disturb the environment for those that are here to learn."

No iPods allowed

Campbell outlined the new policies in letters last week to parents and staff. But the day had barely begun when she encountered a student wearing earphones hooked to an iPod.

"I went up to him and said, 'You must not have gotten my letter,' " Campbell said. "He said, 'I got the letter. I'm sorry.' "

A short time later, she called the mother of a 10th-grader to tell her he was being reassigned to another school. After failing three of his first-semester classes, the boy had come to school Monday with a defiant attitude, Campbell said.

"I told his mom, 'He can go here or he can go there,' " she said. "The mom said, 'You send him where you need to send him.' "

Guidance counselor Valerie Santos also was pleased with what she saw.

"These are good kids, but they don't always have what they need at home," she said. "There's a piece missing somewhere. Sometimes we can give it to them at school, and sometimes we can't."

Stormy Smith, 14, heard about the rules in each of her morning classes.

"They're really serious about it," she said.

Chris Haugabook, 16, seated with a group of friends in the cafeteria, said he didn't completely agree with the crackdown.

"I think it's sort of a little overboard," he said. "But I understand what they're trying to do. It will make the learning environment better."

Article rankled some

Alex Ramsey, 15, said students were "definitely on their best behavior" Monday. But he wondered what will happen when the extra adults go back to their normal posts and school administrators begin focusing on business as usual.

School resource officer M.A. Hawkins said success will depend on consistency.

"Kids will follow the policy if all the teachers adhere to it," he said. "But you can't expect to turn around in one semester something that's been going on for years."

Not everyone has been happy with how the situation has played out in recent weeks, including a recent St. Petersburg Times story that detailed problems at the school.

Wilcox brought in extra support for Gibbs in late December, partly based on an unsigned letter from frustrated teachers but also after his own visits to the campus.

He also cited four recent incidents in which Gibbs teachers faced discipline after confrontations with students. The encounters, he said, were indications of a troubling climate at the school.

But Campbell and others say changes were under way before Wilcox intervened, and that other schools suffer the same problems.

Campbell noted that she interviewed for the Gibbs job on a midsummer Thursday and reported for work the following Monday. "My message is these issues were here before I got here," she said.

Hoffman, the yearbook teacher, came to Gibbs from St. Petersburg Catholic High School.

'Positive' things, too

"For me, personally, it took my breath away in a negative way because there are a lot of things that are happening at Gibbs that are very, very positive," said Hoffman, who also teaches American history.

"There are problems that are being addressed here that are universal in the school system," she said. "Some of this is a societal issue. Some of it may be specific to Gibbs. But the fact that some folks sent a blind letter on behalf of teachers, they didn't speak for me. I'm very happy here."

Gibbs High School

Number of students: 2,318

Enrollment by race: 49 percent white; 40 percent black; 5 percent Hispanic; 4 percent Asian; 2 percent mixed

School's slogan: "A tradition of excellence"

10th-graders reading at grade level or above: 28 percent

10th-graders at grade level or above in math: 59 percent

School grade from the state: C

Graduation rate: 59 percent

Community partnership: Bright House Networks

Source: Pinellas County School District, Florida Dept. of Education

[Last modified January 9, 2007, 00:42:11]