What was behind the shouting match at Peoria's school board meeting on Monday?
PEORIA – An investigation into the new ELITE GameChangers program brought long-simmering tensions to a head at the Peoria Public Schools board meeting Monday evening.
The Regional Office of Education began investigating the program, which provides extra supports for children having difficulty in the classroom, after multiple teachers raised questions about it, said Beth Crider, regional superintendent for the ROE.
“I don't want to go into too much detail here because we're going to take a problem-solving approach," Crider said. “We're going to work with anyone involved in this project to help it be up to compliance so that they can continue the work that they're doing.”
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The confrontation
Differing philosophies about social emotional learning have long been an issue between the teachers union and administrators at Peoria Public Schools. In December, union President Jeffrey Adkins-Dutro raised questions about the district’s SEL plan while speaking to a reporter at WCBU.
“You'll hear the administration talk a lot about social and emotional services within our district that are supposed to help students behave better socially. But I've come to the conclusion that those are all fake; it's just something the district talks about. It's a façade: You open the door, you walk out into the desert, there's nothing there,” Adkins-Dutro said.
That complaint by Adkins-Dutro sparked a rebuttal on Monday night as ELITE Youth Outreach founder Carl Cannon stood before the PPS board.
“Before this night, I have never been before this body with a complaint. ... My complaint is directed at Mr. Jeff Adkins-Dutro, and a couple of others. Mr. Dutro was recently quoted in a WCBU interview stating that the district has no social emotional learning (program). But that’s not true, we – stand up, ELITE – we are SEL,” said Cannon as about 30 to 40 people rose from their seats throughout the room.
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Reached for comment on Tuesday morning, Adkins-Dutro said he was surprised by the presentation, which included a number of other speakers. Tensions were clearly running high – at one point, the meeting devolved into a shouting match between a former teacher and an ELITE supporter who called the man’s wife, a current teacher in the district, a racist.
Adkins-Dutro defended his comments, saying that the district does not have enough social workers and psychologists. He also said he didn’t understand why Cannon was angry because Adkins-Dutro never considered ELITE to be an SEL entity in the district.
“I think he took that as a personal affront to his program because he said last night, ‘We are SEL,’” said Adkins-Dutro.
What is and isn't an SEL program
Derrick Booth, director of social and emotional learning in Peoria Public Schools, said ELITE is most definitely an SEL program.
“The foundation of social emotional learning is building relationships, making connections, and providing supports and teaching students the social skills they need to be successful,” said Booth. “What Carl is communicating is that they are SEL because they build the relationships with student and family and staff, and they provide those supports that are needed.”
People do not need to be licensed counselors to provide SEL services to the district’s children, said Booth.
“SEL does not have to be attached to a title, it’s not isolated to that. It could be a custodian, a cafeteria worker, it could be anyone who is working with students to provide that support and build those relationships, those connections,” said Booth.
Crider said there are two sides to SEL – the therapeutic side and the academic side.
“In terms of a formal definition of what is an SEL program, there are multiple definitions out there,” she said. “The therapeutic side requires all those letters behind your name ... that is therapeutic counseling and therapeutic social work ... and most people in education don’t have those kinds of licenses. ... But then there’s the academic side of SEL, and that comes through teacher licenses and being an educator and being part of the school system, where we are teaching the academic side, where we’re teaching the preventative skills.”
As a former teacher, Crider said, she would never try to tackle the therapeutic side of SEL.
“That’s something I would not in a million years think I could do. I'm not trained, and I would never want to harm a child," she said. “School systems – and Peoria Public does it well – they have multiple contracts with that professional therapeutic side. So, you have prevention, and teaching social and emotional learning skills and standards, but once you cross over to therapeutic side, you need someone who is trained and has the background. That's the interesting line that a school district has to explore. And the worst part of the entire story is that those people (professional counselors) are few and far between.”
Leslie Renken can be reached at 309-370-5087 or lrenken@pjstar.com. Follow her on Facebook.com/leslie.renken.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Social emotional learning prompts shouting at Peoria school meeting
