Everyone in our communities can make a difference!

Editor's note: It's not very often when I consider publishing a guest editorial, but after Superintendent Mark Matuska read a statement at the school board meeting related to the tragic death of Rachel Ehmke I felt the community should have the opportunity to know what was said. I believe readers will agree after reading what he has to say.
These are excerpts from the update given by Superintendent Mark D. Matuska to the school board at the monthly meeting on May 21, 2012.

-By Mark Matuska, Superintendent, KM Schools

Our First Concern
Our first concern, of course, was for the family of Rachel Ehmke.  Our thoughts and prayers were with them as they grieved the loss of Rachel.  Many in our community were devastated with the loss of Rachel and were grieving, and we needed to be supportive. 

We have two strong communities in Kasson and Mantorville and the generous offers of assistance from individuals and organizations were overwhelming.  Two local churches, St. Johns and St. Peters opened their doors to parents and their children on the first Sunday night.  The following night, Community Celebration opened their doors for the community.

Our next step as a district was to activate the Crisis Response Team.

Our team met Sunday at noon and developed a crisis response plan that was implemented in all three of the buildings.  We had a number of community members join us for our planning meeting and we were extremely fortunate to have them there.  We met daily throughout the first two weeks to monitor our plan and deal with the multitude of issues that came to our attention.

Our Crisis Team identified one major focus for the first week.  We needed to help the children in our community cope with their tragic loss.

Many of our kids have mastered basic skills that allow them to handle many of the situations that they encounter day to day, but these skills were certainly challenged with Rachel’s death.

Our plan was to provide students with appropriate opportunities during their return to school to express their emotions and identify strategies for managing them.  We established comfort rooms for children at every building with experts from the surrounding area and our school district to help them deal with the loss of a classmate.  Ultimately, we kept them open for nearly the entire week and many students and staff utilized them.  We had individuals, schools and communities throughout the state offer assistance to our kids during those first few days, as they still are today. 

In addition to our concern for the well-being of the entire student body, one of our genuine concerns was keeping a watchful eye on some individual children that we knew were hurting for a multitude of reasons.  Keeping them safe and communicating with their parents was another major focus for the district.

Where do we go from here?

Members of our Crisis Team are still meeting daily.  In school, all of the buildings will have assemblies that address self-advocacy for our children and finding those special people in our lives that we can bring our troubles and our joys to.  Giving our children multiple options to share their thoughts was vital for our team as our communities’ kids entered the summer months.  The middle school will also be inserting additional cyberbullying lessons into advisory before the kids leave for the summer.

As I mentioned, our guidance staff are researching many of the programs our friends throughout the state have sent our direction that may enhance our current Olweus and Character Education programs.  Community Education is anticipating a bullying speaker coming in during June to present the dangers of cyberbullying to our community. We are hoping to bring in a speaker that is as fluent as the gentlemen who presented on Internet Safety this past winter in the Middle and High School.  Addressing our children’s use of social media as we enter the summer months should help many of our children.

We are also preparing an event for August to address the mental health issues and coping skills of our young adults.  Originally, we had hoped to put this program together as early as the week after school was completed, but we were advised by Dan Reidenburg, the Executive Director for SAVE to allow the community more time to heal.  We took his advice.  Both of these events should assist our community in moving forward.

In addition, school events will be planned for September, as it is National Suicide Prevention Month and for October, which is Bullying Prevention Month.

Yet, one of the biggest changes we are going to make in school might make the most significant impact.  We are going to start doing a better job of tracking kids who are being targeted. 

Districts across America have historically tracked the kids that initiate the face-to-face harassing and bullying and report the compiled results to the public.  However, multiple kids can often do seemingly insignificant things that never truly add up to a bullying incident and may not be recorded.  Yet, if a child is on the other side of multiple incidents, they truly are being bullied by the Olweus definition that states “a pattern of behavior repeated over time”.

Instead of just monitoring those who instigate poor behavior, Kasson-Mantorville Schools are going to start tracking students who are targeted by other children.  We anticipate that it may often be multiple individuals at different times who are finding one or more students to target.  All of our staff will be reporting incidents, even if they handled them personally.  This includes our teachers, bus drivers, paraprofessionals, cooks and custodians.  Our guidance staff will be monitoring those who are continually being targeted to better identify those who may be in need.  We need to help those students who are not helping themselves.  We will make this a priority for next year in every building at Kasson-Mantorville.

Yet, with the advent of “Social Media”, less and less of these incidents are face-to-face. 
With this knowledge, we as parents and community members should all strive to follow some general guidelines in the future for the sake of our kids.

• The bottom line is that we need kids and adults to be nicer and more respectful...in school and out of school. 
And…it really needs to be a community effort.  The communities of Kasson and Mantorville are counting on all of us as parents to establish a strong ethical foundation within our kids so that they know how to behave appropriately, even when mom and dad are not around.

• Cyber bullying needs to be addressed and we desperately need community and parent support to help monitor our kids’ behavior. 
Our children now have access to the social media 24-7 and they can receive bullying texts around the clock and on weekends, and now they can receive them anonymously.  The words “Digital Citizenship” need to apply to our future.
As a parent, I need to step it up and I will.  I hope everyone here will join me in that effort.  I will do a better job of monitoring my own kids’ behaviors when texting and when using social media outlets like Facebook.  Together, we can all make a difference.

• We all need to model appropriate behaviors as adults and we need kids to make the right decision when dealing with bullying situations, whether they are the bully or the bystander.
We need to be more professional as adults, because I assure you, our kids are watching.  We truly need adults in our communities to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

• In the school district, we need to continue looking for new resources and strategies that enhance our existing programs to eliminate bullying and meet the needs of all of our kids, including their mental health needs. 
Collaboratively, our schools, communities, and counties need to find advocates for kids that chose not to advocate for themselves. 
Everyone in our two communities can make a difference and we will.