By Kristina Lopez
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Baltimore County Public School officials and the principal of Lutherville Laboratory Elementary School are offering an olive branch to parents and community leaders who nearly one month ago complained about problems within the Social Emotional Learning Program, called SEL.
“Moving forward, we will be working in partnership with the PTA to provide ongoing parent information nights on topics and programs that are current and relevant to teaching and learning, school climate, and programs at Lutherville Lab,” said Principal Molly C. Bissel. “Future topics will be guided by the PTA based on parent input.”
Bissell said the elementary school has sent multiple emails, keeping parents and staff up to date with SEL program adjustments and enhancements. In addition, more help has been allocated with support promised throughout the course of the school year, she said, adding officials “are continuing to seek out more assistance within the program.”
Lutherville Laboratory is a new site for the SEL program. The goal of the program is to enable students, parents, and staff to understand how to control emotions and behavior while focusing on maintaining a positive environment so students can form relationships with those around them. The SEL Program is currently in 19 other Baltimore County schools, including nine elementary and 10 middle and high schools, said BCPS spokesman Brandon Oland.
At a Board of Education meeting on Oct. 8, parents and community members voiced concerns about reports of violence and assaults.
Tina Gentle, a parent of a student at Lutherville Lab, told the crowd “I continue to have serious concerns about the decision-making that took place regarding the transition and implementation of the regional [SEL] program now housed within our school.”
“I first want to clarify and rebut any presumption that has been made that speaking out and questioning this process is in any way demonstrating a lack of inclusiveness or compassion for any child placed within this program,” said Gentle.
“In fact, our community is here to advocate that children impacted by this program deserve better from the county,” she continued. “The rush to transition the program from one school to another has led to multiple failures, and the leading among them [is] keeping staff and students in a safe learning environment.”
Oland, who joined the school system as a communications specialist in 2016, explained that the program is unique because it is designed to help students with individual academic goals in a supportive educational setting. The program is meant to focus on the needs of these individual students that otherwise are not met in a traditional classroom setting.
“The students there are in a smaller classroom, so they get more individualized attention,” said Oland. “They’re working with teachers that are special for that program and they get a lot of wrap-around supports.”
Oland said principals at Lutherville Lab know the SEL students.
“There’s a lot of hugs,” he said. “There’re staff members there to greet them, and that’s kind of emblematic of what the students get across the county. They get additional supports.”
In addition to smaller class sizes, SEL students gain one-on-one experience with individual staff members in the program. In BCPS, these teachers are called “adult assistants,” which are positions named differently across various counties. The assistants provide the students with whatever they need to succeed academically, as well as teach social and emotional skill building to help students function outside the classroom. The idea is to provide these students with a convenient, accessible and overall stress-free integration into these programs.
“Every student has skills that they come in with, that are wonderful, these [SEL] students included, and all students have weaknesses,” said Oland. “Our goal is to try to take those weaknesses and to take any of these weaknesses and make them strengths.”
The SEL program is strategically placed throughout the BCPS community, from the Pennsylvania line to southern Baltimore, officials said. The program itself does not have many students enrolled, making it unnecessary to house SEL in every elementary, middle and high school in the county. However, officials said transportation and accessibility are the ideas behind having a large spread throughout the community.
Before transferring to Lutherville Lab, the SEL program was housed at Cromwell Valley Elementary School for several years. Officials explained that the school could not accommodate the program’s growth. In 2018, the Board of Education decided to move it to Lutherville Lab, which had the space to implement the program.
“It’s a new program,” Oland said. “It’s new for everybody. It’s new for the students who are already there taking classes. It’s new for the families; it’s new for the community; it’s new for everyone including the students who were in the program at Cromwell and on their way to Lutherville,” said Oland.
Oland described some of the problems at the school as adjustment issues.
“At the beginning of the school year, it’s difficult I think, especially at the elementary school level, regardless of what level you’re at, to get into a new routine,” he explained. “So what we saw at the beginning of the school year were students adjusting to this new school, new classrooms, and a new routine.”
At the October board meeting, however, outrage was voiced by PTA Council members and families whose children have been attending Lutherville Lab.
“I am here tonight asking you to take a serious look at the entire program and how it is being run,” said Marie Hoerr, president of the Lutherville Lab PTA. “How are the students placed, how is the program staffed, and what are the qualifications being asked for those that are supporting and teaching the SEL Program?”
Christina Pumphrey, who spoke on behalf of the Baltimore County PTA Council, told the board, “By September, there should have been sufficient time to staff the program and train all involved adequately,” said. “If the program was not fully staffed and if all involved were not fully and properly trained, the program should’ve been delayed.”
Oland acknowledged, “There are legitimate concerns in the community. They want to make sure that their students who have been at the school for a long time will be safe, and that the students who are new to the program are safe– everybody’s safe.”
He added that the members of the board tried to be transparent with the parents and explain to them the program and the steps that are being taken by the school system to support the program as well as the surrounding community.
“The role of the SEL teacher is to support, guide and redirect students who may be demonstrating inappropriate behaviors in school,” said Bissell.
Bissell added that the PTA Council has held meetings about the program, and its coordination with Lutherville Lab, which in the past was known for its award-winning magnet program for science, math and communications.
2 Comments
I am a former teacher and had children at (then) Lutherville Elem. School.I taught in a middle school with a SEL program. Reading the comments of school officials was a Kafkaesque experience. Only when they admitted actual concrete experiences in the school did it become clear what the problems really are. Parents should be concerned and maintain pressure on the school administrators and Greenwood. Their opaque bureaucratic speech and emphasis on the program’s mission and philosophical goals are a shield against facts and reality. It is a real shame that there is a downside to 504 law. I fully support the idea that all children should be educated in the least restrictive environment. The question should be should all children be placed in a ‘least’ restrictive environment? The school where I worked routinely placed up to 10 SEL students with only 1 assistant (not a teacher) into my classroom (28-30 total students in the room). They were disruptive and uncooperative. None of the special area teachers were given additional training to deal with these students. And we were not given information about the students other than some bland facts about their educational deficits. In their self contained classrooms there were up to 5 adults in the room, all special ed teachers and specialists. It was an impossible situation and the saddest part was that the reg ed students were cheated of a more enriched and rigorous program because 1/3 of the class could not handle the physical freedom or the special materials or the sustained focus needed to accomplish the lesson or unit goals. Teachers (the very people who deliver the goods) are never consulted or informed and are never part of the planning for such programs as SEL. There may be meetings, but those are for administrators to give orders to the troops, and the troops never say anything because they will be seen as not cooperative not positive. Teachers do not communicate these things to parents either, for obvious reasons. So it is up to parents to be involved, be at school volunteering, be around to see beyond the smokescreen. PTA and parent involvement is very important.
I previously worked for this school. There is little to no training expected of any of the “additional assistants” and they are underpaid for what is expected of them. And now the whole school seems to be “included”. This is hard for everyone. The children there deserve more!