UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

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SAFE AND DRUG-FREE SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

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TELECONFERENCE

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MONDAY

NOVEMBER 20, 2006

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The Advisory Committee met by teleconference at

2:00 p.m., David Long, Chairman, presiding.

[PRESENT]{.underline}:

DAVID LONG

KIM DUDE

FREDERICK E. ELLIS

MIKE HERRMANN

MONTEAN JACKSON

RUSSELL T. JONES

SHEPPARD KELLAM

SUSAN KEYS

TOMMY LEDBETTER

SETH NORMAN

MICHAEL PIMENTEL

DEBORAH A. PRICE

DENNIS ROMERO

BELINDA E. SIMS

HOPE TAFT

HOWELL WESCHLER

CATHERINE DAVIS, DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICER

DONNIE LEBOEUF, SURROGATE FOR J. ROBERT FLORES

[P R O C E E D I N G S]{.underline}

1:10 p.m.

DR. LONG: Given what our objective is for today, if we could start on
page 3, then, for the potential recommendations as they go forward to
the Secretary of this interim report. There were, on page 3, designation
of unsafe schools, six different potentials there.

Any discussion, changes, thoughts?

MR. ROMERO: This is Dennis.

DR. LONG: Yes.

MR. ROMERO: The number two option, the number two item here, consider
incidents of violence as the only factor. If you recall, I had some
reservations about that piece, and per our last conference call, earlier
this morning I was able to email that I hope everyone received the
research data that supports to the contrary. And I\'m certainly willing
to entertain a conversation about this at this time.

DR. LONG: Dennis, this is Dave. Yes, I did get that. Maybe I
misunderstood what you just said, but number two, consider incidents of
violence as only one factor, not the only one, but \-- or am I
misreading it?

MR. ROMERO: I\'m sorry. You\'re absolutely right.

I guess \-- I do not take exception to that point now.

DR. LONG: Okay.

MS. PRICE: You know what we could just do there after B- just to make
sure that people understand that. After it says only one, we could put
parentheses, not the only one, and just have that. It\'s redundant, but
it might be helpful in reading it.

DR. LONG: Deborah, can we add i.e., substance abuse?

MS. PRICE: Sure, sure, sure.

DR. LONG: Thank you.

MS. KEYS: Can I make a comment? This is Susan Keys. On number one,
change the terminology, can we also give some further indication that
\-- of what we wanted it changed to so that there\'s some remark about
why persistently dangerous was not acceptable? I know it\'s later in the
report, but not to suggest different nomenclature, but nomenclature such
as, and give some examples?

DR. LONG: This would be a question for Debbie, perhaps relative to that,
and that is, since this is going to be an interim report as we head
toward the June report, is that something, Debbie, we should do now, or
wait? I don\'t know the answer to that.

MS. PRICE: Well, to be really honest, I know that, you know, within our
\-- within the Committee, we\'ve looked at, you know, kind of bantered a
few suggestions about, but \-- and then in my office, we\'ve also
bantered some \-- and nothing is really, we haven\'t really come up with
examples. But what we might want to say is just add a half a sentence in
there about why \-- because of the strongly negative connotation of
persistently dangerous to change that to a different nomenclature that
\--

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I think we\'ve talked about it being very
stigmatizing to schools.

MS. PRICE: It isn\'t as stigmatizing.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And I think that would be fine.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And I think perhaps maybe you can use some of the
same wording. It gets rather specific a little later on in the report,
relative to the name persistently dangerous. In the minutes, I mean.

DR. LONG: Okay, any others on this first segment of designation of
unsafe schools 1 through 6?

MR. KELLEN: Let me just free associate with you a little bit, you all.
This is Shep. This is the first recommendations that we lay out, and
I\'m concerned with the designation and probably, you know, let me start
another way. There\'s an assumption in these six that isn\'t really
spelled out, and it has to do with whether the concept of persistently
dangerous schools is really a useful concept. I mean, in a sense, we\'re
messing around with the wording, considering other aspects of violence,
and in addition to violence, other aspects of behavior.

There\'s an underlying sense of displeasure about the whole concept, and
this doesn\'t really come out and boldly say that this program has
certain worthwhile aspects like giving parents choices of transferring
kids as needed. But it doesn\'t really come down on the question of, is
this really a good idea at all, or would you not be better served by
indicating that we ought to be monitoring kids\' progress, as we are,
fixing that to include bad behavior, physically unsafe behavior and so
forth. There\'s something missing for me in the power of this paragraph,
and I wondered if other people share it.

I think the whole thing, in other words, is a dumb idea. And what really
is needed is an understanding that there are risk factors like violent
behavior, physically aggressive behavior, bullying behavior, that are
highly associated with poor achievement, and that together these are, in
fact, major risk factors for later drug abuse, further violent behavior,
and all kinds of bad outcomes. And that separating this part of the safe
schools, safe and drug-free schools out, is not as useful as maintaining
a focus on the real task of safe and drug-free schools, which is
essentially from a prevention point of view as well as a crisis
intervention point of view, going to have to be more positive.

I mean, we need to get in there earlier. We need to, in fact, help kids
learn and reduce the risk factors, and we need to be very tuned in to
early evidence of dangerous behavior so that we do prevention.

I guess what I\'m saying is is that there\'s a preamble or a tone of
this which I find fairly unacceptable, and that is we can sort of tinker
with the anti-climate survey, well, what do you do with that? You know,
I mean, there\'s something missing about this.

I don\'t know if anybody shares that view.

DR. LONG: Anyone, response to Shep?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I think that we=re missing, maybe, the bigger
picture, but maybe don\'t have it set in the bigger context that it
needs to be.

DR. LONG: Debbie, could you have Bill play with \-- not play with, to
try and incorporate a conceptual one or two sentence? Our caveat there
perhaps would be, politically, do we \-- it\'s the approach. Since this
is law, do we then say that it is \-- clear off the table, and will that
get such a response that it won\'t be paid attention to? Or do we
approach it different? Again, I don\'t know the answer to that; I\'m
just throwing that out.

MS. PRICE: Well, I think either the legislation is specific; it uses
that term. So to change the legislation would mean legislative \--
something legislation.

So in reauthorization \-- but I do think that we could put, as you said,
have built up something in there, kind of in a bigger context and saying
\-- a shorter sentence of what Shep said, but if we are to look, and
sort of looking at it from two perspectives.

One, is this the best approach, and is this getting us where we want to
be by identifying schools that \-- whatever term we have of \-- so that
we can then have parental choice. Or, is this the vehicle that gets us
there, or would we be better off, and if the answer is, no, that\'s not
right, then that\'s one thing, but if we are constrained to stay
somewhat within the legislation and just make some fixes to that current
legislation, then I think what we\'re seeing here in these fixed things
address that perspective.

Does that make sense? I sort of rambled.

DR. LONG: No, I think it does, but to get back to Seth and Hope there,
and I guess I would repeat and have people respond to it that have \--
Bill, in listening to this, to incorporate that because I think that is
important, because I was hearing the same thing that Seth and Hope were
hearing, that there are some sweeping conceptual things to look at, and
then say, these six will, in regard to the designation of unsafe schools
and start to get there, but that one, two, three sentence intro.

MR. KELLEN: That was Shep, not Seth.

DR. LONG: I\'m sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: One of those S guys.

DR. LONG: S squared.

MS. KEYS: Susan, not Hope, but I think \-- it\'s Susan again. The point
that Shep\'s making is that we really want to emphasize what we had
discussed was that this should be set within a public health framework.

MS. TAFT: And Hope would agree with that.

DR. LONG: It would be helpful to me, then. and maybe for others, and I
must have missed on Seth and Shep, but if we were to identify each time.
And I, on that second comment I did miss. I thought it was Hope\'s
voice. I apologize.

So Debbie, that can be done with Bill?

MS. PRICE: Yes, I think so. Let me just ask, Bill Duncan, are you on the
call? I think he\'s probably in the muted call, so we can\'t hear from
him, but we can do that.

DR. LONG: Okay.

MR. ELLIS: Dave, this is Fred.

DR. LONG: Yes.

MR. ELLIS: I hear what the folks are saying. I guess I would suggest
reading down to the next paragraph where it talks about recommendations
focused on approving school safety. It talks about focusing on
prevention of incidents, and it give some examples and partnerships with
community prevention programs, a variety of things and again, it talks
about focusing the effort on improving school safety by doing some of
those things which I think is what we\'ve heard about. I just don\'t
think the two issues are mutually exclusive.

DR. LONG: I agree, Fred. As I started, I think we\'re going to be
looking at sets of potential recommendations, the first one being
designation of unsafe schools. Then as you indicated, the second set
will be recommendation from folks on improving school safety, and then
we\'ll move on to data and so forth. What I was hearing was that, if we
could have one, two, three sentences on conceptual as we head into those
different subsets of recommendations.

MR. ELLIS: No, I understand that. What I was hearing from some of the
members was that we recommend doing away with the whole program kind of
thing and say, scrap that and go to this program. And I\'m not sure
that\'s, in fact, what the group wants.

MR. KELLEN: I understand \-- this is Shep. Or Seth, whatever.

(Laughter.)

I hear what you guys are saying. I think it really is a question, as
Deborah laid it out, of whether we think this program is \-- you know,
is ill-conceived. It\'s clear that everybody believes that parents
should have options and move their kids to a different school as needed.
And that even the bullies should have options, or certainly have
responses.

The question is, is this really a good direction to add to the general
\"No Child Left Behind\" concept. And I would argue that the sense of
the Committee and the visitors was that this is a failing program, and I
think it\'s dangerous for us not to reflect what people said from the
local level and the statewide level, as well as their own deliberations
that the information system just doesn\'t work. It probably is made
worse by the designation of \"persistently dangerous\" as words. But
that really is not going to fix the whole information system question.

It\'s separate from the assessment systems which are already expensive
and on-going. It\'s separate also from the individual school building
and school district information systems about each child. It really is
an ill-conceived program. And so I guess my own sense is that our
responsibility should be that the view of the Advisory Committee, and of
the expert witnesses, was that this concept needs to be rethought, but
at the very least, we ought to consider these six items. And then that
does lead better into the second paragraph, which has some positive
aspects to it.

DR. LONG: Just listening, and I\'ll repeat what I said. I want to be
careful about throwing the baby out with the bathwater so that nobody
will listen to us.

So I would again like \-- I\'m trying to put all these together. Go
ahead and have the introductory statement regarding the concept that
I\'ve heard two or three of the members talk about, but then get into
specific in different areas. We\'re not talking about designation of
unsafe schools, and then move on to school safety so that there are some
specific things to talk about, recommendations, with the conceptual
statement right at the beginning.

MR. LEDBETTER: Dave, this is Tommy. This is a preliminary
recommendation. This is not a final recommendation, is it?

DR. LONG: That\'s for June. That\'s correct.

MR. LEDBETTER: All right, this is the preliminary recommendation, and we
haven\'t even heard \-- we haven\'t even received all of the information
yet, and I think we shouldn\'t prejudice our final report by saying, at
this point in time, that the program doesn\'t work and no parts of it
work and we need to throw it all out.

Obviously, the program has some \-- there\'s some problems with the
program and, you know, I think we need to just keep in mind that these
are preliminary recommendations, just as it says on the report, and that
we don\'t need to get hung up with all of this. We need to try to move
forward and wait about final recommendations until we have all the
information.

DR. LONG: With that in mind, can we go through these segments \-- we
could even circle back if we have to at the end, but to get \-- wade
through these various headings, and if we can call designation of unsafe
schools number one, and then as Fred was moving to the recommendation
focused on improving school safety, which would be number two, if there
are no other comments on one.

And as I said, we can circle back, but we have quite a few of these
sections. If we could take a look at the improving school safety
potential recommendations for the interim, as Tommy just mentioned here.
And there we have seven of them.

Any comments, changes, input on those seven?

MS. PRICE: This is Debbie, and I have just a very minor change, but I do
think it could potentially be significant, and that\'s in number three,
under creating a program for school safety equivalent to the National
Blue Ribbon Schools.

The National Blue Ribbon Schools\' program had some significant flaws,
so rather than say, equivalent, I would say, with similar
characteristics, or similar to or \-- because I just think equivalent
might be \-- it isn\'t what we really want. We don\'t want to duplicate
something, steal ideas from it.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes, I think the idea was to make it a positive
thing that people would want to change their systems for, as opposed to
making it a negative thing, the way it is now.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I have no problem with using the word \"similar.\"

MR. ROMERO: This is Dennis, same here.

MR. NORMAN: Seth, same here.

MR. ELLIS: This is Fred, no problem.

MR. KELLEN: Same for Shep.

MS. SIMS: I agree, this is Belinda.

DR. LONG: Any other \-- good point, Debbie. And Hope, you outlined that,
what really the thought process was from the Committee.

Any other thoughts on the seven under that \-- I\'m just adding the
numbers here. Number two, are the improving school safety potential
recommendations.

MR. PIMENTEL: This is Mike. I just have kind of a general thing.
Recommendations focused on improving school safety. Is this going to be
the extent of our recommendations related to school safety, or is this
within the context of the unsafe school choice issue?

MS. PRICE: This is Debbie. I would say this is in the context of unsafe
school choice issue, because that\'s the overall issue that we focused
on. I do think that we can be broader in our final report, and if we
have more substantial recommendations regarding school safety overall, I
think that that would be a good spot for them. Unless, David, you
disagree, but it seems like we are looking at it from the standpoint of
unsafe school choice options.

DR. LONG: Right, this is the second focus area, and it is interim, so,
absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay, I\'m fine.

DR. LONG: And again, it\'s hard when we aren\'t face to face, but I\'ll
ask one more time if there\'s any on the seven. If not, we\'ll go on to
number three, which will be the next paragraph, which talks about data
issues and the Committee\'s possible recommendations and their \-- I do
believe there\'s five of them listed there.

MS. TAFT: Excuse me, David, this is Hope.

DR. LONG: Yes.

MS. TAFT: In the last sentence of the paragraph just before the one that
you started us on, it says that one member of the Committee drew all
members\' attention to an important example of the second
recommendation. I think it should be the seventh recommendation, because
that\'s the one that talks about bringing the community in.

DR. LONG: Right, got you. Any \--

MS. SIMS: This is Belinda. Can you hear me okay?

DR. LONG: Yes.

MS. SIMS: I just have a question. I don\'t want to put people offtrack,
but it\'s just a point of clarification here. In the way the
recommendations are worded, something seemed clear to me that the state
education or the LEA would implement some of these recommendations
coming down from Ed. But some of the other recommendations, such as the
ones under improving school safety, seem like things that the Department
of Education would have to put in place, in some way, provide the
guidelines, or maybe the states are going to do that. But should we be
clarifying whose role, who will be responsible for certain
recommendations, or are these just recommendations back to the
Secretary, and you will all implement it as you see fit?

DR. LONG: But again, and that is a good point, but I\'ll say it, and
then Debbie, you can react to it. But this is on the unsafe school
option portion, and it is the preliminary report, and of course, we can
put all the rest of the meat on that, I would think, for the June report
to the Secretary.

MS. PRICE: Yes, and I do think that, in really delving into the
recommendations and trying to see how \-- putting the rubber to the
road, so to speak, we\'ll have to kind of look at what \-- like, for
example, number six is providing guidelines, training for assisting
students who are victimized. I mean, as we look at it, that will have to
kind of go through that process of okay, well, what is the federal role
here. Is this a state role, and that really gets down, I would think \--
those specifics are really more in the implementation of
recommendations.

There might be, and I can really kind of go through and look, but, and
see if we can articulate specific federal, state and local roles, but I
think a lot of them are sort of a combination of the three, and so we
might be better off keeping them, at this point, vague about who has
implementation of them.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay, that\'s fine.

DR. LONG: Any other \-- we\'re on the number three, the data issues that
the potential recommendations, of which we had, I believe five.

Any others? If not, let\'s move to the fourth one, which would be the
last sentence at the bottom of that page. We also talked about parental
notice of safety conditions of schools, and the Committee has identified
two potential recommendations, and that\'s found right at the top of
page five. There are two of them.

Any comments on those two?

(No response.)

If not, if we move to an assignment of number five, which would be
regarding the transfer option \-- believes the Department might
consider, and then there are two, really would be recommendations
relative to \-- specifically to the transfer where there\'s two of them
listed. That\'s the second paragraph on page five.

Comments on those?

MR. ELLIS: Dave, this is Fred.

DR. LONG: Yes, Fred.

MR. ELLIS: I was trying to remember; I know everyone, there was clear
consensus on not having victims moved. I think that was understandable,
but I don\'t remember how we got to this requiring movement of students
who victimize others. I mean, just jumping off the page, it sounds like
another unfunded mandate, and I think all of us would agree that the
last thing we want to do is do another unfunded mandate. So I\'m not
sure what the wording should be, but I do remember a clear consensus on
not requiring victims to move, and I think that was very unequivocal.

I\'m just not sure whether or not we want to, even in the preliminary
recommendation, mandate movement of victimizers, whatever those might
be, you know, what kind of criteria \-- you know, you assault somebody
one time, and now that the school system has to move you, do they now
have to provide you with transportation? You get back into all the other
issues with that. I don\'t know. I just throw it out there, because that
kind of scares me a little.

MS. KEYS: This is Susan Keys. Just, a further comment on that point. I
thought we had talked more about supporting the movement if the victim
wanted that as an option. I mean, I think we get into a box because in
some cases, the person that=s victimized might want to move, and then if
they end up moving, does that mean the person doing the victimization
should also be required to move? I mean, I think we want to come more on
the side of providing options and choices rather than mandates.

DR. LONG: That was my feeling, too.

MS. PRICE: This is Debbie. I think that\'s right, because sometimes the
nature of a school district doesn=t \-- you know, when we talked about
those one high school, one middle school districts where choice gets
difficult. And we also talked about the victim having options there
that, you know, if they want to move, that certainly would be
appropriate, but still having to look at how the victimizer is dealt
with.

MR. KELLEN: I mean, it\'s very important, this is Shep again. If you
look at the epidemiology, that is, how many kids in a school where
there\'s not good achievement and there\'s a lot of acting out behavior
and drug use, we\'re talking 10 or 15 percent of a school population,
easily.

MS. TAFT: This is Hope. I\'m looking at the statistics for Ohio, and
statewide we have 11,736 kids who were sent to the office for harassment
or intimidation, which is kind of like bullying. That\'s a lot of kids.

MR. KELLEN: Right, so we\'re not in a situation where we can \-- it
doesn\'t even make therapeutic sense to transfer those kids
automatically, and we\'ve got no place to transfer them, anyway.

MS. PRICE: Well, and you know, keeping this in context of the unsafe
school choice option, those \-- we\'re talking here about not just
bullying incidents, but unsafe school choice option deals with criminal
offenses. So the world of the victim and the victimizer gets much more
reduced.

MR. KELLEN: Not much. If you look at the prevalence rates, they\'re
very, very high, Deborah, of arrests, how they\'re correlated. Could be
as many as 80 percent of kids who are in the top, say, 20 percent or so
of bad behavior.

MS. PRICE: Yes, even if you take use, possession, sale of weapons other
than a gun or explosives, there were 3300 of those kids in the Ohio
school system last year. That\'s still a pretty big number.

DR. LONG: I think, just listening, it sounds like we\'re all saying
about the same thing, and I think Susan hit it on the head. What was
that terminology, if you can recall, Susan, about promoting positive
outcomes? I don\'t recall the wording you used.

MS. KEYS: I think I said that what we need to do is promote options for
people, rather than requirements.

MS. PRICE: I like that.

DR. LONG: If we can soften that up, and I think that\'s what everyone
was saying. So if that terminology could be softened.

MR. KELLEN: If I can suggest one other quick thing, and that is to
scratch out who is transferred after number two. Also, where possible,
encouraging counseling to the victimizers, scratch \"who is
transferred.\"

DR. LONG: That would become a moot point, or could be.

Any other comments on what is now number five, the transfer option?
There\'s two things we\'re discussing there. If not, we\'ll move on to
six, which talks about \-- again, in the dialogue, the Committee
expressed concerns that the choice option creates a mandate for states
without providing funding to help fulfill the mandate, and then two
other potential recommendations there, which we can call number six.
This is the third paragraph in, two points. The first one starts \"allow
a waiver.\" Any input or comments on those?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I, personally, I think that number two is very
ill-advised. I mean, that\'s just adding to the flexibility, which could
easily \-- our job should be to guide, or how to use the money most
effectively to accomplish the mission. What this seems to say is, give
it to the Governor or give it to the local folks and let them figure it
out.

I don\'t think we=ve really thought about what are alternatives to state
grants programs. For example, if you took the child assessment systems
in each of the states, and you said, where are the school districts
which have the greatest need based on the child assessment systems, that
could provide criteria for where to focus state grant and aid money. And
indeed, we could provide guidelines of how to use the money most
effectively.

DR. LONG: As I recall, number two, and correct me if I\'m wrong, as I
recall number two, it was more like a comment made toward the end of the
meeting. I don\'t recall in-depth discussion relative to this, but maybe
I\'m just trying to recall that in my mind.

MR. LEDBETTER: Didn\'t this go back to the report we got from
California, Dave, where they said that the schools that were identified
as persistently dangerous were not the persistently dangerous schools?
That the schools that really needed the money didn\'t qualify for it
because they were \-- they hadn\'t been identified as persistently
dangerous.

DR. LONG: She mentioned it, the person from CDE, the State Department
\-- I think you\'re exactly right, Tommy, made that comment, yes.

MR. LEDBETTER: I think that\'s where this came from was to give the
states some leeway, where if they know that there\'s a school out here
that is persistently dangerous, but even if it hasn\'t been identified
as persistently dangerous, to try to do some intervention at that school
before it is identified as persistently dangerous.

MR. KELLEN: Let me ask you a question. Is what\'s \-- what is referred
to here by the state grants program? Is that unique to this persistently
dangerous program, or has that got to do with the entire state grant and
aid for safe and drug-free schools?

MR. LEDBETTER: Well, it doesn\'t say state grants program. It just says,
provide money for states to use in school safety measures, allowing the
states to provide grants to local education associations.

MR. KELLEN: Well, it says on page five, last sentence, number two,
continuing the state grants program as currently administered.

DR. LONG: But that is qualified, I think, Shep, by the opening phrase of
that last paragraph, \"though not directly related to the USCO program,
there are two additional possible\" \-- so I\'m not sure that ties
straight to what \--

MR. KELLEN: I just don\'t know what it refers to, but I don\'t think
there\'s much that I would say, continue the program as currently
administered at whatever level. I don\'t know what it\'s referring to.

MR. LEDBETTER: Well, that down there, the way I remember that, Shep,
that statement was basically referring to making the LEAs, and I think I
was the one who brought that up, but requiring the LEAs to write grants,
because there wasn\'t enough money. There were so many comments about
there not being enough money, and making schools compete, or making the
LEAs compete for the state grants, and let the states determine which
ones were the best programs, and to use the money that way.

MS. TAFT: And then there was also, this is Hope. There was also the
thought that we wanted the states to do all of this monitoring and
verification, but if you took away the states\' programs, grants
programs, there wouldn\'t be anybody at the State Department of
Education to do any of that.

MR. LEDBETTER: There would be no monitoring of it.

MR. KELLEN: Well, I have no problem with that. But from a public health
point of view, I just don\'t want to see us say, it\'s okay to continue
the state grants program, broadly conceived as currently administered. I
think it isn\'t a workable model. I do think that we\'re spending a lot
of money on assessments. We need to be, in fact, getting the most out of
those assessments, and at the very least, I\'d like to see the state
grants program focus on areas of greatest need, you know, and have some
process of evaluating how the money gets used, and whether they\'re
being used for programs with proven effectiveness.

MR. LEDBETTER: Well, if we changed the terminology there, if we marked
out \"as currently administered, but@ and just substituted all of that
with the word \"back,@ \"continuing the state grants program by allowing
states to use discretion in providing grants to LEAs.\"

MR. KELLEN: I still don\'t think that makes it, Tommy. I understand
where you\'re coming from; I do agree with you that the local level is
the right level for understanding what is going on. The problem I\'ve
got is that when you give somebody inadequate funding and say, make the
best of it, I\'d rather say, okay, we\'re spending millions and millions
of dollars on the assessment of kids in schools; why not use that to
understand where to focus the money? And so you give the money in more
appropriate amounts to locations that could use the program most.

And then I\'d add the caveat that we\'d like them to use effective
programs, and not just any old program.

MS. PRICE: Okay, this is Debbie. Can I pop in here, because I think
we\'ve merged our conversation, as David identified it, paragraph six
and paragraph seven. And I\'m getting a little confused. Let me just
give it kind of a summary statement because maybe \-- in paragraph six,
it\'s looking at the unsafe school choice option, and it\'s making
recommendations to, one, allow waiver from the option if the state
already has an existing program. I think we saw an example of that by a
couple panelists.

And two, and this isn\'t identifying the state grants program as the
program, but that the Federal Government should provide for states, so
dollars for states to use in school safety measures allowing states to
provide grants to local LEAs. And that is, as Tommmy mentioned earlier,
for those states that see a school that\'s in need, call it in need of
improvement, because they are at risk of being persistently dangerous,
to provide some funds to have them address those measure so that they
can address the problem.

So I think that now where we go into the state grant, that paragraph
seven is specific to the state grant program.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I\'m looking at number two, last sentence on page
five.

MS. PRICE: Okay, so because we sort of blended our conversation there.
But Shep, your point of giving dollars to areas of greatest need \--

MR. KELLEN: And adding some criteria, what kind of programs would be
advisable. And I don\'t have a problem with, you know, making these
decisions local. But I think some guidelines would be useful. Number
one, take advantage of the really expensive assessment systems we\'re
currently doing, make them work for us, plus where the needs are, and
what kinds of needs there are. And then giving the states guidelines,
and then saying, go to it.

MS. TAFT: This is Hope. But isn\'t that kind of the way it works now,
Debbie, that those programs have been federally evaluated \-- the local
school districts don\'t have to do quite so in-depth evaluation?

MS. PRICE: Well, yes. I mean, one of the requirements of the state
grants program is, those dollars that are funneled down to the LEAs,
that they need to use those dollars on effective programs and, you know,
you can go to several different lists of what those would be \-- What
Works Clearinghouse, the Hay, and a few other lists of what those
programs could be, so they use their dollars on those programs.

One of the problems is that, what we\'ve heard from, the cost of those
programs, sometimes they\'re more than the dollars that they have in the
state grants \--

MR. KELLEN: Okay, well my solution to that is that they use the
assessment systems to indicate where the needs are. Very deliberately,
make those assessments of school problems and needs work for us.

MS. TAFT: But \-- this is Hope again. I don\'t think that there, because
we have no national data, there\'s no way anyone at the national level
can say that one school district is more needy than another school
district. And, what I know from risk and protective factors, every child
is at risk, and every child needs help in building up their protective
factors. So, I don\'t know how you can tell any parent that their child
is not worthy of prevention dollars.

MR. KELLEN: Okay, let\'s go back a minute. First of all, we\'re talking
about the state level \-- the assessment system at the state level
indicating where the areas of greatest need are. And preserving to the
state the decision-making as to response to those needs. And then
offering them, as you guys are saying, programs which have some
demonstrated effectiveness to meet those needs. And that adds two
elements to just leaving the program as it is.

One is that it does, in fact, provide some guideline as to how you
decide where to put the few dollars there are, and mainly put them where
the epidemic is. And secondly, provide some guidelines as to the kind of
programs which would be acceptable. And then the last issue is, and
leave it up to the states to make those decisions. And I would urge us
to consider those rather than just saying, okay, let\'s go as we are
doing. Because I don\'t think we\'re doing a very good job, frankly. I
mean, I think the dollars are far too few spread far too thinly. And I
think states differ dramatically, and I think that we\'re not making use
out of the assessment systems.

DR. LONG: For the sake of our conversation here, and as we start to wind
this down, are we getting into, back to the preliminary report on that
last paragraph? Perhaps back to the preliminary report that\'s already
gone to the Secretary when this one deals with choice option? Because
maybe that opening phrase is operative, though not directly related to
the choice option, two additional possible \-- and then it seemed to my
mind even as I read that that we kind of went back to the state grants.
Not to leave it out, but it just seems like we\'ve, this is something
that we could put in the final report, or am I missing?

MR. KELLEN: No. I think it\'s, it\'s very confusing. And, as a matter of
fact, one of the biggest problems from a public health point of view is
the multitudes of information systems we\'re setting up, the one having
to do with USCO being the notoriously failing information system. So
that\'s one issue.

I mean, there are too many information systems and not enough use of the
ones we\'re \-- we need.

So I think that we shouldn\'t go not directly related to USCO. And this
final paragraph here, my urging would be that we either focus on USCO,
or we back off and make some general comment that the USCO information
system is not working, and that we have information systems throughout
each state which could tell us where schools are with needs, including
bad behavior needs, and that those ought to be guiding where we put the
few dollars we\'ve got, and that we ought to be using effective programs
to address those needs.

MR. LEDBETTER: Shep, your problem with this whole thing is the two words
in there, or three words in there, \"as currently administered.\" To
you, that means discontinuing the program the way it always has been.

Is that correct?

MR. KELLEN: Yes, pretty much. It even backs off, as Deborah is pointing
out, from the USCO, and now we\'re talking about state grants and aids
generally, I guess. I just think this paragraph is a bad paragraph. I
think that we ought to make up our mind, are we talking about USCO, or
are we talking about state grant and aid generally, number one. Number
two, I do think the USCO information system has failed, and it\'s a huge
waste of principals\' time to be doing a failed information system. And
it\'s expensive money-wise, and it\'s also not making use of the
information systems we\'ve got, that we\'re spending a lot of money on,
and we need to connect up to service, educating kids in prevention.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: So maybe we should just eliminate the whole
paragraph.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I think in the long run that that\'s the best
suggestion, because it really is going back to our first preliminary
report, and let=s just leave this out. We can leave this in our to be
pondered list for our future meetings and discussions, and save it for
the final report.

DR. LONG: If we could do that, that\'s \--

MR. KELLEN: I\'d settle for that.

DR. LONG: We\'ve talked about the one through five to six, and we got a
little \-- it looked like we\'re starting to merge a few things, so,
Debbie,for the sake of putting this together, if we can go the one
through five that we talked about with all the recommendations, and just
reword or leave out that number six which those paragraphs didn\'t seem
to gel, that caused some of the confusion, can either be reworded or
left out at your discretion, and perhaps sent out to the Committee.

We\'ve done this before, and then some reactions to verbiage. My
question is \--

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can I add one quick comment? I do think there\'s
some value to the sixth paragraph, because what it\'s saying is,
regarding \-- it\'s not really identifying where those funds would come
from, but it\'s identifying the need to provide states funds to address
the issue, whether it\'s in need of improvement or persistently
dangerous. So I think that it\'s \-- I think paragraph six provides a
couple of options to the unsafe school choice: one, if a state has a
program already in place, it\'s addressing this.

Why duplicate efforts? And then the idea that there are some needs for
some funds in this area. So I think it\'s more, they maybe could be more
a finding than a recommendation of \-- but I think that information is
helpful.

DR. LONG: I\'m sorry. I misspoke. It was six. What I meant was seven
that starts out \"though not directly related.\" Take that off. That was
one where we got confused with the state grants program.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Right.

MR. PIMENTEL: This is Mike. But you\'re going to leave paragraph six in,
is that correct?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Right. That\'s what I would do, leave six in and
take seven out.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay, okay. Give me the numbers.

DR. LONG: Yes, and therein is a good lesson to you. I just kind of
assigned those, and then I misspoke at the end, but it might be helpful
in the future for all of us, when we\'re not face to face, if perhaps
those were numbered, and then we might be able to follow them, perhaps a
little easier. Just a thought.

Debbie, the next steps, we\'ll meet again, of course, in Washington on
January 16th and 17th, and then we have a conference call on December
18th, and on that December 18th, our charge will be to discuss the data
requirements portion that we\'ll be heading into. I just want to make
sure that we\'re all on the same page, there.

MR. KELLEN: What was bad about the data? Say that again, David, if you
would, I\'m sorry.

DR. LONG: Yes, that will start on the 18th as we prepare for the \--
that will be the conference call, Shep, on December 18th, as we prepare
for that third group to come in, which will be January 16th and 17th in
Washington.

So, it won\'t be a long one, but we\'ll start to head toward that
discussion with potential names and so forth.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I\'ve got a problem which I don\'t know of any
solution to, but I\'ll mention it, anyway. I\'m scheduled for some
elective surgery on the 16th, and I\'ll be out a week, if I do that.

MS. PRICE: December or January?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: January, I\'m sorry.

MS. PRICE: I have a problem with January, too.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Good.

MS. PRICE: Can I send a substitute?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I\'ll just toss in mine. I thought we said the
15th and 16th, not the 16th and 17th. And I just want to clarify. I have
something on the 17th, but I\'ll try to make the change, but is it the
16th and 17th, or is it the 15th and 16th?

DR. LONG: We originally had the 15th and 16th, and several Committee
members suggested, I do believe that we change so that we \--

MR. LEDBETTER: The fifteenth is a holiday.

DR. LONG: I do believe that was the conversation that was moved to the
16th and 17th.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And there\'s no way to move it again, I guess.

DR. LONG: It would be tough for me. I don=t know; others could speak to
it.

MS. PRICE: I think, you know, granted, we want to work around as many
members\' parameters and fit it in as possible, but what we can always
do is , you know, look at the calendar, see if there are alternative
dates that could be better. I don\'t want to set it up for a definite
change of dates.

But we can email back and forth between now and our December meeting.

MS. DAVIS: Can I just chime in here real quick, Debbie? We do have to
send, post that in the [Federal Register]{.underline} in the next couple
of weeks, so we\'ll just have to make sure that we decide that before
the posting date.

MS. PRICE: The January meeting?

MS. DAVIS: Right.

MS. PRICE: We\'ll just have to play with it a bit.

MR. KELLEN: Okay, well, if you do what you can, that would be great. But
I was particularly interested in being there for the data requirement,
what to do about the data, so if you can move it, I\'d appreciate it. If
you can\'t, maybe I\'ll talk from the hospital telephone, or something.

DR. LONG: Shep, this is Dave. Up front, I want to be really honest with
you. I called the doctor to see what day you were having that surgery.

(Laughter.)

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: If I\'m going to be out of town, then I can get a
replacement.

DR. LONG: Is that acceptable, Debbie? I don=t recall what \--

MS. PRICE: Sure. You can always have a representative attend the
Commission for you. If there was a reason to vote on something, they
wouldn\'t have the ability to vote.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes, but they could speak up.

MS. PRICE: They can certainly \--

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Great.

DR. LONG: And I think we have had several \--

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes, we have had substitutions and I just didn\'t
\-- wanted to make sure it was okay.

MS. PRICE: They\'re only parameters, only because we don\'t have \-- no
one is representing a particular association as members of the
Committee, so we would just ask that whoever represents you, if you\'re
not there, is not a representative of an association.

Because too many associations would like to be members, and once we open
that door, then we get in trouble with everybody else.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I can understand that.

MS. PRICE: And that\'s the only parameter.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay, great.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: If we change that date, by when will you make that
decision?

MS. PRICE: It would have to be really soon to make that decision.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, I\'m going to go ahead and pencil in the
16th and 17th, then.

MS. PRICE: Well, the percentages are very strong that the dates will
stay the same, but we should give it a fair look at.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The problem I have is that education and public
health really have not had much to do with each other, and there are
three of us, at least, on the Committee, who are public healthers and
researchers, Susan, Belinda and myself, and Russell, who is a researcher
of a different sort. And a lot of what we\'re talking about really has
to do with how you use information systems, and what happens if you\'ve
got too many, and some of them are failing, and what\'s the history of
that in public health. And it\'s been a disastrous history.

So this becomes a very critical issue in public health to think about
how the assessment, the epidemiology, really needs to feed into where
you invest your crisis intervention, as well as your prevention and
on-going time. I mean, it\'s in many ways at the crux of a public health
perspective on safe and drug-free schools.

So anyway, this is the big topic that I think we need to make sure we
are very careful about.

DR. LONG: Any other questions, comments, by Committee members?

MS. TAFT: This is Hope again. Can you give me a little bit more
information than people who are knowledgeable about data for the types
of persons that we\'ll be looking for to present to us in January, so I
can begin thinking of names of people?

DR. LONG: Well, I think, and Shep hit it on the head. People that would
swirl from not just \-- I mean, we have folks from the health and health
services background and research, but also, as that dovetails with
educational research, because we\'re going to have to put those two
together. Beyond that, unless Shep has something to add to that, just as
we did, as we headed into these other suggestions with the others, we
had them on different levels. For example, the last one we had them from
the standpoint of law enforcement, and then state level. So I think
that\'s another thing we=d want to keep in mind would be the various
levels of researchers, and where they swirl in their daily lives and
their research, and who they report to.

MS. PRICE: Yes. I think that\'s right. If you kind of look at the panels
as we\'ve had them so far, we\'ve had, you know, kind of the broad
perspective on it, kind of, you know, when it comes to data, we really
would want those researchers, exactly as Shep described, we also want to
get people who are on the ground implementing those programs or making,
trying to make sense out of them. Those, you know, all those different
levels. You can have a panel on each of those.

And, to be absolutely honest, I haven=t really sat down and thought,
okay, if we identified what those four panels should, you know,
represent, you know, who that would be, so, and any input into,
Catherine, about your concept of what should be on a panel, you know, at
a hearing, or whatever we want to call it, on data, that would be really
helpful, because, coming into the eighteenth, then we\'ll talk about,
you know, suggestions for what those panels should be and, you know, get
your input on that.

But I think, you know, those can be emails that we send around prior to
the eighteenth so, just at the eighteenth, it\'s not a surprise for who,
what we\'re looking at.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That sounds good. Because the more I can get this
picture clear in my mind of what kind of people you\'re looking for, the
better it will be for me to come up with suggestions.

MS. PRICE: Sure. Absolutely. I think that\'s, I think that\'s a really
valid point for everybody. I think that\'s right.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, Debbie, just to be clear. We\'ll be getting
something that, some basic parameters or descriptors on what we\'ll,
what the data panel should consist of?

MS. PRICE: Well, I think \-- one, we really would like for you all that
have your fingers in these pies to give some thoughts about, you know,
if you were, if you were suggesting four panels and you want to hear
from all of those in that, you know, obviously, a limited world of four
panels, but, you know, what are the, what would those be? We would love
to hear that, that input from you, so that, you know, and see those
comments read, because I do think we\'ll probably look, there will be
somebody representing the states on the LEA level that\'s dealing with
issues of data, SEA level, the big broad picture, you know, what all
that should be.

You know, if you, especially those of you who are involved in research,
if you have suggestions for, not a person on the panel, but kind of what
each panel should represent, that would be helpful.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay. Thank you. DR. LONG: Any other comments by
Committee members? If not, these are, in closing, these are always
difficult, you know, we\'re from all across the United States, and not
having the luxury of being able to see each other and talk to each
other, I think, again, you did a marvelous job. This is tough to do. So,
thank you so much, and everyone have a wonderful, wonderful
Thanksgiving.

MR. LEDBETTER: Dave.

DR. LONG: Yes?

MR. LEDBETTER: Before we leave.

DR. LONG: Yes.

MR. LEDBETTER: This morning, here in Huntsville, Alabama, we had school
bus that went off of a viaduct and wrecked, and we\'ve got several
reports this morning. It was not one of our schools, but it was an
adjoining school system to us in the Huntsville City school system and
they, we understand, we\'ve been told there\'s been four to seven who
died in the accident and so forth, so I hope that you all will keep them
in their, keep their families and all in your thoughts and prayers.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Which high school was it?

MR. LEDBETTER: They were students from Lee High School in Huntsville,
Alabama, headed to their vocational technical center, and they were on
the Interstate highway, and the bus went over the rail and came off of a
viaduct and hit down below, and we haven\'t had, you know, all the
information is pretty sketchy at this point.

They have different reports from 20 to 47 students on the bus and, I
mean, they\'re, they\'re trying to piece it together, but they say that
there\'s a lot of students that are critically injured at this time. And
one of the teachers here at my school had a nephew that was on that bus,
and his sister called and told him that she didn\'t have no word if he
had lived or not, and they were on their way to the hospital this
morning, too.

So, you know, when things like that happen around the country, you know,
we all need to be, you know, thankful that it\'s not one of ours, but we
need to be thoughtful of the families involved. And I\'d appreciate it
if you all would think about them.

MS. PRICE: And Tommy, if you hear of it, you know, we\'ll, this is the
kind of thing that we do some follow up on from my office, and if you
hear of the name of someone attached, at, in that school district that
we should be in contact with, if you\'d let us know, that would be
great.

MR. LEDBETTER: Well, Dr. Ann Roy Moore is the superintendent of the
Huntsville City School System. And \--

MS. PRICE: What was her first name?

MR. LEDBETTER: Her name is Ann Roy Moore.

MS. PRICE: Ann Roy, okay.

MR. LEDBETTER: But Dr. Moore is the superintendent of that school system
and it\'s, it\'s a school system of about 23,000, 24,000 students. But,
it was something that\'s going to be pretty tragic for all, all of us
around here, and I\'m sure it will be on all the national news tonight.

MS. PRICE: Yes, that\'s really terrible. Thanks for letting us know \--

DR. LONG: Thank you for letting us know that, Tommy, and most certainly
they will be in our thoughts and prayers.

MR. LEDBETTER: All right. You all have a good day, and we\'ll see you on
the eighteenth. Talk to you then.

(Whereupon, at 2:13 p.m., the teleconference was concluded.)