Tigard/Tualatin Schools Alliance for Safety and Education

Dr. Sue Rieke-Smith, TTSD School Board, and Administrators – 

We as parents, teachers, and community members demand your support and immediate action. We understand that the issue of violence at Hazelbrook has gone viral, is being politicized in the national media, and has led to other threats. As you are aware this has detrimental effects on our whole community. Despite the noise, the issue remains quite simple for parents: stop the physical violence.

The current Education/Engagement, Accountability, Solutions, Healing (E.A.S.H.) framework is not deterring violence. EASH is enabling violence. We ask for an immediate change to the current policy, that includes clear and actionable consequences for students that engage in violence. A clear framework supports both teachers as well as local school principals and allows them to act swiftly and without bias. Disciplinary actions do not have to be either/or when it comes to “restorative” vs “zero tolerance”, but what TTSD is doing now is not working. The EASH framework is failing teachers, students, and parents.

The below letter went to parents on 9/28 asking for support in requiring the district to take immediate action and implement a more strict policy around violence. In less than 36 hours, over 550 signatures of support and over 100 comments were collected. We are aware that the petition link was published in a news article today - shortly thereafter the link was closed such that all responses originate from concerned citizens of our local community. You will see bullet points in the letter that need to be discussed with the TTSD administration, and we welcome constructive collaboration to make this happen. We, along with many other parents, have already met with Principal Dailey and she has been wonderful in addressing our concerns.

In short, at the request of hundreds of parents we are urging TTSD to establish and implement a strict policy that clearly outlines a tiered-response for addressing physical violence by December 31, 2023. This policy must include written guidelines and consequences for infractions; e.g. first offense for fighting = 3 days suspension; 2nd offense for fighting = expulsion.

We have attached a list of parents, teachers, and TTSD community members that have read the below letter and provide their support. Also, you will find anonymized parent comments. There is a common theme of needing to stop the physical violence, as the current EASH framework is not working. Your leadership is needed to address these concerns and provide our teachers and administrators clear guidelines to do so. We are pleading for leadership from our Superintendent, School Board, and other district leaders to help these teachers with new productive policy.

We are here to support our teachers, principals, and students - we hope they will receive the same from TTSD leaders. We sincerely want safer schools; we are trying to address issues of safety that have been ongoing for many months. Rather than taking our petition to the news media, we have intentionally kept this local and have not shared the petition results with anyone besides the recipients of this email. We are happy to work with you as part of the process and are available for further collaboration and communication.