Say No To "Make Your Day"

To:  The Wenatchee School District Board Members:

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, HEREBY PETITION THE MEMBERS OF THE WENATCHEE SCHOOL BOARD TO DISCONTINUE ITS USE OF THE MAKE YOUR DAY SCHOOLWIDE CITIZENSHIP PROGRAM DEVELOPED BY EARL BROWN, WE DEMAND THAT WENATCHEE SCHOOL BOARD USE SCIENTIFICALLY RESEARCH BASED AND RIGOROUSLY EVALUATED YOUTH VIOLENCE PREVENTION PROGRAM/PROGRAMS IN PLACE OF TH E MAKE YOUR DAY PROGRAM FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS:

1)      Make Your Day Schoolwide Citizenship program is not scientifically based research and the program's effectiveness is not supported by rigorous evidence thus keeping our schools from becoming highly effective as recommended and/or required by the following:

a.        No Child Left Behind Act of 2001

b.      OSPI - 9 Characteristics of High Performing Schools

c.       Wenatchee School District Strategic Plan 2007-2010

2)      We believe that the use of the Make Your Day program in our schools is harmful to the social, behavioral and academic well being of our children, our district and our community.

3)      We believe that the design of this program is particularly harmful but not limited to the following groups or subgroups of students:

a.       ELL / ESL Students

b.      Special Education Students

4) We believe that the Make Your Day program is also contributing immensely to our well below state average of On Time High School Graduates.

5) We believe that the Make Your Day program is also contributing to the very slow progress of closing the Achievement Gap for our ELL/ESL students.

6) We believe that the Make Your Day program is also contributing to the failure of many of our schools to stay in compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act, 2001 to make yearly academic achievement progress. 

In place of the Make Your Day program we are requesting the district adopt a violence prevention program listed in the U.S. Department of Education, Exemplary and Promising Safe, Disciplined and Drug-Free Schools Programs 2001.

http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/exemplary01/exemplary01.pdf

We strongly recommend the PeaceBuilders program be considered as a replacement for the Make Your Day program.  The PeaceBuilders program is an ongoing, school wide, community wide Violence Prevention and Building Social Competencies program for K-8 grades.

www.peacebuilders.com

Second, we have some serious concerns as to the transparency, honesty and support of our district leaders and staff regarding the parent, teacher and student concerns of the Make Your Day program.  Documented history proves that people have been seriously concerned with the use of this program and the effects that it has on their children since 1996 when it was first implemented in Wenatchee.  Documented history also proves that parents have repeatedly formed groups to try to convince the district to drop the Make Your Day program.  Not only does history prove that parents have complained and appealed to the school board in Wenatchee, but also in virtually every single school in the United States that uses this program. 

We have documented and published many current and historical concerns, complaints, groups, opinions, polls, petitions, information to back up claims of harmful and ineffectiveness and related links regarding the Make Your Day program  on our website www.saynotomakeyourday.com.  Daily we receive emails and find more information that supports our claims and opinions about this program.

The district has also blamed our teachers for not implementing the program as they have been trained and this is the reason for the damages being caused to our children or the programs failure.  The district has insisted over and over again for the past 13 years that our teachers just need more training and need to be more consistent so that this program will not be harmful.

Communication and transparency about this program when first presented to parents is minimal and many families have no idea what their children are being subjected to.  Many parents have complained that when they speak to a school principal or district superintendant they are told that they are the only ones who seem to be complaining.  Many parents that have complained about this program are told that they could pick another district to attend.  Also, since this program is not research validated and is designed around a belief system by a man and his wife whose credentials are questionable particularly in the area of discipline design, parents are not being advised of their rights to have their children opt out of certain components of this program and/or they are not being given a consent form to allow the schools to use this type of psychological discipline program.  This type of or lack of communication with the public is also not in keeping with the 9 Characteristics of Highly Effective Schools or with the Wenatchee School District Strategic Plan 2007-2010.

For the reasons stated above, until the Make Your Day program is no longer in use we are requesting:

1)       The district put a parent consent form in place at the start of the 2009/2010 school year that provides a full disclosure of the program and advises parents of their rights to opt out if they disagree.  We would like to have this consent form approved by the parent groups and teachers that oppose the use of this program.

2)       Points and Concerns session be immediately removed district wide.

While we understand that classroom management and disciplining children is a subject that is widely debated and hard to agree on, I think we can all agree that the discipline used in public schools should be research validated and supported by rigorous evidence.  We also fully understand that making this change for the betterment of our schools and community will take time and will mean using resources that may not be completely visible at the moment.

Should you continue to choose to use this program despite our communicated concerns over research validated programs then we are requesting that you immediately start conducting a rigorous evaluation of this program as outlined below.  We have spoken with Dr. Annie Woo at NWREL and she will be providing us with a proposal to do the rigorous evaluation on this program to either prove or disprove our claims about this program. 

The WSD has also historically received near failing or failing grades from the public in the areas of discipline and communications with the public.  We are asking you to be accountable in reaching the goals that the district has set forth and is outlined in the WSD Strategic Plan 2007-2010, specifically referring to Goal 3 and Goal 4.

We  believe that the success of our school district is one of the most important foundations to growth, health and vitality to our community.  With a school that is deemed highly effective, our community would bring more experienced medical professionals, businesses, economic growth, contributing members of society, involved parents, and more positive influences.  PeaceBuilders is a very good choice to bring awareness to the community and the rest of the state that we are making a change for the better. 

We are happy to assist the district in any way that we can in researching, selecting, fund raising, training, and implementing a new district wide violence prevention program such as PeaceBuilders.  Cindy Duncan, Assistant Superintendent for Academic Achievement at NCESD has offered to help research other programs at the request of our board of directors.

For more facts supporting this issue that is critical to the public education of our children, visit www.SayNoToMakeYourDay.com.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned