Classes Cancelled so Teachers Can Focus on Issues at One OKC School

Classes at North Highland Elementary in northwest Oklahoma City are canceled on Friday.  Instead of regular instruction, teachers and staff will go through a special training session to discuss ways to improves issues at the school.

Oklahoma City Public Schools say those issues include behavior and academic problems.  

"We've had some concerns from the community, from parents, from staff members, and we take those concerns seriously," district spokesperson Tierney Tinnin said.

The training session is meant to address those concerns and implement ways to keep them down.  Tinnin hopes the session will make classroom experience better for students.

"This is that opportunity for the teachers to come together, no holds barred, just lay out everything that's going on so we can come up with some solutions to address those problems," Tinnin said.

Many parents Fox 25 spoke with said they are glad to see the effort.  They said something needs to be done at this school to address fighting, bullying and academics.

"There's a lot of issues going on. They need to stop the issues, stop the bullying, stop the harassment, stop all of it," mother Eldanae Neal said.

Still other parents said they've seen no problems at North Highland, but that a little extra training for teachers is still a good idea.

"I do think that is a good idea... everybody have a training session that way they can get back on track from everything," said Noth Highland father Brandon Rogers.

Tinnin said the school has a new principal and new vice principal this year.   

She said taking a day out of regular class time for a session like this is unusual, but that the new faculty has brought a new attitude to the school.

North Highland received a 'C' on it's state evaluation this year.Classes Cancelled so Teachers Can Focus on Issues at One OKC School

Posted: Tuesday, October 30 2012, 09:54 PM CDT