MARION—The Marion City School Board met on Monday night to discuss the ongoing discipline problems plaguing the districts.

As newly elected Board member Rocky Ratliff pointed out, the process to form a task force to handle the implementation of disciplinary procedures has taken way too long.

Teachers expressed their fears for their own safety in their classrooms because of the inability to discipline students. As reported by Crawford County Now, teachers, bus drivers, and support staff have been hit, kicked, and spit on by students. The district has had to deal with staff shortages and substitute teacher shortages.

Now, two months after the task force was supposed to be formulated and Board Member Ted McKinniss was voted to assume the role of board vice president after former vice president Kelly Mackay became president upon the resignation of former president Leslie Schneider. The meeting opened with a “task force update” in which the board examined where the district was with regard to addressing what staff’s concerns of a crisis of discipline within the school buildings.

During that update, tempers flared.

Superintendent Dr. Ron Iarussi met with Mackay, and they came up with two options for forming such a task force, which were presented before the board Monday night: first, an open forum for discussion, or secondly, an advisory board with appointed members of the community to help.

The formation of the force and the length of time it took to create it angered Ratliff:

“I’ve asked for this committee to be formed for two months. I’m glad you’re getting on the same page after person after person comes and talks after two months,” Ratliff said.

Board Vice-President Ted McKinniss told Ratliff they were implementing the PAX game in classrooms throughout the district:

“We’re doing PAX training,” McKinniss explained.

“Which the board voted down,” Ratliff interjected.

“We’re doing de-escalation rooms in all the buildings, not just at Taft. We have more ESPs in the buildings today than we’ve ever had,” McKinnisss continued.

“Do you understand, PAX training we voted down, at least it did not pass,” Ratliff responded.

The PAX Good Behavior Game is a universal-level classroom-based behavior management strategy for an elementary school designed to prevent disruptive activity. Classroom teams are given small rewards for positive behavior, such as being on-task or displaying cooperation.

McKinniss took offense to Ratliff, saying:

“I hope this board gets back to what we’re in business about, and that’s the kids. It’s not playing ‘gotcha’ or finding everything you can about this district,” he said.

Ratliff responded:

“If it’s about the kids, Ted, why haven’t we done something in two months about disciplining these kids?” Ratliff fired back.

Crawford County Now has learned that one possible reason for that delay lies with the Superintendent himself.

According to a social media posts from NBC4 out of Columbus, Marion Superintendent Iarussi is on the shortlist for the Reynoldsburg City School District. The search for a new superintendent was taking place at the same time Iarussi was charged with formulating a plan for the discipline in the Marion City School District.

“In a letter posted Monday, the district announced the following six candidates are semifinalists for the position:

Dr. Corey Grubbs, Area Superintendent, Columbus City Schools, Columbus, Ohio

Dr. Ron Iarussi, Superintendent, Marion City Schools, Marion Ohio

Ben Richards, Superintendent, Valley View Local School District, Germantown, Ohio

Garilee Ogden, Superintendent, Groveport Madison Local Schools, Groveport, Ohio

Michael (Scott) Reeves, Executive Director of Human Resources, Westerville City Schools, Westerville, Ohio

Dr. Sandy Womack, Area Superintendent, Columbus City Schools, Columbus, Ohio

The superintendent search has been underway since April 19, when the Reynoldsburg school board hired the firm Finding Leaders to find a replacement for outgoing Superintendent Dr. Melvin J. Brown.”

When the dust settled, it was decided that a combination of the two options for a task force would be adopted.

A special board meeting is to be held with a roundtable discussion from community invitees such as Marion Family Court or law enforcement officials to provide help and input.

Crawford County Now spoke to a former teacher in the Marion District who wished to remain anonymous.

The teacher shared their frustration with a system that does not support their teachers:

“Teachers aren’t being heard. There are too many chiefs and not enough Indians in the system. There are too many chains of command to go through to get anything done. We the administrators can’t agree nothing gets solved. We’ve all dealt with behaviors and issues with students. You get some support but there’s no overall structure in place. Our focus truely is the students. We deal with them, we care about them and we provide for them ( often at our own expense). It would be nice to be appreciated and to be able to feel safe in the classroom with effective programs to accomplish it. I wish the school board success before they lose any more really good teachers and support staff.”

Crawford County Now will continue to cover this developing story.