College of Ed not deterred by recent high school crimes

November 14, 2005 —

The SVSU College of Education will continue to send student teachers to Saginaw High School despite a violent history and an Oct. 20 gang-related shooting that saw a 15-year-old student shot in the chest, COE officials say.

Nicole Arbury, director of Clinical Experiences for the College of Education, indicated that 11 COE students had been or were scheduled to be at Saginaw High at some point during the semester. However, only one of those students was in the building at the time of the shooting.

Following the shooting, Arbury and College dean Steve Barbus discussed safety concerns with the students.

"My goal was not to make a knee-jerk reaction that we would pull students," Arbury says.

Following the discussion, the decision was made to continue sending students to Saginaw High. However, two of the 11 students requested placement elsewhere. The student teacher who was at Saginaw High the day of the shooting elected to return. Arbury says students with concerns about going to Saginaw High in the future will be handled on an individual case-by-case basis.

Locations for College of Education students are determined in a number of ways. Student teachers select two preferred counties and their applications are sent to schools within those counties. From there, the process is similar to a job search, where schools select qualified candidates they wish to work with. Students doing field work for class are placed based on several factors, though the student has little say as to where they are assigned. During any given semester, students are sent to over 100 school districts.

Despite the variety of options, Arbury says an attempt is made to place all students in an urban setting at least once.

"One of our goals here in the College of Education is that our students experience a variety of placements," she says. "We certainly have a goal to have all of our students at some point throughout their experience have an urban placement."

And since many students have little to no experience with urban schools, Arbury admits some are intimidated about working in those areas. If a student expresses concern with their placement location, efforts are made to convince the student to give the school a chance. In those cases, students are generally pleased with what they discover, Arbury says.

"Once they go out there," she says, "overwhelmingly we hear what a terrific experience they had."

Saginaw native Meg Murphy, 22, currently student teaches at Arthur Hill High School and says that, despite working in a school that also has a history of violence, she has never had concern for her safety.

"I think there's a lot of hype surrounding it," Murphy says. "The few actual incidents that occur get blown up because people have assumptions about what would happen at an inner-city school. At no point in my student teaching have I felt unsafe."

Though Murphy is comfortable at Arthur Hill, she understands some classmates may not share her feelings, and would not blame them for requesting placement elsewhere.

"If you don't feel comfortable in a given school ... you're going to be less effective," she explained. "So I wouldn't blame them if it was a bad fit."

Murphy points out, though, that students should give urban schools a try, as it can improve their teaching.

"I think you should try to make it work for a situation that's different from what you came from," she says. "It makes you a better teacher to be able to relate with different groups of students."

Arbury feels the same way and points out that a school need not be in an urban area for violence to occur.

"Students have to be prepared in schools these days for a lot of different circumstances that can come about."

And since there are never guarantees about safety at any location - be it academic or elsewhere - Arbury remains confident that SVSU students will be safe.

"Our students are well prepared," she says. "These unfortunate incidents can happen anywhere and anyone going into teaching these days needs to recognize that."