Deans Are Conejo High Schools’ Lords of Discipline

In a pink, pearl-buttoned cardigan and a blouse embroidered with pastel flowers, Jean Gordon cuts a decidedly unimposing figure.

But with her ever-present walkie-talkie in hand and her green Lucite clipboard--on which she scrawls detention slips for tardiness--this Thousand Oaks High School dean of students is not one to trifle with.

“I don’t want to write up Saturday schools if I don’t have to,” she said. “I don’t want to write up detentions if I don’t have to. I try to be fair, unbiased and not capricious. But I will assign them. I do assign them.”

Simultaneously sweet as sugar and tough as tacks, Gordon is Thousand Oaks High School’s chief student disciplinarian, responsible for keeping watch over the safety of this sprawling campus and its 2,277 students.

Looking for danger from students and outsiders, Gordon can detect a safety infraction from the far side of the quad. She sees the dress-code violations--a bare belly or a contraband chain wallet. She spots the straggling student, chanting, “Get to class--chop, chop,” once the bell rings. She senses the rare student scuffle--often before the shoving starts.

In between all that, she greets practically every third student by name.

School officials say the mere presence of Gordon--and her two counterparts, Jim Baird of Newbury Park and Margaret A. Callahan of Westlake--adds a measure of safety at the Conejo Valley Unified School District’s three high schools.

The district is the only one in the county to use deans, though many high schools have police officers or sheriff’s deputies who regularly visit their campuses to help enforce discipline. In January, Oxnard will begin assigning police officers full time to each high school.

During the financial crunch of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, the Conejo Valley district eliminated a number of assistant principal positions and the dean category altogether.

That left only the principal, two assistant principals and an attendance officer to handle discipline problems, from routine issues like tardiness to rarer situations including pot possession, fights and assaults.

“There was a great hue and cry that we needed more help and we needed more supervision,” said Thousand Oaks Principal Jo-Ann Yoos, a former dean herself.

Trustees responded, restoring the three high school dean positions when finances eased last January.

“It sounds kind of cold,” Yoos continued, “but deans are another pair of hands, another set of eyes, another body on a high school campus.”

More than just extra sets of eyes and ears though, the three high school deans have become mentors, friends and disciplinarians over the last year.

Gordon is “one of the most liked administrators at school,” said senior Autumn Dupudja. “She is always there if you need someone to talk to. If something bad happens, we’d go to her with anything. . . . I think everyone should have a dean.”

Make no mistake, the three deans are ready and willing to mete out detention, Saturday schools and suspensions if it keeps students out of trouble and in the classroom. Much as it may pain them, the deans will also recommend that the principal expel a student if--despite counseling and parent conferences--serious trouble continues.

“We do a lot of discipline,” said Callahan, a fast-talker with warm brown eyes who looks after Westlake’s 1,683 students. “When students get a pass to our office, they swallow hard.”

While discipline is the crux of Callahan’s job, it’s not her only duty. Far from it. She has a background in special education and a knack for technology. Her other projects include peer counseling and leading study sessions for students with academic troubles.

The deans “are not just out there doing discipline,” said Richard Simpson, assistant superintendent for instructional services. “They work with the Associated Student Body, on homecoming, on the prom, on student activities.”

Earning $55,134 to $64,106 a year, the deans are a budgetary bargain, school officials say.

“I think it’s money well spent, oh yeah,” Supt. Jerry Gross said. “We think we’re getting a bang for the buck on this one, and that’s what we’re after. I have had students come up to me and say they feel better--safer--on campus now that there are more adults around. That’s very valuable, students feeling safe.”

By all accounts, reinstating the deans has been a success.

Apart from intangibles such as a safer school atmosphere, district officials can point to hard results: Expulsions are way down. Normally rowdy passing periods at the three schools seem almost placid. Students in danger of falling through the cracks have been caught.

That last result is a personal point of pride for Callahan--affectionately called Westlake High’s “mean dean.”

She speaks of a student she first met last year--a young man with slim chances of finishing high school. Between his troubles at home and in classes, he spent a lot of time in Callahan’s office.

“In spring, I got a letter from his father saying that, for the first time in his academic career, his son had gotten an A on his report card,” Callahan recounts. “He thought the kid was going to explode with excitement. And he’s going to graduate this year.”

Another student, now a junior, was getting “straight Fs,” the first time Callahan encountered him.

“ ‘Just send me to continuation school,’ he said. ‘That’s where I’m going to wind up anyway,’ ” Callahan recalled. “I said, ‘No, you will not go to continuation school.’ ”

The student still has his difficulties, she said, but he’s still at Westlake High.

Although the deans can’t reach every student, they try.

With a student who has more Saturday school detention slips than he can serve in this calendar year, Gordon uses tough love when the freshman skips a session of trash pickup.

Sitting two feet away from the sheepish boy in her cheery office, Gordon doubles the trash duty.

“Can you do it Monday and Tuesday of next week?” she asks.

“I’ll try,” he says.

“No, I don’t want you to try. I want you to do it,” she replies. “Will you do it?”

“Yeah.”

Student Kevin Decker, 15, who has been sent to Gordon’s office more than once, still thinks she’s “pretty nice.”

“When she punishes me, I earned it,” the freshman said. “She helps me out.”

Working with everyone from the student government leaders planning midnight bowling benefits to a few students who are heading toward an expulsion, Gordon tries to be evenhanded.

“I want kids to understand that they have to have respect for the rules and regulations the school has,” she said. “School is like a mini-society. Let’s learn things here before we go out into the big, bad society.”

Being the person to teach those lessons can be hard.

Sometimes it means that Gordon--all 5-feet-6 of her--has to break up a brawl.

“If a fight happens, you get in there,” she said. “I almost got hit in the face once, but usually the students respect who you are and they stop.”

Sometimes it means Callahan has to call in the Sheriff’s Department if a student carries marijuana, steals something or hurts someone.

“We are making a statement when we call the police,” she said. “If you’ve broken the law, we will not hide it or tolerate it. . . . We try to catch things at a very low level. Our focus is to intervene quickly and effectively.”

Since the deans arrived, two of the three schools have made more calls for assistance to police. Between September and November, Thousand Oaks placed 47 calls for service, compared with 19 in the same time frame in 1995. Newbury Park placed 48 calls this year, compared with 22 last year. Calls from Westlake have dipped to 24 from 34.

Calls for service do not necessarily mean a crime has occurred, cautioned Sheriff’s Sgt. Harold Humphries.

“We frequently arrive and find there’s no problem,” Humphries said. “What it shows is that the schools are very concerned about potential problems.”

Even harder to measure is the deterrent function that deans serve.

“I’m not sure how you tell if a crime has been averted,” said Simpson, the assistant superintendent. “But I think there’s a lot of research that supports the idea that for young people . . . the ability to connect in a positive way with an adult in your school--whether it’s a coach, a teacher or an administrator--is an indicator of which kids will be more successful. The kids who drop out tend to be the ones who are unconnected to anyone or anything.”

To that end, the deans practice preventive medicine. When a student with frequent problems goes a week or two without a problem, Callahan will call him in just to say she’s proud.

“Kids need to know that you’re interested in their lives in general. If you present yourself as only the disciplinarian, you won’t have credibility and you won’t effect change. You’ll dole out punishment, but you won’t effect change.”

Gordon frequently takes the pulse of her students, talking about parents and pets, friends and feelings.

“I think if you can prevent something from happening in the first place, it’s a lot better for the students,” she said.