Longfellow school culture is looking up as visits to the principal’s office decline

The number of students referred to the principal’s office is down fivefold at Longfellow Middle School compared with fall 2019, the last time classes were held fully in person. Students are typically referred to the office for moderately serious misbehavior, such as stealing a backpack, that doesn’t warrant a suspension, but is serious enough to involve the principal or vice principal.

School leaders say the decline in office visits — there were fewer than 60 this fall — is the product of a larger effort by a new administration to promote a positive culture at a school that has at times struggled with student behavior. A May 2020 report described behavior from certain “chaotic” classrooms spilling out into the hallways.

Principal Paco Furlan, previously the longtime principal of Rosa Parks Elementary, and Vice Principal Salita Mitchell, a graduate of Longfellow, took the helm in fall 2020 after former Principal Stacey Wyatt resigned the previous spring.

Furlan said he and Mitchell have worked to ramp up positive behavior interventions, reduce class sizes (to about 20 students per class), and increase student supervision, including from dads volunteering during lunch, among other changes.

Now, some teachers and students say the effort is paying off.

“Our admin team has set a tone that I really like. They are loving demanders, and they’re loving first,” said Mary Patterson, a sixth-grade teacher at Longfellow who has taught at Berkeley Unified since 1990. The result, she said, is “the school is just run better.”

“I’m proud to say that my team of counselors and safety officers and principals and PBIS team [which aims to incentivize positive student behavior] — we’ve come together and we’ve been able to see our [office referrals]…