Parents Urge 'responsiveness'

I - f A committee of parents called the Secondary Schools Improvement Group has urged the Ann Arbor Board of Education to become "responsive" to all youth, especially those "experiencing difficulty with our schools." The group, which is headed by Joseph J. Wehrer, blamed the "breakdown" in relationships between secondary schools and the young on rigid attitudes and policies which it charges are a "half-century-old." "We are increasingly a ware of school efforts to support consensus life styles and attitudes rather than individual needs," the group said. "We are impressed that current policies are essentially those of another era and their apparent failure has now led to a more basic inquiry into their relevance. "Already too many of our young people are turned off by formal education through dull, unimaginative and insentive approaches that are deeply rooted in school attitudes, programs and policies. . . . Current rules bear little relationship to educational goals or even rational explanation and invite resentment and widespread violation with opportunity for selective enforcement." The group called upon the school board to back nine actions, including: - Supporting and encouragingl innovative teachers, programs and policies; - Developing a strong student role in reaching decisions that affect students; - Reviewing policies dealing with smoking ; - Relating discipline procedures to educational goals; - Developing "creative alternatives" to detention rooms; - Investigating abuses by school officials, including "overjealous and seleetive use of suspension," "excessive use of threat of suspension," "failure to follow prescribed procedures to protect student rights," "blacklisting of studenfs by counse1 o r s," "spreading unproven, damaging s t o r i e s about studPTitR "