Rebels With a Clause

Seniors at Camarillo High School wandered into the class meeting and heard the administrator’s pitch: Follow the rules or lose your seat at graduation.

The students then signed a behavior contract--the sort that high school administrators in schools in the Conejo Valley, Moorpark, Oak Park, Santa Paula and Oxnard have for years required seniors to sign.

At meeting’s end, the students wandered off, left to wonder whether the contracts would quell their tendencies toward mischievous behavior.

Would a streaker again infiltrate the prom? Would anyone toss a water balloon to disrupt the senior assembly? Would there be another senior prank as difficult to clean up as that one last year, when the graduating class smeared loads of surfboard wax on campus walls?

High schools around the county believe senior behavior contracts are a necessary tool in keeping youngsters from coming down with a nasty case of senioritis.

But some students--and a fair number of teachers and administrators--argue that the contracts aren’t necessary and don’t deter would-be miscreants.

“I highly doubt that it’s effective,” said senior Evann Gastaldo, “because the seniors sign contracts every year, and every year something happens.”

Gastaldo is editor in chief of the Camarillo student newspaper, which recently ran one of her editorials assailing the required contracts. Gastaldo insisted in the editorial that seniors don’t take seriously the contract or the administration’s threat to keep those with disciplinary problems from graduating.

Assistant Principal Gary Mayeda thinks otherwise. The students and parents he has talked with, he said, are in agreement with the senior contracts. While Mayeda said he empathizes with students who want to express their independence, his primary concern is for the safety of students and the preservation of the campus.

Although pranks continue each year, Mayeda believes the contracts do prevent the more serious incidents. “We’re not out to get anybody,” Mayeda said. “We’re out to remind them, ‘Hey, we want it to be a great year for you, but just keep it in perspective.’ ”

Behavior contracts can be valuable for youngsters if they are presented in the right way, said Carol Harding, professor of counseling psychology at Loyola University in Chicago.

“The behavior contracts are good things, particularly when they are dealing with positive consequences,” Harding said. “They are giving the child something to work toward, rather than a punishment.”

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Most schools that use senior contracts have been using the same ones for a decade or more. Students are not invited to participate in drafting or amending the documents. They are proffered and students are expected to sign them. This can drastically undercut the effectiveness of any contract, Harding said. Students need to either participate in drafting the documents or have the right to choose whether or not they sign a contract.

“It’s not going to operate like a contract, it’s going to operate like a rule or a penalty,” she said. “It’s going to feel like an adult telling them what to do.”

That’s just how signing the contract last month made Gastaldo feel.

“It kind of goes against what it seems like they are trying to teach us,” she said. “They are trying to tell us that they trust us, but you have to sign this thing that you are going to have to behave for the rest of the year.”

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Administrators see it differently. The contracts are not there, they said, because students are seen as generally not trustworthy or essentially devious. They are there, said Rafael B. Gonzales, director of student services for the Oxnard Union High School District, to reinforce the notion that graduation is a privilege, not a right.

For Harding, who studies adolescent decision making, excluding students from the debate prevents them from developing critical thinking skills and learning to take responsibility for their actions.

“These kids can control their behavior, but they need to have an opportunity to act like the kind of thinkers they are,” Harding said.

Talking over the rules and why it’s important to follow them empowers students, she argues. But several school principals around the county who use senior contracts said they do discuss staying on task.

At Thousand Oaks High School, Principal Jo-Ann Yoos has what she calls “discipline talks” twice each year. They are for the senior class, whose members sign contracts at the beginning of the year.

With few required classes left and freedom from high school just around the corner, she understands that it can be hard for students to maintain their focus. “You tend to have to keep reminding them, just like everyone has to be reminded at their job, to stay on track,” Yoos said.

The talks and contracts, it seems, have worked. Pranks are rare and graduation runs smoothly, Yoos said.

In Santa Paula, the same formula has also been effective. Principal Tony Gaitan meets with seniors a few times during the year to talk about what’s expected of them.

“They need to know that just because it’s their last year doesn’t mean anything goes,” Gaitan said. “The students are pretty much in agreement with it.”

And for those who are not in agreement, the contracts serve as a way for administrators to protect themselves in the event that a senior does misbehave and is then prevented from participating in graduation, Oak Park High School Principal Cliff Moore said.

Moore said the school has had problems with fewer than 10 students since the early 1980s, partly as a result of the contracts and due to senior activity day, a school-sponsored trip to a beach or park for a picnic and volleyball tournament.

While the contracts seem to have had some effect at Oak Park, Moore still doesn’t think the students take them seriously enough.

“I think for most of them, it’s like any other piece of paper they sign,” he said. “They know it’s there, but have they really thought through it? Probably not.”

A few schools in the county do not ask students to sign contracts. Nordhoff, Ventura and Fillmore high school administrators say the few problems they’ve had don’t merit instituting a contract policy.

Guidance counselor Bob Collins says that Ventura High School students are on track and focused.

Even without the contract, graduation generally runs smoothly, he said, though there is the occasional streaker and a traditional, but harmless, prank in which seniors rearrange a math classroom or “kidnap” the teacher.

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“We’re just going to let that one happen, because we’d have to suspend kids that are going to Stanford, Berkeley and UCLA, because it’s a calculus class,” Collins said. “We just let that one ride.”

Nordhoff High School in Ojai has also seen a handful of pranks over the years, Assistant Principal Susana Arce said. But that hasn’t compelled the administration to distribute contracts.

“We try to consider every aspect of a situation before acting,” Arce said. “I think our students feel like they can be heard. As a consequence, there’s a lot of mutual respect.”