LEWISTON — Since school started in the fall, there have been 200 student referrals to the principal’s office for skipping detention, 171 for unexcused tardiness, 53 for disrupting class, 46 for incorrectly using technology (cellphones) and 79 for acting defiantly.

The total number of times students have been sent from a class to the principal’s office in the past 16 weeks is 989, said Lewiston High School Principal Linda MacKenzie, who has been principal for one month and three days.

“It’s a huge problem,” she told the School Committee on Monday night. “Every time a student is sent out of the classroom, they’re not learning.”

A student could spend 10 minutes, a half hour or half a day waiting to meet with an assistant principal.

Because the three assistant principals spend 60 to 75 percent of their time dealing with student behavior, they don’t have time to work with teachers on the new evaluation program.

“Something’s got to give,” MacKenzie said.

She offered a solution the committee: make two teachers deans of students at no additional cost.

The committee agreed in a 7-2 vote. Members Sonia Taylor and Don D’Auteuil voted against it.

The deans would coach teachers, giving them skills to better deal with students, Mackenzie said. Speaking of Ross Green’s “Lost in School” book, MacKenzie said there are skills teachers could use “instead of just saying, ‘Go to the office!’

“Sometimes, students misbehave because they don’t want to say ‘I don’t understand,’ or they haven’t had breakfast,” she said. “It means talking to students, asking them questions, forming relationships and understanding students needs.”

Punishing students doesn’t change behavior, it just alienates students, she said.

The old days where principals and teachers controlled students by fear doesn’t work anymore, she said. “Today, children are different. You can’t fear a child into compliance. You do it by forming relationships with students.”

When she was a teacher, her students didn’t fear her. “Students who comply do it because they respect me, I respect them. It does work.”

Her proposal drew hard questions from committee members.

“You’re not there to be their friend,” Taylor told MacKenzie. “You’re new, you just got there.”

She asked MacKenzie if she has used all resources available to her, and maybe she underestimated the job.

“I just don’t know if when you came into the position if you really knew what you were getting yourself into. You’re seeing it now and this is your resolution,” Taylor said. “Can you honestly say after one month you’ve taken a look at all the staff and (explored) how could (you) push the staff a little more?”

Paul St. Pierre said he’d prefer to see MacKenzie try one dean. If it helped, a second dean could be hired, he said.

Tom Shannon pointed out that the 989 visits to the principal’s office does not represent that many students. Many are sent out of class repeatedly.

“The frequent flyers,” MacKenzie called them.

Donald D’Auteuil said that so many skipping detention shows students don’t fear authority. He said he was “struggling to support this.”

High school student representative Paige Clabby said she was not surprised to hear that assistant principals spend so much time dealing with student behavior.

“This is a problem,” Clabby said. “I’m glad she’s addressing it.”

Superintendent Bill Webster said he approved moving ahead with MacKenzie’s idea and that the problem of student behavior “is much larger than what we’re dealing with today.”

MacKenzie will see which teachers may be good candidates for deans.

In other business, the committee approved creating a new special ed contained-classroom teacher at Montello Elementary School and appointed Alison Langlois to it. The budget-neutral position was created by eliminating two ed tech positions.

Committee members were told there is a group of grade K-2 students who need more support for learning how to behave in class with the goal of re-entering them into regular classrooms.