At a loss with classroom behavior issues

[Anonymous]

8:51 is absolutely correct about the lack of capacity. If there are no available seats in a private special ed school, the child has to be enrolled in the public school until a space opens up. There are very few of those schools serving many counties. The $60k figure is accurate and that is to provide a very, very basic no frills education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These threads make me so angry and rage cry. I've had a crap day and feel like slapping some of these posters.

My kid has some of these issues. The classroom has been cleared because of him. Do you know what we had to do in order to get him an appropriate placement where he is thriving? I'll tell you:

Thousands upon thousands of dollars of therapy, not including the amount of lost work/salary for me. I don't work anymore because it's too hard to manage.

At least 6 meetings with school a year, daily phone calls, IEP meetings, IEP revisions, FBAs/BIPs, etc. private testing. Daily phone call complaints from incompetent teachers, psychologists who told me "you don't seem to care about your kid (she got fired)," and a whole host of garbage comments from other parents.

Advocate and lawyer to help us through the process.
I had to have therapists who were baiting my child removed from the process after they admitted to baiting him to acting out.

More advocate and lawyer costs to get him into his correct placement, where he's thriving and doing very well.

And he's only in second grade. That's right, all of this and he's 7. This is a lifelong process for us. We'll do it again next year, and the year after, and the year after.

You know what I have to be able to do this: Time and Money. A lot of people don't have time and money to do these things. People can't quit their jobs to go to therapy. People can't pay lawyers and advocates to help them. We can and we're fortunate. I go to Special Ed group meetings near me and people are begging for help--they can't afford it, can't take time off, have trauma in their lives, etc.

Yes, some people ignore the problems until it's too late, or don't want their kid labeled, but I really believe that most people are doing the best they can, and, in some cases, they're relying on the school to help them through the process. You can't rely on them. You need need outside help and assistance and a lot of people can't afford that.

I don't want your kid to get his hand slammed in the door, or to have to evacuate the classroom. IT's not fair to any of the kids. But I also hate that this topic comes up once a week on this site and people don't seem to understand the other side of it. The lack of empathy for people on these threads is disgusting.

So I have an idea for you: Go use your voice to vote for candidates that support all aspects of public education, voice your concerns to your school board and principals, work for additional funding for schools, stop bitching about property taxes on your million dollar homes and then complain that we don't have enough aides for the SN kids. Stop thinking that parents aren't doing the best they can. Find some empathy for people who don't fit in the molds. Life is hard enough.

I have empathy and I feel very badly for you, I really do, but my child has started seeing tutors to help with reading and math because she's basically not being taught these subjects due to being in a class with not one, but two disruptive students and only one teacher and one aide. On top of that, all the attention spent on those kids means that other children are acting up more than normal and my child has a classmate constantly picking on and bothering her, and it has seriously impacted her ability to learn, her level of anxiety, and her love of school. We're also considering sending her to a psychologist to help with the anxiety issues. And yes, I've complained and documented and complained some more but apparently there's nothing the school can do for my child who was doing GREAT for two years before being put in this class with children the teachers can't handle. I really don't think this is fair to my child either, and has potentially long-term impacts on my child's mental health and well-being. You are not the ONLY one suffering.

This has nothing to do with one child. Your child is having tutors as they are struggling and probably also need assessed. Your child having anxiety probably is genetic or also something else going on. If its that bad ,send her to private. You don't get that these parents are doing the best they can and many are not equip to handle these indues and honestly, it doesn't sound like you can if you have to get tutors for a young child vs. working with them AND you are ignoring your child mental health.

Two sides to this and both have legitimate points of view. My child was in a class that was evacuated every few weeks in two different grades. I never even heard about it from her but a few parents mentioned it to me and I saw it happen once while volunteering. Not one of the kids seemed visibly upset. The evacuation was really quick and they just went to another classroom to continue the lesson. This was early elementary so it gave the kids a movement break and they continued with their lesson and were moved back into their classroom in about 5 minutes after another adult was able to come down and help the child who was upset.

DD has a friend with anxiety, and, her parents discovered a few years later, a learning disability. This situation was very difficult for her and the parents initially were in denial and blamed their DD's not being able to learn on the upset child. They did move her to a different classroom but found she was still struggling academically. This was about HER issue, not the other child's issue.

Public school is chaotic my friend and your child will encounter behavioral issues throughout K-12 so if this is making your child struggle you do have a right to bring it up with the administration but just know most students do fine with these disruptions.

Nope this isn't correct. Most kids don't do fine with these disruptions. You saw one situation where the kids were back in class after 5 minutes. You don't see when it takes an hour or more. And then the kids walk back to their work being ripped off walls, tables overturned, things scattered on the floor. It is traumatic for kids to witness their teacher being hit, kids running out of class, another kid stabbing a kid with a pencil, a kid loudly cussing every day, a kid throwing furniture across the room. It leads to a sense of always having to be alert and walk on eggshells. No way in hell would you accept working in an office where every couple of days a co-worker threw furniture, hit your boss, cussed you out. If a kid goes to Target and starts throwing things at people, security is called and the kid is escorted out or the police are called. One kid can literally suck up 50% of the teacher's time. The teacher can't plan any fun projects or exciting activities because of the problem kid, can't do groups because the out of control kid can't work independently, etc. It is noticeable how much more relaxed a teacher is when that problem kid is absent.

[Anonymous]

People should look at this in the same way that they look at being raised in dysfunctional, abusive homes.

All kids are affected in some way by parents fighting and by growing up in dysfunction. Some kids will act out, lash out, and others will withdraw and others will not react differently from the outside but they are still changed on the inside. It's good for nobody.

Well, many kids spend more waking hours at school than they do at home. And I don't think any psychologists anywhere would say that living with someone who might suddenly scream or throw things around the house is NDB. So why is it tolerated in the school system?

[Anonymous]

My children and their cousins are in big public schools and have had disruptive classmates almost every year. They do not seem to be impacted in any negative other than having empathy for their classmates who are having difficulty and for the teachers who are working so hard to help them.

I think you're projecting. It sounds like your children are extra sensitive.

[Anonymous]

I didn't mean having empathy was negative. I meant they were not impacted in any negative way period. But developed empathy and understanding that some children have difficulty in environments they find easy to handle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These threads make me so angry and rage cry. I've had a crap day and feel like slapping some of these posters.

My kid has some of these issues. The classroom has been cleared because of him. Do you know what we had to do in order to get him an appropriate placement where he is thriving? I'll tell you:

Thousands upon thousands of dollars of therapy, not including the amount of lost work/salary for me. I don't work anymore because it's too hard to manage.

At least 6 meetings with school a year, daily phone calls, IEP meetings, IEP revisions, FBAs/BIPs, etc. private testing. Daily phone call complaints from incompetent teachers, psychologists who told me "you don't seem to care about your kid (she got fired)," and a whole host of garbage comments from other parents.

Advocate and lawyer to help us through the process.
I had to have therapists who were baiting my child removed from the process after they admitted to baiting him to acting out.

More advocate and lawyer costs to get him into his correct placement, where he's thriving and doing very well.

And he's only in second grade. That's right, all of this and he's 7. This is a lifelong process for us. We'll do it again next year, and the year after, and the year after.

You know what I have to be able to do this: Time and Money. A lot of people don't have time and money to do these things. People can't quit their jobs to go to therapy. People can't pay lawyers and advocates to help them. We can and we're fortunate. I go to Special Ed group meetings near me and people are begging for help--they can't afford it, can't take time off, have trauma in their lives, etc.

Yes, some people ignore the problems until it's too late, or don't want their kid labeled, but I really believe that most people are doing the best they can, and, in some cases, they're relying on the school to help them through the process. You can't rely on them. You need need outside help and assistance and a lot of people can't afford that.

I don't want your kid to get his hand slammed in the door, or to have to evacuate the classroom. IT's not fair to any of the kids. But I also hate that this topic comes up once a week on this site and people don't seem to understand the other side of it. The lack of empathy for people on these threads is disgusting.

So I have an idea for you: Go use your voice to vote for candidates that support all aspects of public education, voice your concerns to your school board and principals, work for additional funding for schools, stop bitching about property taxes on your million dollar homes and then complain that we don't have enough aides for the SN kids. Stop thinking that parents aren't doing the best they can. Find some empathy for people who don't fit in the molds. Life is hard enough.

Everyone - please read this post!
Elementary teacher here in a "good" school.
OP, in my experience most of the cases are like this. A child acts out and the parents of the child are going crazy trying to help the child and figure out what's wrong. They are begging the administration and the teachers for help. Usually the administration thinks whatever is happening will pass and leave it up to the teachers to handle. Some of my colleagues are terrific and will come up with behavior plans and strategies on their own. The rest will overreact or under-react, or lose their own shit and make things worse. We have a few younger teachers with anxiety and OCD type issues, and instead of ignoring small, unimportant behaviors like fidgeting they will pick and pick at a child who they know has emotional challenges until the child explodes.

Believe me that 99 percent of cases of young children who act like this can be managed by a good teacher with good strategies. Sometimes they need another hand temporarily. In 15 years of teaching, I have seen only a small number of kids who need a different environment. They exist but they are not common.

One thing the administration might try is to try to move a child to be with a different teacher. It does work in some cases. When it doesn't it could mean the child is too far gone emotionally and does not trust anyone at that point or it could mean the child needs a different school. It takes a long time to figure that out. I have taught kids who looked like they might need this but then the next year, with a different teacher and more time, it is clear they will succeed in general education.

It is horrible your child is going through this, OP, but I hope you will read through these threads to get the perspective from the other family and other teachers in the building.

At our school they also isolate the kids. All the kids except one or two will be sitting in groups and they will have desks alone. Its pretty terrible.

I have seen this too and wonder how this happens. Awful.

Easy, ours does not allow parent volunteers and there is very little teacher-parent communication. I only know as my kids tell me or the few times a year I am in the classroom for something. It makes me really sad they do it to lots of kids from behavior, to those struggling with their work (claiming it is attention issues and kids just need a bit of help) to other reasons. They further cause social and other issues. My heart breaks for those kids.

[Anonymous]

Believe me that 99 percent of cases of young children who act like this can be managed by a good teacher with good strategies. Sometimes they need another hand temporarily. In 15 years of teaching, I have seen only a small number of kids who need a different environment. They exist but they are not common.

It's been some years since I taught, but I would agree with this. I suspect there are more kids like this than before.
However, in the 12 years I taught, I had two kids that needed to be elsewhere and were not. One was an autistic child with extreme sensory issues. He would start screaming and flailing about and could not be calmed. We could not figure out what set him off. He was not removed from my class and it was extremely disruptive and troubling to the kids--and me.

The other was a child who was extremely disturbed. She came from a very sad, abusive background. (She had been removed from that environment.) However, as much pity and sympathy I had for her, she was a constant disruption to the class. She required constant "eyes on."

The two years that those kids were in my class were very difficult and I often wonder how impacted the other kids were. They certainly were not able to have the same experience that my classes were the other years.

Two out of twelve years may not sound like much, but if your child were in those classes, you would likely feel that it was a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:8:51 is absolutely correct about the lack of capacity. If there are no available seats in a private special ed school, the child has to be enrolled in the public school until a space opens up. There are very few of those schools serving many counties. The $60k figure is accurate and that is to provide a very, very basic no frills education.

Agreed I have seen this happen in multiple times where a child needs to be in a different placements because they are in crisis several times a day but it can take months if not the better part of a year to actually get them moved. We have one student who absolutely cannot function in school with out one to one support and a sheltered learning environment but the parents pulled that student out of services and refuses to come to meetings so it's really hard to get buy in from them or get the ball rolling.

another student who has basically had almost no disruptions whatsoever gets a lot more services because the parents know how to advocate and use lawyers

[Anonymous]

[quote]At our school they also isolate the kids. All the kids except one or two will be sitting in groups and they will have desks alone. Its pretty terrible.

You might ask yourself why they do this.
1. It may be just temporary for that day because the child did something to his/her neighbor. Natural consequences.
2. It may be because the child cannot work in a group. Perhaps, there are sensory issues.
3. It may be because the child is constantly "picking" on neighbors. Taking a pencil and jabbing are possibilities. Another would be frequently taking neighbor's supplies.
4. It maybe because the child does better without distractions.

It may be sad to you, but if your child is victimized by the child sitting alone, you might be complaining about that kid to the teacher.
Believe me, it is easier and gives more space to have the child sitting with the others. The teacher does this out of necessity.

[Anonymous]

I’m the teacher who was told to be vague in the note to the sub. I am really not looking forward to Tuesday. We are supposed to do a class activity with scissors. It’s from our curriculum and one of those experiences that basically every student does at this grade. Yesterday, my AP told me that I could not problem-solve either of two logical solutions:
A) send Larlo to another class with an alternative lesson.
B) do an alternative lesson with the entire class.

No. We have to give him “the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them.”

I requested a second adult be present. No word yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Believe me that 99 percent of cases of young children who act like this can be managed by a good teacher with good strategies. Sometimes they need another hand temporarily. In 15 years of teaching, I have seen only a small number of kids who need a different environment. They exist but they are not common.

It's been some years since I taught, but I would agree with this. I suspect there are more kids like this than before.
However, in the 12 years I taught, I had two kids that needed to be elsewhere and were not. One was an autistic child with extreme sensory issues. He would start screaming and flailing about and could not be calmed. We could not figure out what set him off. He was not removed from my class and it was extremely disruptive and troubling to the kids--and me.

The other was a child who was extremely disturbed. She came from a very sad, abusive background. (She had been removed from that environment.) However, as much pity and sympathy I had for her, she was a constant disruption to the class. She required constant "eyes on."

The two years that those kids were in my class were very difficult and I often wonder how impacted the other kids were. They certainly were not able to have the same experience that my classes were the other years.

Two out of twelve years may not sound like much, but if your child were in those classes, you would likely feel that it was a lot.

The difference how is that teachers have kids like this (either one or more than one) *every* year. It used to be there was a known kid in each grade level and every year one teacher in the grade level would have this challenging child in their class but teachers would rotate years with a known challenging child and then they would have at least a year “off”. Now no one has a year “off”. This is a huge reason why teachers are so burnt out. Even one year with no significant behavior challenges can be recharging and remind you why you do this job.

That’s not to say that the kids with significant behavior challenges only have negative qualities. Far from that, of course, but our job is to instruct the whole class and if the majority of our time is spent on handling behavior from one or two children then the rest suffer by proxy. And of course the people with the easy solutions about how to handle these kids aren’t the ones who are with them for 7 hours a day and aren’t the ones responsible for instructing that kid plus twenty something others. Of course it’s easier to handle when you’re not immersed in it all day long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[quote]At our school they also isolate the kids. All the kids except one or two will be sitting in groups and they will have desks alone. Its pretty terrible.

You might ask yourself why they do this.
1. It may be just temporary for that day because the child did something to his/her neighbor. Natural consequences.
2. It may be because the child cannot work in a group. Perhaps, there are sensory issues.
3. It may be because the child is constantly "picking" on neighbors. Taking a pencil and jabbing are possibilities. Another would be frequently taking neighbor's supplies.
4. It maybe because the child does better without distractions.

It may be sad to you, but if your child is victimized by the child sitting alone, you might be complaining about that kid to the teacher.
Believe me, it is easier and gives more space to have the child sitting with the others. The teacher does this out of necessity.

+1. A kid in my child's class had an isolated desk a few years ago. Why? Because he stabbed my son and another child with a pencil and had problems with self regulation all year. The parents pushed back HARD when the school suggested alternate placement, but the kid finally got moved to an ED center after bringing a knife to school and threatening to use it. Admin was reluctant to act but enough parents complained (in writing) and at least one threatened to press charges. I suspect that's what finally moved the needle.

[Anonymous]

I have worked in elementary self-contained classes in a few different districts and I have seen increasingly more severe behavioral issues over that last few years. My current cross-cat class has more challenging behaviors that the Emotional/Behavioral disorders class I worked in 7 years ago

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another teacher here. I agree that the best thing you can do is share your concerns with the administrators. Often they'll keep placing kids in inappropriate settings either because the parents of that child don't want their child to receive the support they *need* or because they're penny-pinching. The rest of the parents outnumber the one. Be very clear that you have concerns about your child's safety and ability to learn with the new addition in the room. Considering the fact that your child already experienced evacuations last year, you know this school isn't going to do anything until you are loud and clear. Make them squirm, let them know that if any harm comes to your child you'll sue them. Tell them that you are documenting your child's reports. This school isn't doing the right thing for anyone.

You can also fill out a bullying report everyday. This documents what your child is experiencing and the frequency that it’s happening. They can’t ask you to stop and they have to respond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have worked in elementary self-contained classes in a few different districts and I have seen increasingly more severe behavioral issues over that last few years. My current cross-cat class has more challenging behaviors that the Emotional/Behavioral disorders class I worked in 7 years ago

Curious. Do you have any idea why? I think it is because more people blame bad behavior on "disabilities." I don't question that some kids have disabilities which contribute to bad behavior, but I think some (most?) are due to poor parenting.