Disruptive group of students: what to do?

[Anonymous]

My child is in the 5th grade, and there’s a group of four students that are extremely disruptive. Loud screaming and yelling, rolling in the floor etc. and it is a daily occurrence (if not every class).

Example, kid sits next to my child, then starts screaming random stuff, although not directly at my child. Then the other kids pick it up and start screaming as well. The troublemakers have a history of misbehaviors but is was manageable and took off this year. Teachers really can’t hold their class and so far from the beginning of the year two teachers left because they couldn’t handle it.

I sent an email expressing my concern to the home classroom teacher only, especially because my child is telling me they hate going to school, they don’t learn anything there etc.

I’m not sure there will be much done and I want to escalate by lodging in a formal complaint of harassment. Although there isn’t a one on one interaction, I believe that one group of students is harassing another group of students in the class. Maybe not typical, but I still believe this is harassment and that my child is being victimized. One of the disrupters has a history of harassment from a year ago, when he mimicked a sex act with my child’s hat, and I followed a complaint with the school about it. He got some restorative justice talk to, and it didn’t repeat since.

I am genuinely concerned and want to take some action to remedy the situation. Am I judging the situation correctly and any advice on how to proceed?

[Anonymous]

The kids are not harassing your kid. You can say they are interrupting your child's ability to learn and ask they be taken out of your child's class. But they're more likely to move your kid.

[Anonymous]

It's early in the school year, they need to split those kids up and move them into different classrooms. We had a year like that and it was a complete disaster. If they won't, you need to get your kid moved to a different classroom. Four students is too many for even the best teacher to handle, and despite what the administration claims, they will not be able to get the classroom under control as it is.

[Anonymous]

Is there any way you can swing private school or even private online school for a year? I'm a teacher and can tell you there's probably no way the school will get this under control if two teachers in the grade level have already left. That means the remaining teachers are doing extra work and most likely burning out fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child is in the 5th grade, and there’s a group of four students that are extremely disruptive. Loud screaming and yelling, rolling in the floor etc. and it is a daily occurrence (if not every class).

Example, kid sits next to my child, then starts screaming random stuff, although not directly at my child. Then the other kids pick it up and start screaming as well. The troublemakers have a history of misbehaviors but is was manageable and took off this year. Teachers really can’t hold their class and so far from the beginning of the year two teachers left because they couldn’t handle it.

I sent an email expressing my concern to the home classroom teacher only, especially because my child is telling me they hate going to school, they don’t learn anything there etc.

I’m not sure there will be much done and I want to escalate by lodging in a formal complaint of harassment. Although there isn’t a one on one interaction, I believe that one group of students is harassing another group of students in the class. Maybe not typical, but I still believe this is harassment and that my child is being victimized. One of the disrupters has a history of harassment from a year ago, when he mimicked a sex act with my child’s hat, and I followed a complaint with the school about it. He got some restorative justice talk to, and it didn’t repeat since.

I am genuinely concerned and want to take some action to remedy the situation. Am I judging the situation correctly and any advice on how to proceed?

Which school is this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is in the 5th grade, and there’s a group of four students that are extremely disruptive. Loud screaming and yelling, rolling in the floor etc. and it is a daily occurrence (if not every class).

Example, kid sits next to my child, then starts screaming random stuff, although not directly at my child. Then the other kids pick it up and start screaming as well. The troublemakers have a history of misbehaviors but is was manageable and took off this year. Teachers really can’t hold their class and so far from the beginning of the year two teachers left because they couldn’t handle it.

I sent an email expressing my concern to the home classroom teacher only, especially because my child is telling me they hate going to school, they don’t learn anything there etc.

I’m not sure there will be much done and I want to escalate by lodging in a formal complaint of harassment. Although there isn’t a one on one interaction, I believe that one group of students is harassing another group of students in the class. Maybe not typical, but I still believe this is harassment and that my child is being victimized. One of the disrupters has a history of harassment from a year ago, when he mimicked a sex act with my child’s hat, and I followed a complaint with the school about it. He got some restorative justice talk to, and it didn’t repeat since.

I am genuinely concerned and want to take some action to remedy the situation. Am I judging the situation correctly and any advice on how to proceed?

Which school is this?

Pretty much all of them.
Signed, a teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there any way you can swing private school or even private online school for a year? I'm a teacher and can tell you there's probably no way the school will get this under control if two teachers in the grade level have already left. That means the remaining teachers are doing extra work and most likely burning out fast.

If OP is in DC, they can also still do a post lottery application for schools on the short waitlist list. There are plenty of schools with 0-1 kids on the waitlist that would be better than a year of this. She should call the school and tell them the situation and that she wants to enroll ASAP.

If not DC, is there a way to do a change of school request for bullying? That, private, or homeschooling.

[Anonymous]

This happens in every school OP. Get a grip.
This is a teacher and school problem. The teacher needs to learn better ways of managing the kids and the school needs to help her by separating those kids or moving some of those kids out of her classroom or providing another adult in the room.

This is not harassment and you are a fool if you think reporting it as such will get what you want.

[Anonymous]

Just ask for your child to be moved to another classroom. We had a year like that and it was totally fine. Child still learned, made friends and had a fun year.

It sounds like you or your child have a lot of anxiety and in that case the focus should be on your child not on criticizing the other children.

[Anonymous]

Glad I homeschool.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, let’s blame the mom and her kid. Equity

[Anonymous]

OP. I kind of agree it’s not exactly harassment yet, but I’ll keep my eyes open in case anything happens, and at least I documented my concerns. The reason I asked about it is that the school has a uniform complaint form that includes harassment and gets reported to the district etc, so there’s more accountability if the form is submitted.

I got a response from the classroom teacher and she’ll move my child to a table without disruptive kids. They also plan to introduce a behavior referral card for students, kind of like red and yellow cards in soccer so you can’t go to field trips if you got 3 of them. Not sure it’s going to be very effective, we’ll see.

We’re not switching schools because we did so in the beginning of the 4th grade. They had an amazing teacher that was really great at her job, and ran a tight ship, but left for another school. We will definitely consider private when going to middle school and will choose wisely.

To the morons that reply get a grip, it’s normal etc. I’m just going to say it isn’t ok for students to scream in class and there should be disciplinary consequences for repeat offenders. As long as the disruptive behavior continues I’ll keep complaining and there are other parents in the class that do, hoping it will move the administration towards taking some action.

[Anonymous]

It’s NOT normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s NOT normal.

It is these days. There are no real consequences for this type of behavior anymore.

[Anonymous]

Fifth graders yelling and rolling on the floor is not normal. Neither is two teachers leaving due to the behavior this early in the school year.

OP, keep an eye on it. Moving tables will not solve classroom disruptions and only you can see how your child is handling it. If they can ignore it, then great. But after we had a year like that, it took my child another year to get over the stress response associated with going to school. I really regret not getting mine moved early in the year, and told myself that we would absolutely never do a year like that again.