Community Day at APS middle school

[Anonymous]

My DD at Swanson said that the issue was to get the kids to build relationships with their classmates and address the disrespect students have been showing to staff. She says the 7th graders are having the hardest time adjusting, which makes sense given that they left the in-person classroom as 5th graders and missed a lot of important social development time. There is another community day planned for February.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD at Swanson said that the issue was to get the kids to build relationships with their classmates and address the disrespect students have been showing to staff. She says the 7th graders are having the hardest time adjusting, which makes sense given that they left the in-person classroom as 5th graders and missed a lot of important social development time. There is another community day planned for February.

Similar issues with 7th graders being noted at Kenmore. These kids have had a rough few years.

[Anonymous]

What exactly is Community Day? What do kids do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s needed. Across the board, not just at your MS. Kids have regressed socially. Many have been quite isolated during the pandemic, and the skills they would have learned and or previously had need to be retaught/shored up. The last 2 years have been really hard for everyone, even those from privilege (likely less so, but still). They can’t really address learning loss without first addressing mental health and school-wide social issues that have become impediments to learning.

Definitely not just middle school. I know it’s been hard. I know there’s social regression. I know there’s been trauma. But OMFG, not pooping in the urinals is something that should not need “a reminder.” A schoolwide community day isn’t going to stop this extreme bad behavior.

They really need to get OK with expulsion. Schools have become way too soft.

So you expel a kid in middle school instead of spending some time and energy showing kids that you believe they can learn some skills and do better. What do you think the long term effects of each approach are going to be? What kind of world do you want to live in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They really need to get OK with expulsion. Schools have become way too soft.

So you expel a kid in middle school instead of spending some time and energy showing kids that you believe they can learn some skills and do better. What do you think the long term effects of each approach are going to be? What kind of world do you want to live in?

Not PP. Maybe not expulsion, but suspension and engagement of law enforcement. They can learn some skills certainly but in the interim they've broken the law and need to understand that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They really need to get OK with expulsion. Schools have become way too soft.

So you expel a kid in middle school instead of spending some time and energy showing kids that you believe they can learn some skills and do better. What do you think the long term effects of each approach are going to be? What kind of world do you want to live in?

Not PP. Maybe not expulsion, but suspension and engagement of law enforcement. They can learn some skills certainly but in the interim they've broken the law and need to understand that.

For property crime? Nope.

The incident at one MS that was actually serious did involve law enforcement, as it should. Didn’t require an SRO on site for the administration to handle the issue appropriately, and to know the difference between a real threat vs. defacing a soap dispenser.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s needed. Across the board, not just at your MS. Kids have regressed socially. Many have been quite isolated during the pandemic, and the skills they would have learned and or previously had need to be retaught/shored up. The last 2 years have been really hard for everyone, even those from privilege (likely less so, but still). They can’t really address learning loss without first addressing mental health and school-wide social issues that have become impediments to learning.

Definitely not just middle school. I know it’s been hard. I know there’s social regression. I know there’s been trauma. But OMFG, not pooping in the urinals is something that should not need “a reminder.” A schoolwide community day isn’t going to stop this extreme bad behavior.

They really need to get OK with expulsion. Schools have become way too soft.

So you expel a kid in middle school instead of spending some time and energy showing kids that you believe they can learn some skills and do better. What do you think the long term effects of each approach are going to be? What kind of world do you want to live in?

A world where there are consequences for your action - We are talking about MS kids here who are old enough to know better. What they learned in ES is that there aren't consequences and so they escalate as they get older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They really need to get OK with expulsion. Schools have become way too soft.

So you expel a kid in middle school instead of spending some time and energy showing kids that you believe they can learn some skills and do better. What do you think the long term effects of each approach are going to be? What kind of world do you want to live in?

Not PP. Maybe not expulsion, but suspension and engagement of law enforcement. They can learn some skills certainly but in the interim they've broken the law and need to understand that.

There are suspensions. They aren't advertised beyond those involved, but there are definitely suspensions.

[Anonymous]

They absolutely discipline kids at these public middle schools and don't shy away from it. It's way better than private, in my experience. They are stone cold because they don't need your $ and you are not their paying customer.

But no, they aren't publicly announcing it to all of you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They absolutely discipline kids at these public middle schools and don't shy away from it. It's way better than private, in my experience. They are stone cold because they don't need your $ and you are not their paying customer.

But no, they aren't publicly announcing it to all of you.

I hope you are right b/c there was no discipline in our elementary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They absolutely discipline kids at these public middle schools and don't shy away from it. It's way better than private, in my experience. They are stone cold because they don't need your $ and you are not their paying customer.

But no, they aren't publicly announcing it to all of you.

I hope you are right b/c there was no discipline in our elementary.

That’s your principal. There was discipline in the one my kids went to.