Why are kids with problematic behavior left in mainstream classes

[Anonymous]

Why not? Why keep protecting these kids that will ultimately end up in jail? Better to put it out there so parents can notify the board and better yet, call the police.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It’s because of parents who refuse to believe their “little angels” are the problem and instead blame schools and teachers for their kids’ bad behavior and the admins and school boards who enable and coddle those parents.

No it isn't. There is nowhere else for those parents to put their kids unless they can afford a lawyer.

I’m a school counselor. This PP is correct. There used to be more options. Now it’s the “home school” model. Only they didn’t allocate enough resources to the home school, so it’s a set up for failure.

NP- can you talk about what other options there used to be? I'm very interested in learning more. I know we didn't have problem behaviors when I was in school, but I was a kid and wasn't aware of other places or where they went.

DP here. So people have raised this multiple times.. why can't virtual school be an option for those kids who misbehave, bully, etc? Seems to me that it's the most appropriate and less expensive choice. If your kid is a bully, causes fights, is disrespectful, causes harm to others, etc. then they should be "kicked out" of in-person school and provided virtual schooling for x amount of time depending on the severity of the case.

The problem with this approach is that we live in a society. Yes, it would be better for my individual kid for the other individual kid to get kicked out of school. However, on a population level, it is BAD to effectively condemn a huge swathe of our youth to finishing their education at 3rd grade, or 7th grade, or whatever. The same issues (whether they are related to disability, trauma, or home life) that keep a child from learning in the classroom are going to keep them from learning at home. So then what. In 10 years we have a feral gang of children who were sent home to finish their education online back when they were 9?

So the other option is the return of special schools that used to accommodate these types of students; but that's no longer on the table. If virtual schooling is also not a viable option, then the only other option is to leave the kids in the mainstream classroom; which is fine but if the system eliminates discipline and drastically reduce suspensions (which they have), then that too is unacceptable. So what's more important? To pacify a small group that causes harm or to ensure that the majority of students are getting a decent and equitable education?

It’s not that specialized schools, classes and programs are no longer in the table, but funding and program model don’t seem to be. Specialized schools and classes requirement space, people and funding. Also, kids should not be regulated there once they are able to exhibit changes in their behavior. There should be a model to reintegrate and stabilize them into a Gen Ed classroom.

Everyone cries as if we spend no money on special ed. Hiring individual aides to accompany kids around all day is already expensive. Holding endless IEP meetings where nothing is accomplished is expensive. Hiring and training new teachers to replace the ones who are driven out by bad behavior is expensive. Declining skills and knowledge in our kids is expensive. Money is not the reason why special schools went away, and it won't be the reason why they won't come back. These administrators do not want to bring back special "rooms" or "schools" filled with black and brown kids. That's the reason.

Are you really not aware of the existing special education programs within MCPS?

Are you really not aware of the limiting of programs that has occurred- especially in elementary? LAD programs used to be 6 kid classrooms, now they are gone and in their place is full inclusion in the home school model. SESES used to be around 6 kids- now they are up to 11 with less support. Newcomers with interrupted education used to have separate schools- now they are fully mainstreamed with 0 support (don’t even get me started about the horrible SLIFE program). Learning Center programs used to be small self contained classes filled with diploma bound students- no more. Now they are a mix of diploma and certificate students and with class sizes up to 18!! 18 all with insane IEP’s. Autism programs used to have close to a 1-1 ratio. NOPE. Now they’re a 1-2 people trying to corral 5-6 highly impacted students.

Now combine all this with the behavior issues we are seeing with our NT children, and we have quite the mess.

A classroom can be managed when there are 1-2 challenging children. But there’s no hope with our current classroom compositions. Things have gone too far and we need to return to more options for education. One size does not fit all!

All of the above, and Special Ed teachers are burnt out and quitting or returning to gen ed because the extra workload is unmanageable. More than half the openings that remained after school started were special ed positions, and no one reported on how many special ed positions had been filled by unqualified long-term subs (this co tributes to the problem because they dont know how to extonguish behaviors, or create or manage BIPs [behavior improvement plans], and frequently make things worse). And Central Office says there's nothing they can do. It's a disgrace

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not? Why keep protecting these kids that will ultimately end up in jail? Better to put it out there so parents can notify the board and better yet, call the police.

So you think the school to prison pipeline is a good thing?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:A student in my child’s class was dangerous and destroyed the classroom on multiple occasions. It took him nearly the entire year to end up leaving our school; after traumatizing our child and his friends, as well as the teacher. It was awful and the school used the limited resources to essentially keep this child in a separate room from his classmates. What a drain on resources and the teacher could barely teach bc when he was in the room, he required constant supervision. Moving forward if this happens again, I have a lawyer to protect my child from other violent children. The school cared but the system did not.

I have a student like this in my elementary class this year. He moved to MCPS after coming from several different districts in the past few years. He does little to no work the entire day that he's at school. He inevitably ends up wandering around the room distracting his classmates. After a few minutes of this he begins knocking items off of bookshelves, desks, and counters. He then ramps it up and begins kicking desks, the trash can, etc. Pretty much anything he can do to create a scene he will attempt. He becomes non-verbal during this episode and won't respond to any questions or demands. My class has learned that when this happens I always announce that we need a bathroom break and I text my administration to come to my room.

I usually come back from the bathroom break with my class and the student has been removed to another location. Admin can't put their hands on him unless he becomes extremely unsafe so we spend a great deal of time out of the class on the bathroom break until the student willingly moves to another location. He leaves the room trashed and we spend about ten minutes trying to straighten up again and remember where we left off in the middle of a lesson. This happens almost daily once in the morning and then about 10 minutes after recess. So for only being able to remain in my gen ed classroom for twenty minutes daily, he destroys the room at least twice and causes so much disruption to learning.

Mom works two jobs and there's no dad in the picture. Mom can't miss work for meetings so we're proceeding with a FBA without her. It's apparent that he has moved so often that he's slipped right through the cracks. I'm so frustrated that he's made it to fourth grade with nothing in his files noting these behaviors. We're starting from scratch and I imagine we will continue this cycle of disruption for the rest of the year.

I am so.sorry. Please share what parents can do.to support and accelerate this process.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes kids cannot be rehabilitated. Sometimes there are just not so good kids. Look at the child in VA that shot his teacher. The child in my sons class was off- he had no compassion and no empathy, a sociopath in the making. How long are the directors willing to keep these kids in school (they call it the holding process) before other children get really hurt. Aka they know it’s the wrong placement but there aren’t openings at the other programs bc they are short staffed or classes are full. Until mcps brings back more specialized programs and creates more space for these kids, there is no other option. If getting police involved expedites the process and shows there is a paper trail, then yes, I am willing to protect the majority of all children for one bad apple.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes the best placement is online school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes kids cannot be rehabilitated. Sometimes there are just not so good kids. Look at the child in VA that shot his teacher. The child in my sons class was off- he had no compassion and no empathy, a sociopath in the making. How long are the directors willing to keep these kids in school (they call it the holding process) before other children get really hurt. Aka they know it’s the wrong placement but there aren’t openings at the other programs bc they are short staffed or classes are full. Until mcps brings back more specialized programs and creates more space for these kids, there is no other option. If getting police involved expedites the process and shows there is a paper trail, then yes, I am willing to protect the majority of all children for one bad apple.

Part of the problem is these days almost half the students in MCPS have "special needs". There just isn't staff to handle this and probably never will be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes the best placement is online school

In other words, the streets

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes kids cannot be rehabilitated. Sometimes there are just not so good kids. Look at the child in VA that shot his teacher. The child in my sons class was off- he had no compassion and no empathy, a sociopath in the making. How long are the directors willing to keep these kids in school (they call it the holding process) before other children get really hurt. Aka they know it’s the wrong placement but there aren’t openings at the other programs bc they are short staffed or classes are full. Until mcps brings back more specialized programs and creates more space for these kids, there is no other option. If getting police involved expedites the process and shows there is a paper trail, then yes, I am willing to protect the majority of all children for one bad apple.

Part of the problem is these days almost half the students in MCPS have "special needs". There just isn't staff to handle this and probably never will be.

Part of this is because everyone with any problem is categorized as special needs.

E.g. Intermittent Explosive Disorder

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes kids cannot be rehabilitated. Sometimes there are just not so good kids. Look at the child in VA that shot his teacher. The child in my sons class was off- he had no compassion and no empathy, a sociopath in the making. How long are the directors willing to keep these kids in school (they call it the holding process) before other children get really hurt. Aka they know it’s the wrong placement but there aren’t openings at the other programs bc they are short staffed or classes are full. Until mcps brings back more specialized programs and creates more space for these kids, there is no other option. If getting police involved expedites the process and shows there is a paper trail, then yes, I am willing to protect the majority of all children for one bad apple.

I don’t know how involving the police would expedite things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes the best placement is online school

In other words, the streets

School is not daycare or a prison. It can be delivered online effectively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes the best placement is online school

In other words, the streets

School is not daycare or a prison. It can be delivered online effectively.

Clearly you live in a bubble. Who is making the kid do the work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes the best placement is online school

In other words, the streets

School is not daycare or a prison. It can be delivered online effectively.

Clearly you live in a bubble. Who is making the kid do the work?

Teachers can’t make them do it in class either. They can choose to do the work or they can choose to fail. At least they aren’t disrupting the students who are there to actually learn. It’s not fair to the other kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes the best placement is online school

In other words, the streets

School is not daycare or a prison. It can be delivered online effectively.

Clearly you live in a bubble. Who is making the kid do the work?

Teachers can’t make them do it in class either. They can choose to do the work or they can choose to fail. At least they aren’t disrupting the students who are there to actually learn. It’s not fair to the other kids.

I suppose the kids would kill each other in the inner city before reaching adulthood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes the best placement is online school

In other words, the streets

School is not daycare or a prison. It can be delivered online effectively.

For some but not for everyone.