Inside the great teacher resignation

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I taught in self-contained rooms for ED kids for years and they do work. Kids are taught at their pace, learn to use self-control strategies, and are not in trouble all day. These kids that are so often in heightened states are damaging their brains, and the kids that have to witness it all day ate experiencing secondary trauma. A self-contained program is not for life. It’s a reset, time to heal and get in control. The ones in my county have incredibly low enrollment, because the bar is so high to move them now. It’s not juvenile detention. It’s meeting their needs, building success, and then determining scaffolded returns to gen ed.

Yes, but that’s not what’s being proposed in this thread. They want to move all of the kids that are significantly disruptive in gen ed classrooms into the self-contained classrooms. And then they only want to move them back out after they’ve been able to demonstrate self control in the self-contained setting, where we all know they’re not likely to provide the necessary and appropriate resources.

How do you think that would go?

Are you a teacher? If not, do you understand what you're expecting from classroom teachers? It is too much. That's why they're quitting. I know a young teacher whose nose was broken by a student 6 weeks before her wedding. Most teachers do not have the training and do not want to deal with those types of behaviors day in and day out.

As a parent of a child with special needs, few would understand as well as I. My kid is younger, but I can certainly imagine what it would be like to scale him up by 2x or 3x.

I would certainly agree that teachers need help with these students. But you’re not asking for help. You’re trying to hide those students away so you can forget about them.

No, I'm not. I posted above that I've tried to help students with significant special needs for years. I was a special ed teacher and later a school psychologist. I'm just stating the obvious -- that classroom teachers are leaving because they can't cope with the large number of students with significant behaviors, and many school districts don't have the resources to provide 1:1 paras. Another factor -- I would imagine that very few DCUM posters are encouraging their children to become teachers. We have a problem that can't be ignored and will be even worse when the current teachers aged 55+ retire.

You didn’t say what your plan is, except to apparently build more overpasses for the kids you’d like to leave behind to live under. Though, I imagine you’re at an age now where that doesn’t really matter to you.

Not true. I still work part-time. You're distorting my words, not sure if intentionally or just not understanding. My plan would be to hire more teachers and paras, with smaller classes; however, I don't control the funding and have no influence over the number of teachers leaving the profession.

Ok, but if you look further up in the thread, the proposal was to fast-track kids into self-contained classrooms if they disrupt gen-ed classrooms, and make them earn their way back. This would obviously grossly increase the number of kids in those programs. And with no hope of fully staffing those programs, those kids wouldn't have a realistic path to get out of there.

The idea that more self-contained classrooms is the answer here is ridiculous. Yes, there will always be some set of students where that really is the best environment for them. But it will always be a small number, and it needs to be a small number because we'd never be able to recruit enough staff to handle large numbers effectively. 1:1 aides obviously have their own challenges, but for those that actually need it, its going to be cheaper and easier for the school district to provide than it would be to provide them with a self-contained program of similar educational quality.

The problem is, school districts are taking the easy way out, choosing to spend their money on lawyers to fight parents, rather than actually staffing and improving their programs.

A one in one aide who is not allowed to touch a kid who is out of control may as well not be there. Frankly these kids are given free reign to run around the school while available staff “block the exits” they are out of control because no teacher is going to touch your throwing spitting biting kicking and hitting child when you will file a lawsuit if we do. So your kid runs around destroying the school until they “burn themselves out.” I don’t think you truly understand the manpower involved when a kid starts running around the school. If we could just take the child to a sensory or break room to calm down it would be helpful but no one is allowed to touch them to get them there so they run wild. We are too scared of lawsuits to touch your kid. It is mentally and physically exhausting to go to work everyday knowing a kid may abuse you or the children you are supposed to protect at any point during the day and your only recourse is to move out of the way and or take the blows.

How does moving those kids out of your class solve those problems for everyone but you?

I’m not the PP, but all of the other kids and their parents, as well as the teachers, will be much happier if they’re able to learn in a safe and relatively calm environment at school. Educational outcomes world improve dramatically for 95% of students (or at least stop declining) and teachers wouldn’t be leaving the profession so rapidly either. How is that not obvious?

And the kids, teachers, and paras in the segregated classrooms? Screw ‘em?

Well the kids in that classroom are all disruptive so yeah, they will just need to deal with the disruptions from the other kids. As for the teachers and staff, of course they should receive different training to keep them safe, a higher salary for the worse conditions, and/or lowered expectations for reporting and other admin since they’ll need to spend more time on classroom management. Also of course these rooms would have a higher staff/student ratio with shared aides.

And 95% of kids (and teachers!) will no longer be sacrificed and we might be able to save what’s left of our public education system.

Why not use the substantial resources you’re referencing to actually support students and teachers in the LRE?

It’s because you know the schools wouldn’t properly staff the special education programs. It’s pretty clear from the tone of your post that you’re not interesting in helping those kids- you’re just trying to get rid of them.

2 reasons. First, because we can spend even more money and then the other kids are STILL affected by this trauma in their classrooms. Even if the violence or disruption is reduced, it’s still not acceptable. And second, because these things are getting worse. The kids are getting more and more dangerous and the number of the kids with behavioral problems are increasing every year. We need to start addressing the problem in a safer, more scalable way.

And yes, these changes will be for the benefit of the teachers and the other kids.

But it sounds like you're saying it is acceptable if that "violence or disruption" is experienced by the kids with special needs-- just so long as your kids are protected from having to see it.

You appear to make a lot of assumptions and don't seem concerned about other children's needs and safety.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think that teachers, students, and parents would all be better off if discipline policies were changed to protect those in school buildings from the most disruptive students (who are a minority). Those truly disruptive, abusive, and unruly students take up too much time and emotional weight. Teachers should not have to suffer abuse at the hands of students, just as students should not lose out on their education due to serious disruptions by other students. Children need structure. By allowing this minority of students to have so much power, teachers are exhausted, and children learn that rules are optional. Parents, too, wind up in defense mode. Getting zeros for late or missing work seems excessive when other students can burst in and out of classrooms, throw items at teachers, and attack other kids at recess. Seriously. If you want discipline, then find a way to address the kids for whom conventional discipline strategies don't work.

What do you propose?

It's hard to imagine a path to implementing it, but I do think elementary rooms should have two teachers.

Teacher here proposing a few things:
1) There needs to be a way to "fast track" kids like this into a special education self contained classroom within a few weeks, not within a few years. If, with interventions, the child can learn to self regulate, then said kid returns to gen ed, with a full time, 1:1 aide. If they are successful with that support, then fade the TA out.
2) Every single K-1st grade room needs a certified teacher and either a full time TA or a co-teacher. OR, limit K-1 rooms to no more than 10 kids.
3) Pass legislation that requires insurance companies to provide for the educational needs of kids who need to be outplaced. This is primarily a health issue and then second, an education issue. Insurance companies DO YOUR JOB. And the government needs to build, staff, train and supply schools to deal with kids like this.

From your posts (at least, the posts I think come from you), you seem to be at breaking point. And as a parent of a child with special needs and behavioral challenges, I get how exhausting and painful (emotionally and physically) it can be. So I suspect your intentions are pure here. But I don't think you're really thinking through how this would play out for kids with special needs.

The reason we have IDEA to begin with is that states and local school districts were not providing appropriate educational services to kids with disabilities. And I get it-- it is expensive to do so. But essentially eliminating principle of Least Restrictive Environment would bring us right back to that. Kids would quickly get shuffled out to self-contained classrooms that would likely become even more short-staffed and resource poor. Once there, many kids would likely regress. Kids that might otherwise be successful in a gen ed classroom with an aid would never get that chance. Rather than giving kids the benefit of the doubt that they could be successful with supports, they'd instead have to prove themselves in an environment stacked against them. And much of the political pressure to provide resources for the needs of these students would disappear as quickly as the students would disappear into their segregated classrooms.

I don't think health insurance is the right funding path for a variety of reasons. For one, I hope we'll move to single-payer relatively soon anyway. But even more, it sets a bad precedent, would be complicated to regulate, and would likely pose serious challenges to low-income and/or underinsured families. We don't expect insurance companies to reimburse schools in order to make the environment accessible to kids with physical disabilities- why should developmental disabilities be different?

Developmental disabilities come in spectrums that are particularly hard to define and measure. I don't see how you could ever separate educational services that could be covered by the school from habilitative and support services covered by insurance. Any attempt to do so would likely result in battles between insurance companies and schools, where ultimately only the kids would lose. While there are some related challenges already in public schools related to this, at least public schools are arms of the government and ostensibly should have an interest in the public good. The same cannot be said for private insurance companies.

And this would likely get incredibly expensive, assuming these services would be billed like other habilitative services paid through insurance. Since my child was diagnosed with ASD as a toddler, we've simply accepted that we'd hit our out-of-pocket max every year, sometimes exceeding coverage limits and having to pay for things in full. It isn't easy financially, but we're able to do it. But while our income bracket may not be particularly high by DCUM standards, we're in a pretty high HHI percentile with good employer-subsidized health benefits. Not everyone is so lucky.

Every child -- those with special needs or not -- deserves the best we can give. Unfortunately, the number of students with special needs in public schools has increased substantially, along with parents who have very high expectations for services, correspondence updates, and paperwork; and they bring advocates and/or attorneys to meetings. I understand why that's being done, but the reality is that the typical school system across our country does not have the resources or personnel to provide that level of service. We are facing a crisis with too few teachers.

So, we should sacrifice the students with special needs for the benefit of the other students? I think you're starting from a place of good intentions, but there's a fine line between being burnt out and simply not caring.

Well, what if the special needs child is physically harming other students? Or if the special needs child throws materials and the other children need to clear the room fairly often? Just like with masking and other issues. We are having the problem of where does one individual’s rights end and another’s/greater good needs begin?

I don’t think there is an easy answer in some of these situations and it does deserved to be looked at from the perspective of BOTH the rights of the special needs child AND the rights of the other children in the class. Sped kids get advocates, but who is advocating for the general education student and how the sped child impacts their education?

THIS - ALL OF IT

Kids internalize a lot. People have no idea the fear that children go through.

100%. Also, this contributes to the lack of respect for adults in education. Why should a kid get punished for not handing in homework when another kid is hitting and pushing other students on a regular basis? Structure and stability matter. Chaos hurts everyone.

As mad as some of the posts make me in this thread, where several people seem to be explicitly or implicitly proposing that we sacrifice children with special needs, I certainly do recognize the very real and very serious challenges faced by schools, teachers, and kids. This isn't the only example, but it is one that I've long thought about.

My younger kid has autism, but generally doesn't require much in the way of supports. He has long had increased behavioral issues compared to his peers, although luckily they've gotten better over time. When he started his 4 year-old preschool class, his teacher (with our blessing) basically created a little unit on autism for the kids. At that age, there wasn't a stigma attached to it for my son or the other kids in the class- to them, they were just learning about each other. It normalized it. I know there are confidentiality policies and laws in place that complicate that sort of thing in public schools. And while I understand the need to tread carefully, I think we should generally be willing to be more open to having those kinds of discussions and lessons.

Separately, I think we've gone overboard with concerns over physical interventions. I get why, and I get that it is complicated, but I still think we've gone overboard. My kids have gotten hurt a number of times at preschool and school. Nothing too serious- the worst things just requiring stitches, which have been quite rare. When those cases happen, I can hear and see the fear/worry in the school staff when they talk to me about it. They seem to calm down rather quickly when it's clear I'm not mad at any of them, but it makes me think they've had some bad experiences with parents. So I get why they'd be reluctant to do physical interventions. And I get how it becomes particularly challenging and dangerous to do them as the kids get bigger and stronger. But, when possible/appropriate, and when there are staff capable of handling the students, I am completely fine with physical interventions. And I understand that means some kids would likely get hurt in the course of those interventions, just like some kids would get hurt without them.

We should all be more understanding and less litigious. I really don't think it's hard to determine when someone is acting in good faith, even when mistakes are made or accidents happen.

I don't have a good feeling for whether parents of children with special needs really want these strong notions of confidentiality practiced, or how litigious/angry they get over physical interventions and injuries. I would expect it to be a very small number, but I very well could be grossly misunderstanding that (particularly in the DMV, where everyone seems more uptight than where I grew up in the midwest).

SPED teacher here another problem no one is addressing is that the child with the extreme behavior gets the attention from the SPED teacher. What happens to the other students with IEP's when the teachers time is given solely for one child with extreme behaviors. that is not fair or legal for the other students who have needs and IEP's. The system is broken for teachers and students. Teachers are exhausted and can not help children when they are constantly stressed and in survival mode keeping everyone safe. This conversation needs more attention. This on top of the fact that due to the teacher shortage some SPED teachers have 3-4 grades on their caseloads.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I taught in self-contained rooms for ED kids for years and they do work. Kids are taught at their pace, learn to use self-control strategies, and are not in trouble all day. These kids that are so often in heightened states are damaging their brains, and the kids that have to witness it all day ate experiencing secondary trauma. A self-contained program is not for life. It’s a reset, time to heal and get in control. The ones in my county have incredibly low enrollment, because the bar is so high to move them now. It’s not juvenile detention. It’s meeting their needs, building success, and then determining scaffolded returns to gen ed.

Yes, but that’s not what’s being proposed in this thread. They want to move all of the kids that are significantly disruptive in gen ed classrooms into the self-contained classrooms. And then they only want to move them back out after they’ve been able to demonstrate self control in the self-contained setting, where we all know they’re not likely to provide the necessary and appropriate resources.

How do you think that would go?

Are you a teacher? If not, do you understand what you're expecting from classroom teachers? It is too much. That's why they're quitting. I know a young teacher whose nose was broken by a student 6 weeks before her wedding. Most teachers do not have the training and do not want to deal with those types of behaviors day in and day out.

As a parent of a child with special needs, few would understand as well as I. My kid is younger, but I can certainly imagine what it would be like to scale him up by 2x or 3x.

I would certainly agree that teachers need help with these students. But you’re not asking for help. You’re trying to hide those students away so you can forget about them.

No, I'm not. I posted above that I've tried to help students with significant special needs for years. I was a special ed teacher and later a school psychologist. I'm just stating the obvious -- that classroom teachers are leaving because they can't cope with the large number of students with significant behaviors, and many school districts don't have the resources to provide 1:1 paras. Another factor -- I would imagine that very few DCUM posters are encouraging their children to become teachers. We have a problem that can't be ignored and will be even worse when the current teachers aged 55+ retire.

You didn’t say what your plan is, except to apparently build more overpasses for the kids you’d like to leave behind to live under. Though, I imagine you’re at an age now where that doesn’t really matter to you.

Not true. I still work part-time. You're distorting my words, not sure if intentionally or just not understanding. My plan would be to hire more teachers and paras, with smaller classes; however, I don't control the funding and have no influence over the number of teachers leaving the profession.

Ok, but if you look further up in the thread, the proposal was to fast-track kids into self-contained classrooms if they disrupt gen-ed classrooms, and make them earn their way back. This would obviously grossly increase the number of kids in those programs. And with no hope of fully staffing those programs, those kids wouldn't have a realistic path to get out of there.

The idea that more self-contained classrooms is the answer here is ridiculous. Yes, there will always be some set of students where that really is the best environment for them. But it will always be a small number, and it needs to be a small number because we'd never be able to recruit enough staff to handle large numbers effectively. 1:1 aides obviously have their own challenges, but for those that actually need it, its going to be cheaper and easier for the school district to provide than it would be to provide them with a self-contained program of similar educational quality.

The problem is, school districts are taking the easy way out, choosing to spend their money on lawyers to fight parents, rather than actually staffing and improving their programs.

A one in one aide who is not allowed to touch a kid who is out of control may as well not be there. Frankly these kids are given free reign to run around the school while available staff “block the exits” they are out of control because no teacher is going to touch your throwing spitting biting kicking and hitting child when you will file a lawsuit if we do. So your kid runs around destroying the school until they “burn themselves out.” I don’t think you truly understand the manpower involved when a kid starts running around the school. If we could just take the child to a sensory or break room to calm down it would be helpful but no one is allowed to touch them to get them there so they run wild. We are too scared of lawsuits to touch your kid. It is mentally and physically exhausting to go to work everyday knowing a kid may abuse you or the children you are supposed to protect at any point during the day and your only recourse is to move out of the way and or take the blows.

How does moving those kids out of your class solve those problems for everyone but you?

I’m not the PP, but all of the other kids and their parents, as well as the teachers, will be much happier if they’re able to learn in a safe and relatively calm environment at school. Educational outcomes world improve dramatically for 95% of students (or at least stop declining) and teachers wouldn’t be leaving the profession so rapidly either. How is that not obvious?

And the kids, teachers, and paras in the segregated classrooms? Screw ‘em?

Well the kids in that classroom are all disruptive so yeah, they will just need to deal with the disruptions from the other kids. As for the teachers and staff, of course they should receive different training to keep them safe, a higher salary for the worse conditions, and/or lowered expectations for reporting and other admin since they’ll need to spend more time on classroom management. Also of course these rooms would have a higher staff/student ratio with shared aides.

And 95% of kids (and teachers!) will no longer be sacrificed and we might be able to save what’s left of our public education system.

Why not use the substantial resources you’re referencing to actually support students and teachers in the LRE?

It’s because you know the schools wouldn’t properly staff the special education programs. It’s pretty clear from the tone of your post that you’re not interesting in helping those kids- you’re just trying to get rid of them.

2 reasons. First, because we can spend even more money and then the other kids are STILL affected by this trauma in their classrooms. Even if the violence or disruption is reduced, it’s still not acceptable. And second, because these things are getting worse. The kids are getting more and more dangerous and the number of the kids with behavioral problems are increasing every year. We need to start addressing the problem in a safer, more scalable way.

And yes, these changes will be for the benefit of the teachers and the other kids.

But it sounds like you're saying it is acceptable if that "violence or disruption" is experienced by the kids with special needs-- just so long as your kids are protected from having to see it.

You appear to make a lot of assumptions and don't seem concerned about other children's needs and safety.

So are you saying you think that "violence and disruption" would be reduced to similar levels in the special education classrooms? And if so, why don't you similar techniques could be apply in the gen-ed classrooms?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I taught in self-contained rooms for ED kids for years and they do work. Kids are taught at their pace, learn to use self-control strategies, and are not in trouble all day. These kids that are so often in heightened states are damaging their brains, and the kids that have to witness it all day ate experiencing secondary trauma. A self-contained program is not for life. It’s a reset, time to heal and get in control. The ones in my county have incredibly low enrollment, because the bar is so high to move them now. It’s not juvenile detention. It’s meeting their needs, building success, and then determining scaffolded returns to gen ed.

Yes, but that’s not what’s being proposed in this thread. They want to move all of the kids that are significantly disruptive in gen ed classrooms into the self-contained classrooms. And then they only want to move them back out after they’ve been able to demonstrate self control in the self-contained setting, where we all know they’re not likely to provide the necessary and appropriate resources.

How do you think that would go?

Are you a teacher? If not, do you understand what you're expecting from classroom teachers? It is too much. That's why they're quitting. I know a young teacher whose nose was broken by a student 6 weeks before her wedding. Most teachers do not have the training and do not want to deal with those types of behaviors day in and day out.

As a parent of a child with special needs, few would understand as well as I. My kid is younger, but I can certainly imagine what it would be like to scale him up by 2x or 3x.

I would certainly agree that teachers need help with these students. But you’re not asking for help. You’re trying to hide those students away so you can forget about them.

No, I'm not. I posted above that I've tried to help students with significant special needs for years. I was a special ed teacher and later a school psychologist. I'm just stating the obvious -- that classroom teachers are leaving because they can't cope with the large number of students with significant behaviors, and many school districts don't have the resources to provide 1:1 paras. Another factor -- I would imagine that very few DCUM posters are encouraging their children to become teachers. We have a problem that can't be ignored and will be even worse when the current teachers aged 55+ retire.

You didn’t say what your plan is, except to apparently build more overpasses for the kids you’d like to leave behind to live under. Though, I imagine you’re at an age now where that doesn’t really matter to you.

Not true. I still work part-time. You're distorting my words, not sure if intentionally or just not understanding. My plan would be to hire more teachers and paras, with smaller classes; however, I don't control the funding and have no influence over the number of teachers leaving the profession.

Ok, but if you look further up in the thread, the proposal was to fast-track kids into self-contained classrooms if they disrupt gen-ed classrooms, and make them earn their way back. This would obviously grossly increase the number of kids in those programs. And with no hope of fully staffing those programs, those kids wouldn't have a realistic path to get out of there.

The idea that more self-contained classrooms is the answer here is ridiculous. Yes, there will always be some set of students where that really is the best environment for them. But it will always be a small number, and it needs to be a small number because we'd never be able to recruit enough staff to handle large numbers effectively. 1:1 aides obviously have their own challenges, but for those that actually need it, its going to be cheaper and easier for the school district to provide than it would be to provide them with a self-contained program of similar educational quality.

The problem is, school districts are taking the easy way out, choosing to spend their money on lawyers to fight parents, rather than actually staffing and improving their programs.

A one in one aide who is not allowed to touch a kid who is out of control may as well not be there. Frankly these kids are given free reign to run around the school while available staff “block the exits” they are out of control because no teacher is going to touch your throwing spitting biting kicking and hitting child when you will file a lawsuit if we do. So your kid runs around destroying the school until they “burn themselves out.” I don’t think you truly understand the manpower involved when a kid starts running around the school. If we could just take the child to a sensory or break room to calm down it would be helpful but no one is allowed to touch them to get them there so they run wild. We are too scared of lawsuits to touch your kid. It is mentally and physically exhausting to go to work everyday knowing a kid may abuse you or the children you are supposed to protect at any point during the day and your only recourse is to move out of the way and or take the blows.

How does moving those kids out of your class solve those problems for everyone but you?

I’m not the PP, but all of the other kids and their parents, as well as the teachers, will be much happier if they’re able to learn in a safe and relatively calm environment at school. Educational outcomes world improve dramatically for 95% of students (or at least stop declining) and teachers wouldn’t be leaving the profession so rapidly either. How is that not obvious?

And the kids, teachers, and paras in the segregated classrooms? Screw ‘em?

Yep. They don't want to learn anyway.

I got to see it firsthand last week when parents were invited to my DD's classroom for their big presentations they've been working on since shortly after school started. This kid, the same kid who has issues weekly and causes classroom evacuations, had a meltdown because he wanted to hold the little clicker that controlled the classroom lights (and maybe smartboard?). His mom was there and her solution was "well, can he just hold it? It'll make him stop." He turned so mean and violent when told no. He kicked over his desk and started screaming at the teacher that she was stupid.

I would have been mortified if that was my kid. He may have some learning issues but so did my brother and cousin and they never did what these kids are allowed to do.

Getting notices from the teacher when the incidents happen and hearing about it from my kid is different than seeing it in person. We're thinking of pulling her at Christmas and enrolling her in our local Catholic school. They have space and when I enquired earlier this week, they said they have a small handful of students starting mid-year so DD wouldn't be the sole new kid.

You really shouldn’t wait. I had to move one of my kids after an awful situation on public school. My only regret is I didn’t do it earlier. There ya no reason to wait until after Christmas break. Everyday you kid is in that chaotic environment is a school day wasted. If you move her next week then she will have started to make friends and you could try and have a couple of play dates during Christmas break. There is also more celebrating Christmas in Catholic schools so it’s a fun time to start.

The other issues are you run the risk of there not being spaces after winter break. And the curriculum is different, your child might be behind and need winter break to catch up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I taught in self-contained rooms for ED kids for years and they do work. Kids are taught at their pace, learn to use self-control strategies, and are not in trouble all day. These kids that are so often in heightened states are damaging their brains, and the kids that have to witness it all day ate experiencing secondary trauma. A self-contained program is not for life. It’s a reset, time to heal and get in control. The ones in my county have incredibly low enrollment, because the bar is so high to move them now. It’s not juvenile detention. It’s meeting their needs, building success, and then determining scaffolded returns to gen ed.

Yes, but that’s not what’s being proposed in this thread. They want to move all of the kids that are significantly disruptive in gen ed classrooms into the self-contained classrooms. And then they only want to move them back out after they’ve been able to demonstrate self control in the self-contained setting, where we all know they’re not likely to provide the necessary and appropriate resources.

How do you think that would go?

Are you a teacher? If not, do you understand what you're expecting from classroom teachers? It is too much. That's why they're quitting. I know a young teacher whose nose was broken by a student 6 weeks before her wedding. Most teachers do not have the training and do not want to deal with those types of behaviors day in and day out.

As a parent of a child with special needs, few would understand as well as I. My kid is younger, but I can certainly imagine what it would be like to scale him up by 2x or 3x.

I would certainly agree that teachers need help with these students. But you’re not asking for help. You’re trying to hide those students away so you can forget about them.

No, I'm not. I posted above that I've tried to help students with significant special needs for years. I was a special ed teacher and later a school psychologist. I'm just stating the obvious -- that classroom teachers are leaving because they can't cope with the large number of students with significant behaviors, and many school districts don't have the resources to provide 1:1 paras. Another factor -- I would imagine that very few DCUM posters are encouraging their children to become teachers. We have a problem that can't be ignored and will be even worse when the current teachers aged 55+ retire.

You didn’t say what your plan is, except to apparently build more overpasses for the kids you’d like to leave behind to live under. Though, I imagine you’re at an age now where that doesn’t really matter to you.

Not true. I still work part-time. You're distorting my words, not sure if intentionally or just not understanding. My plan would be to hire more teachers and paras, with smaller classes; however, I don't control the funding and have no influence over the number of teachers leaving the profession.

Ok, but if you look further up in the thread, the proposal was to fast-track kids into self-contained classrooms if they disrupt gen-ed classrooms, and make them earn their way back. This would obviously grossly increase the number of kids in those programs. And with no hope of fully staffing those programs, those kids wouldn't have a realistic path to get out of there.

The idea that more self-contained classrooms is the answer here is ridiculous. Yes, there will always be some set of students where that really is the best environment for them. But it will always be a small number, and it needs to be a small number because we'd never be able to recruit enough staff to handle large numbers effectively. 1:1 aides obviously have their own challenges, but for those that actually need it, its going to be cheaper and easier for the school district to provide than it would be to provide them with a self-contained program of similar educational quality.

The problem is, school districts are taking the easy way out, choosing to spend their money on lawyers to fight parents, rather than actually staffing and improving their programs.

A one in one aide who is not allowed to touch a kid who is out of control may as well not be there. Frankly these kids are given free reign to run around the school while available staff “block the exits” they are out of control because no teacher is going to touch your throwing spitting biting kicking and hitting child when you will file a lawsuit if we do. So your kid runs around destroying the school until they “burn themselves out.” I don’t think you truly understand the manpower involved when a kid starts running around the school. If we could just take the child to a sensory or break room to calm down it would be helpful but no one is allowed to touch them to get them there so they run wild. We are too scared of lawsuits to touch your kid. It is mentally and physically exhausting to go to work everyday knowing a kid may abuse you or the children you are supposed to protect at any point during the day and your only recourse is to move out of the way and or take the blows.

How does moving those kids out of your class solve those problems for everyone but you?

I’m not the PP, but all of the other kids and their parents, as well as the teachers, will be much happier if they’re able to learn in a safe and relatively calm environment at school. Educational outcomes world improve dramatically for 95% of students (or at least stop declining) and teachers wouldn’t be leaving the profession so rapidly either. How is that not obvious?

And the kids, teachers, and paras in the segregated classrooms? Screw ‘em?

Well the kids in that classroom are all disruptive so yeah, they will just need to deal with the disruptions from the other kids. As for the teachers and staff, of course they should receive different training to keep them safe, a higher salary for the worse conditions, and/or lowered expectations for reporting and other admin since they’ll need to spend more time on classroom management. Also of course these rooms would have a higher staff/student ratio with shared aides.

And 95% of kids (and teachers!) will no longer be sacrificed and we might be able to save what’s left of our public education system.

Why not use the substantial resources you’re referencing to actually support students and teachers in the LRE?

It’s because you know the schools wouldn’t properly staff the special education programs. It’s pretty clear from the tone of your post that you’re not interesting in helping those kids- you’re just trying to get rid of them.

2 reasons. First, because we can spend even more money and then the other kids are STILL affected by this trauma in their classrooms. Even if the violence or disruption is reduced, it’s still not acceptable. And second, because these things are getting worse. The kids are getting more and more dangerous and the number of the kids with behavioral problems are increasing every year. We need to start addressing the problem in a safer, more scalable way.

And yes, these changes will be for the benefit of the teachers and the other kids.

But it sounds like you're saying it is acceptable if that "violence or disruption" is experienced by the kids with special needs-- just so long as your kids are protected from having to see it.

I can’t figure out whether you’re being obtuse deliberately or not.

Look, I’ll make it simple. Either kids can learn, and are not traumatized emotionally, when there are kids with “behaviors” in the classroom with them, or not.

If kids CAN learn and are NOT traumatized then what are you complaining about? Your kid will be in what you consider to be a perfectly fine classroom environment and you can calm down.

If kids CANNOT learn in an environment where there are disruptive children, and/or the kids suffer emotionally to experience that, then you cannot be serious about saying that you want your kid to be doing that to other people but you’re not willing to accept that happening to your child.

Either way, the kids with behaviors should be separated out so the 95% of people are not sacrificed. If you claim that other kids are not actually being sacrificed then you have nothing to complain about if your child is moved with other kids like him/her.

Note that I’m not suggesting that the budget per kid who has behavioral disorders should be exactly the same as other kids. I do accept that there will be an increased cost to us the taxpayers. But at least let our children learn.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I taught in self-contained rooms for ED kids for years and they do work. Kids are taught at their pace, learn to use self-control strategies, and are not in trouble all day. These kids that are so often in heightened states are damaging their brains, and the kids that have to witness it all day ate experiencing secondary trauma. A self-contained program is not for life. It’s a reset, time to heal and get in control. The ones in my county have incredibly low enrollment, because the bar is so high to move them now. It’s not juvenile detention. It’s meeting their needs, building success, and then determining scaffolded returns to gen ed.

Yes, but that’s not what’s being proposed in this thread. They want to move all of the kids that are significantly disruptive in gen ed classrooms into the self-contained classrooms. And then they only want to move them back out after they’ve been able to demonstrate self control in the self-contained setting, where we all know they’re not likely to provide the necessary and appropriate resources.

How do you think that would go?

Are you a teacher? If not, do you understand what you're expecting from classroom teachers? It is too much. That's why they're quitting. I know a young teacher whose nose was broken by a student 6 weeks before her wedding. Most teachers do not have the training and do not want to deal with those types of behaviors day in and day out.

As a parent of a child with special needs, few would understand as well as I. My kid is younger, but I can certainly imagine what it would be like to scale him up by 2x or 3x.

I would certainly agree that teachers need help with these students. But you’re not asking for help. You’re trying to hide those students away so you can forget about them.

No, I'm not. I posted above that I've tried to help students with significant special needs for years. I was a special ed teacher and later a school psychologist. I'm just stating the obvious -- that classroom teachers are leaving because they can't cope with the large number of students with significant behaviors, and many school districts don't have the resources to provide 1:1 paras. Another factor -- I would imagine that very few DCUM posters are encouraging their children to become teachers. We have a problem that can't be ignored and will be even worse when the current teachers aged 55+ retire.

You didn’t say what your plan is, except to apparently build more overpasses for the kids you’d like to leave behind to live under. Though, I imagine you’re at an age now where that doesn’t really matter to you.

Not true. I still work part-time. You're distorting my words, not sure if intentionally or just not understanding. My plan would be to hire more teachers and paras, with smaller classes; however, I don't control the funding and have no influence over the number of teachers leaving the profession.

Ok, but if you look further up in the thread, the proposal was to fast-track kids into self-contained classrooms if they disrupt gen-ed classrooms, and make them earn their way back. This would obviously grossly increase the number of kids in those programs. And with no hope of fully staffing those programs, those kids wouldn't have a realistic path to get out of there.

The idea that more self-contained classrooms is the answer here is ridiculous. Yes, there will always be some set of students where that really is the best environment for them. But it will always be a small number, and it needs to be a small number because we'd never be able to recruit enough staff to handle large numbers effectively. 1:1 aides obviously have their own challenges, but for those that actually need it, its going to be cheaper and easier for the school district to provide than it would be to provide them with a self-contained program of similar educational quality.

The problem is, school districts are taking the easy way out, choosing to spend their money on lawyers to fight parents, rather than actually staffing and improving their programs.

A one in one aide who is not allowed to touch a kid who is out of control may as well not be there. Frankly these kids are given free reign to run around the school while available staff “block the exits” they are out of control because no teacher is going to touch your throwing spitting biting kicking and hitting child when you will file a lawsuit if we do. So your kid runs around destroying the school until they “burn themselves out.” I don’t think you truly understand the manpower involved when a kid starts running around the school. If we could just take the child to a sensory or break room to calm down it would be helpful but no one is allowed to touch them to get them there so they run wild. We are too scared of lawsuits to touch your kid. It is mentally and physically exhausting to go to work everyday knowing a kid may abuse you or the children you are supposed to protect at any point during the day and your only recourse is to move out of the way and or take the blows.

How does moving those kids out of your class solve those problems for everyone but you?

I’m not the PP, but all of the other kids and their parents, as well as the teachers, will be much happier if they’re able to learn in a safe and relatively calm environment at school. Educational outcomes world improve dramatically for 95% of students (or at least stop declining) and teachers wouldn’t be leaving the profession so rapidly either. How is that not obvious?

And the kids, teachers, and paras in the segregated classrooms? Screw ‘em?

Yep. They don't want to learn anyway.

I got to see it firsthand last week when parents were invited to my DD's classroom for their big presentations they've been working on since shortly after school started. This kid, the same kid who has issues weekly and causes classroom evacuations, had a meltdown because he wanted to hold the little clicker that controlled the classroom lights (and maybe smartboard?). His mom was there and her solution was "well, can he just hold it? It'll make him stop." He turned so mean and violent when told no. He kicked over his desk and started screaming at the teacher that she was stupid.

I would have been mortified if that was my kid. He may have some learning issues but so did my brother and cousin and they never did what these kids are allowed to do.

Getting notices from the teacher when the incidents happen and hearing about it from my kid is different than seeing it in person. We're thinking of pulling her at Christmas and enrolling her in our local Catholic school. They have space and when I enquired earlier this week, they said they have a small handful of students starting mid-year so DD wouldn't be the sole new kid.

Tell me you don’t have a kid with autism without telling me you don’t have a kid with autism.

My kid has autism and still doesn’t do this. My kid is the one traumatized when kids with behavioral issues trash the classroom. But I have a non-autistic brother with ODD who did. So sick of autism being blamed for everything.

+1

Lots of kids with autism don’t throw desks, scream obscenities or hit people. Has your kid ever been in a class with an explosive and violent classmate? It’s scary.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I taught in self-contained rooms for ED kids for years and they do work. Kids are taught at their pace, learn to use self-control strategies, and are not in trouble all day. These kids that are so often in heightened states are damaging their brains, and the kids that have to witness it all day ate experiencing secondary trauma. A self-contained program is not for life. It’s a reset, time to heal and get in control. The ones in my county have incredibly low enrollment, because the bar is so high to move them now. It’s not juvenile detention. It’s meeting their needs, building success, and then determining scaffolded returns to gen ed.

Yes, but that’s not what’s being proposed in this thread. They want to move all of the kids that are significantly disruptive in gen ed classrooms into the self-contained classrooms. And then they only want to move them back out after they’ve been able to demonstrate self control in the self-contained setting, where we all know they’re not likely to provide the necessary and appropriate resources.

How do you think that would go?

Are you a teacher? If not, do you understand what you're expecting from classroom teachers? It is too much. That's why they're quitting. I know a young teacher whose nose was broken by a student 6 weeks before her wedding. Most teachers do not have the training and do not want to deal with those types of behaviors day in and day out.

As a parent of a child with special needs, few would understand as well as I. My kid is younger, but I can certainly imagine what it would be like to scale him up by 2x or 3x.

I would certainly agree that teachers need help with these students. But you’re not asking for help. You’re trying to hide those students away so you can forget about them.

No, I'm not. I posted above that I've tried to help students with significant special needs for years. I was a special ed teacher and later a school psychologist. I'm just stating the obvious -- that classroom teachers are leaving because they can't cope with the large number of students with significant behaviors, and many school districts don't have the resources to provide 1:1 paras. Another factor -- I would imagine that very few DCUM posters are encouraging their children to become teachers. We have a problem that can't be ignored and will be even worse when the current teachers aged 55+ retire.

You didn’t say what your plan is, except to apparently build more overpasses for the kids you’d like to leave behind to live under. Though, I imagine you’re at an age now where that doesn’t really matter to you.

Not true. I still work part-time. You're distorting my words, not sure if intentionally or just not understanding. My plan would be to hire more teachers and paras, with smaller classes; however, I don't control the funding and have no influence over the number of teachers leaving the profession.

Ok, but if you look further up in the thread, the proposal was to fast-track kids into self-contained classrooms if they disrupt gen-ed classrooms, and make them earn their way back. This would obviously grossly increase the number of kids in those programs. And with no hope of fully staffing those programs, those kids wouldn't have a realistic path to get out of there.

The idea that more self-contained classrooms is the answer here is ridiculous. Yes, there will always be some set of students where that really is the best environment for them. But it will always be a small number, and it needs to be a small number because we'd never be able to recruit enough staff to handle large numbers effectively. 1:1 aides obviously have their own challenges, but for those that actually need it, its going to be cheaper and easier for the school district to provide than it would be to provide them with a self-contained program of similar educational quality.

The problem is, school districts are taking the easy way out, choosing to spend their money on lawyers to fight parents, rather than actually staffing and improving their programs.

A one in one aide who is not allowed to touch a kid who is out of control may as well not be there. Frankly these kids are given free reign to run around the school while available staff “block the exits” they are out of control because no teacher is going to touch your throwing spitting biting kicking and hitting child when you will file a lawsuit if we do. So your kid runs around destroying the school until they “burn themselves out.” I don’t think you truly understand the manpower involved when a kid starts running around the school. If we could just take the child to a sensory or break room to calm down it would be helpful but no one is allowed to touch them to get them there so they run wild. We are too scared of lawsuits to touch your kid. It is mentally and physically exhausting to go to work everyday knowing a kid may abuse you or the children you are supposed to protect at any point during the day and your only recourse is to move out of the way and or take the blows.

How does moving those kids out of your class solve those problems for everyone but you?

I’m not the PP, but all of the other kids and their parents, as well as the teachers, will be much happier if they’re able to learn in a safe and relatively calm environment at school. Educational outcomes world improve dramatically for 95% of students (or at least stop declining) and teachers wouldn’t be leaving the profession so rapidly either. How is that not obvious?

And the kids, teachers, and paras in the segregated classrooms? Screw ‘em?

Well the kids in that classroom are all disruptive so yeah, they will just need to deal with the disruptions from the other kids. As for the teachers and staff, of course they should receive different training to keep them safe, a higher salary for the worse conditions, and/or lowered expectations for reporting and other admin since they’ll need to spend more time on classroom management. Also of course these rooms would have a higher staff/student ratio with shared aides.

And 95% of kids (and teachers!) will no longer be sacrificed and we might be able to save what’s left of our public education system.

Why not use the substantial resources you’re referencing to actually support students and teachers in the LRE?

It’s because you know the schools wouldn’t properly staff the special education programs. It’s pretty clear from the tone of your post that you’re not interesting in helping those kids- you’re just trying to get rid of them.

2 reasons. First, because we can spend even more money and then the other kids are STILL affected by this trauma in their classrooms. Even if the violence or disruption is reduced, it’s still not acceptable. And second, because these things are getting worse. The kids are getting more and more dangerous and the number of the kids with behavioral problems are increasing every year. We need to start addressing the problem in a safer, more scalable way.

And yes, these changes will be for the benefit of the teachers and the other kids.

But it sounds like you're saying it is acceptable if that "violence or disruption" is experienced by the kids with special needs-- just so long as your kids are protected from having to see it.

I can’t figure out whether you’re being obtuse deliberately or not.

Look, I’ll make it simple. Either kids can learn, and are not traumatized emotionally, when there are kids with “behaviors” in the classroom with them, or not.

If kids CAN learn and are NOT traumatized then what are you complaining about? Your kid will be in what you consider to be a perfectly fine classroom environment and you can calm down.

If kids CANNOT learn in an environment where there are disruptive children, and/or the kids suffer emotionally to experience that, then you cannot be serious about saying that you want your kid to be doing that to other people but you’re not willing to accept that happening to your child.

Either way, the kids with behaviors should be separated out so the 95% of people are not sacrificed. If you claim that other kids are not actually being sacrificed then you have nothing to complain about if your child is moved with other kids like him/her.

Note that I’m not suggesting that the budget per kid who has behavioral disorders should be exactly the same as other kids. I do accept that there will be an increased cost to us the taxpayers. But at least let our children learn.

There's obviously more nuance than the black-and-white picture you're trying to paint. And things are never so bad that they can't be made worse.

At this point, I honestly can't tell if you're intentions are pure, and you really don't know what would happen to kids with special needs with what you seem to be proposing, or if you simply don't care what happens to those kids.

You seem to be acknowledging that childrens with special needs require more services and support than what schools are currently providing. As far as I can tell, a fundamental difference between you and I is that I want those services and supports implemented *before* removing them from the a gen-ed classroom. Roughly speaking, start at the top, working backwards when additional supports are attempted and fail. It's hard to keep track of who is who with anonymous posts, but you seem to be saying you want gen-ed teachers to be able to fast-track kids with challenging behaviors to self-contained classrooms, and then make them work their way back up.

I suspect we're both worried about the same problem with both plans: that schools won't properly fund and staff special education services and supports. If you work in steps backwards, then schools would need to resource and attempt services/supports before changing placement (which would no doubt continue the ongoing conflicts between parents and schools over what services/supports are identified in IEPs- it would probably increase the number of appeals, actually). If the schools provides them, and it substantially improves the situation, then great. If they provide them and it doesn't improve, then the student may need different placement. If schools doesn't provide those, the student would remain in a less-than-ideal situation for everyone, and there would remain fairly broad pressure from teachers and parents to improve the situation.

If students are fast-tracked to out of gen-ed classrooms, and then need to develop and demonstrate the skills/abilities necessary to be successful in a gen-ed environment, then a key issue is going to be whether the self-contained placement provides a suitable environment for developing those skills. If you're quickly moving children with difficult behaviors into that environment, and you're not appropriately resourcing it, those kids are not going to be able to develop those skills. They'll get stuck, and their skills and behaviors may even regress. But they'd be tucked quietly away from the NT kids, so those other parents and the gen-ed teachers could live on willfully oblivious of the situation.

[Anonymous]

What also has drastically changed at the secondary level is the vast reduction in the numbers of junior high and high school students who are in the juvenile justice system and continuation high schools. It used to be the really challenging kids were incarcerated and then when released were sent to continuation school not a neighborhood high school. Or when students were fighting too much, caught using drugs, cussing out teachers, etc. they went to continuation high schools.

Now it is so much more challenging in the high schools with the number of students no longer incarcerated. I can see both sides of the issue, it is good but there aren't structured programs for some of these kids who are out of control and their parents can't control them. Administrators and counselors are spending so much time on these kids. And students who might not misbehave because of the consequences see really out of control kids who don't get in trouble in their classes and in school so they sometimes go along with the misbehavior.

I am surprised this doesn't get discussed more.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think that teachers, students, and parents would all be better off if discipline policies were changed to protect those in school buildings from the most disruptive students (who are a minority). Those truly disruptive, abusive, and unruly students take up too much time and emotional weight. Teachers should not have to suffer abuse at the hands of students, just as students should not lose out on their education due to serious disruptions by other students. Children need structure. By allowing this minority of students to have so much power, teachers are exhausted, and children learn that rules are optional. Parents, too, wind up in defense mode. Getting zeros for late or missing work seems excessive when other students can burst in and out of classrooms, throw items at teachers, and attack other kids at recess. Seriously. If you want discipline, then find a way to address the kids for whom conventional discipline strategies don't work.

What do you propose?

It's hard to imagine a path to implementing it, but I do think elementary rooms should have two teachers.

Teacher here proposing a few things:
1) There needs to be a way to "fast track" kids like this into a special education self contained classroom within a few weeks, not within a few years. If, with interventions, the child can learn to self regulate, then said kid returns to gen ed, with a full time, 1:1 aide. If they are successful with that support, then fade the TA out.
2) Every single K-1st grade room needs a certified teacher and either a full time TA or a co-teacher. OR, limit K-1 rooms to no more than 10 kids.
3) Pass legislation that requires insurance companies to provide for the educational needs of kids who need to be outplaced. This is primarily a health issue and then second, an education issue. Insurance companies DO YOUR JOB. And the government needs to build, staff, train and supply schools to deal with kids like this.

From your posts (at least, the posts I think come from you), you seem to be at breaking point. And as a parent of a child with special needs and behavioral challenges, I get how exhausting and painful (emotionally and physically) it can be. So I suspect your intentions are pure here. But I don't think you're really thinking through how this would play out for kids with special needs.

The reason we have IDEA to begin with is that states and local school districts were not providing appropriate educational services to kids with disabilities. And I get it-- it is expensive to do so. But essentially eliminating principle of Least Restrictive Environment would bring us right back to that. Kids would quickly get shuffled out to self-contained classrooms that would likely become even more short-staffed and resource poor. Once there, many kids would likely regress. Kids that might otherwise be successful in a gen ed classroom with an aid would never get that chance. Rather than giving kids the benefit of the doubt that they could be successful with supports, they'd instead have to prove themselves in an environment stacked against them. And much of the political pressure to provide resources for the needs of these students would disappear as quickly as the students would disappear into their segregated classrooms.

I don't think health insurance is the right funding path for a variety of reasons. For one, I hope we'll move to single-payer relatively soon anyway. But even more, it sets a bad precedent, would be complicated to regulate, and would likely pose serious challenges to low-income and/or underinsured families. We don't expect insurance companies to reimburse schools in order to make the environment accessible to kids with physical disabilities- why should developmental disabilities be different?

Developmental disabilities come in spectrums that are particularly hard to define and measure. I don't see how you could ever separate educational services that could be covered by the school from habilitative and support services covered by insurance. Any attempt to do so would likely result in battles between insurance companies and schools, where ultimately only the kids would lose. While there are some related challenges already in public schools related to this, at least public schools are arms of the government and ostensibly should have an interest in the public good. The same cannot be said for private insurance companies.

And this would likely get incredibly expensive, assuming these services would be billed like other habilitative services paid through insurance. Since my child was diagnosed with ASD as a toddler, we've simply accepted that we'd hit our out-of-pocket max every year, sometimes exceeding coverage limits and having to pay for things in full. It isn't easy financially, but we're able to do it. But while our income bracket may not be particularly high by DCUM standards, we're in a pretty high HHI percentile with good employer-subsidized health benefits. Not everyone is so lucky.

Every child -- those with special needs or not -- deserves the best we can give. Unfortunately, the number of students with special needs in public schools has increased substantially, along with parents who have very high expectations for services, correspondence updates, and paperwork; and they bring advocates and/or attorneys to meetings. I understand why that's being done, but the reality is that the typical school system across our country does not have the resources or personnel to provide that level of service. We are facing a crisis with too few teachers.

So, we should sacrifice the students with special needs for the benefit of the other students? I think you're starting from a place of good intentions, but there's a fine line between being burnt out and simply not caring.

Well, what if the special needs child is physically harming other students? Or if the special needs child throws materials and the other children need to clear the room fairly often? Just like with masking and other issues. We are having the problem of where does one individual’s rights end and another’s/greater good needs begin?

I don’t think there is an easy answer in some of these situations and it does deserved to be looked at from the perspective of BOTH the rights of the special needs child AND the rights of the other children in the class. Sped kids get advocates, but who is advocating for the general education student and how the sped child impacts their education?

THIS - ALL OF IT

Kids internalize a lot. People have no idea the fear that children go through.

100%. Also, this contributes to the lack of respect for adults in education. Why should a kid get punished for not handing in homework when another kid is hitting and pushing other students on a regular basis? Structure and stability matter. Chaos hurts everyone.

I honestly think some of the other kids likely end up with PTSD from the experience of sharing a classroom (especially if their desk is nearby) with an out of control kid. It would be always walking on eggshells waiting for the explosion like living with an abusive parent at home. We should be protecting our children. People can see why active shooter training is traumatic for kids but they think it’s fine that Larlo explodes nearby without warning and then you need to evacuate the classroom and let him destroy your things and your work? It’s honestly shameful that we allow this.

I had an explosive sibling. I lived this. It was traumatic and it affected all of us siblings for years.

[Anonymous]

I’ve started browsing the teacher subreddit and it’s depressing. I could never, ever be a teacher. Our country is doomed.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Byyeeee.

School is not childcare. We remember.

Sorry, I don’t care about that anymore.

Old news.

I want my kids taught by experience teachers. I don’t want to drive them away.

We all want our kids taught by skilled, reliable teachers. But then our teachers refused to come to work. They came back, but how long until their next temper tantrum?

Parents like you are why they aren't continuing to teach. They did work. Teaching virtually per the government's decision is working. You had the tantrum as you cannot handle your kids all day every day.

The data says otherwise. Virtual school was a tremendous failure, on multiple levels. Student performance dropped significantly. Kids with special needs lost their education services and supports. Millions suffered from losing access to safe and supportive educational environments.

It wasn't a failure for many of our kids. It was a failure for kids who didn't do the work, show up for class, etc.

One of my kids flourished and another one struggled. It was school, parent, student, and teacher dependent. In the same household, my kids had very different experiences. By the way, I’m in health care and things were bad so it made sense to close schools initially. But it absolutely impacted kids academically and socially. These aren’t mutually exclusive.

[Anonymous]

Agree with PP about PTSD. I’m a PP who posted about my DD having her own safety plan because she was the target of a child’s explosions. When the child was in control, they were friends. But when her friend had an episode, my DD had to separate herself by putting furniture between them and then run across the hall to the other 1st grade teacher’s room until they could clear the other girl from the classroom and the hallway.

I knew and respected the parents of the other girl so I went along with the safety plan nonsense for way too long until the girl was removed to go to a special emotional support program in February of last year. But I’ll never forgive myself for the time before that, especially before I knew about the explosions in the classroom. For the entire year including the time after that girl left, my DD cried nightly at bedtime because she was dreading the next day. She was behind on reading and her math was full of random numbers and erasings. She was put in remedial groups for both. I wrote it all off as post-pandemic adjustment, like a fool. Sometimes my DD falls asleep and wakes up and says she’s scared about school the next day, and we have to talk through how it’s safe this year until she falls back asleep. This fall they accelerated her in math and reading- it turns out she is quite good at both but couldn’t concentrate long enough to do either last year because she was always on alert for the next evacuation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP about PTSD. I’m a PP who posted about my DD having her own safety plan because she was the target of a child’s explosions. When the child was in control, they were friends. But when her friend had an episode, my DD had to separate herself by putting furniture between them and then run across the hall to the other 1st grade teacher’s room until they could clear the other girl from the classroom and the hallway.

I knew and respected the parents of the other girl so I went along with the safety plan nonsense for way too long until the girl was removed to go to a special emotional support program in February of last year. But I’ll never forgive myself for the time before that, especially before I knew about the explosions in the classroom. For the entire year including the time after that girl left, my DD cried nightly at bedtime because she was dreading the next day. She was behind on reading and her math was full of random numbers and erasings. She was put in remedial groups for both. I wrote it all off as post-pandemic adjustment, like a fool. Sometimes my DD falls asleep and wakes up and says she’s scared about school the next day, and we have to talk through how it’s safe this year until she falls back asleep. This fall they accelerated her in math and reading- it turns out she is quite good at both but couldn’t concentrate long enough to do either last year because she was always on alert for the next evacuation.

Wow, wow, wow. Reading all this about your daughter and her experience breaks my heart. Please give her a hug for me tonight. So glad it is getting better for her now. No kid should be afraid to go to school because of how another kid will act. Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP about PTSD. I’m a PP who posted about my DD having her own safety plan because she was the target of a child’s explosions. When the child was in control, they were friends. But when her friend had an episode, my DD had to separate herself by putting furniture between them and then run across the hall to the other 1st grade teacher’s room until they could clear the other girl from the classroom and the hallway.

I knew and respected the parents of the other girl so I went along with the safety plan nonsense for way too long until the girl was removed to go to a special emotional support program in February of last year. But I’ll never forgive myself for the time before that, especially before I knew about the explosions in the classroom. For the entire year including the time after that girl left, my DD cried nightly at bedtime because she was dreading the next day. She was behind on reading and her math was full of random numbers and erasings. She was put in remedial groups for both. I wrote it all off as post-pandemic adjustment, like a fool. Sometimes my DD falls asleep and wakes up and says she’s scared about school the next day, and we have to talk through how it’s safe this year until she falls back asleep. This fall they accelerated her in math and reading- it turns out she is quite good at both but couldn’t concentrate long enough to do either last year because she was always on alert for the next evacuation.

Horrific. I’m so sorry for your daughter.

Honestly, that sounds like a lawsuit to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP about PTSD. I’m a PP who posted about my DD having her own safety plan because she was the target of a child’s explosions. When the child was in control, they were friends. But when her friend had an episode, my DD had to separate herself by putting furniture between them and then run across the hall to the other 1st grade teacher’s room until they could clear the other girl from the classroom and the hallway.

I knew and respected the parents of the other girl so I went along with the safety plan nonsense for way too long until the girl was removed to go to a special emotional support program in February of last year. But I’ll never forgive myself for the time before that, especially before I knew about the explosions in the classroom. For the entire year including the time after that girl left, my DD cried nightly at bedtime because she was dreading the next day. She was behind on reading and her math was full of random numbers and erasings. She was put in remedial groups for both. I wrote it all off as post-pandemic adjustment, like a fool. Sometimes my DD falls asleep and wakes up and says she’s scared about school the next day, and we have to talk through how it’s safe this year until she falls back asleep. This fall they accelerated her in math and reading- it turns out she is quite good at both but couldn’t concentrate long enough to do either last year because she was always on alert for the next evacuation.

Horrific. I’m so sorry for your daughter.

Honestly, that sounds like a lawsuit to me.

PP with the DD. I honestly don’t see what I would have sued for.