Anonymous wrote:I wish that schools would provide (and willingly offer) an ombudsman type person to immigrant families to help them understand what their options are. So many of the disruptive children in my kids' school are children of low income immigrants who are scared of the school and don't understand what is going on.
FCPS has Ombuds, ESOL staff, Homeless Liaisons, plus free: Breakfast, Lunch, school supplies, computers, wifi, take home meals on the weekends, backpacks, food pantries, and the counselors, social workers, psychologists, and staff to provide the services. The Title 1 schools that many immigrant families attend are given large amounts of money and extra staff. From the moment an immigrant family walks in to register their child, the family is provided a translator, translated documents, a monitored hotline to leave messages in their native language, documents are sent home in the language of choice, translators and translations provided for all communications.
Well all those people are clearly not doing their jobs.
Anonymous wrote:I wish that schools would provide (and willingly offer) an ombudsman type person to immigrant families to help them understand what their options are. So many of the disruptive children in my kids' school are children of low income immigrants who are scared of the school and don't understand what is going on.
FCPS has Ombuds, ESOL staff, Homeless Liaisons, plus free: Breakfast, Lunch, school supplies, computers, wifi, take home meals on the weekends, backpacks, food pantries, and the counselors, social workers, psychologists, and staff to provide the services. The Title 1 schools that many immigrant families attend are given large amounts of money and extra staff. From the moment an immigrant family walks in to register their child, the family is provided a translator, translated documents, a monitored hotline to leave messages in their native language, documents are sent home in the language of choice, translators and translations provided for all communications.
Wow! Lots of non-immigrant kids would be better off with this services, especially the counselors, social workers, psychologists. This sounds incredible.
All students have access to these resources.
Where exactly?
I think this proves my point - these resources may be available, but they're not offered, people don't know how to find them.
Anonymous wrote:I wish that schools would provide (and willingly offer) an ombudsman type person to immigrant families to help them understand what their options are. So many of the disruptive children in my kids' school are children of low income immigrants who are scared of the school and don't understand what is going on.
FCPS has Ombuds, ESOL staff, Homeless Liaisons, plus free: Breakfast, Lunch, school supplies, computers, wifi, take home meals on the weekends, backpacks, food pantries, and the counselors, social workers, psychologists, and staff to provide the services. The Title 1 schools that many immigrant families attend are given large amounts of money and extra staff. From the moment an immigrant family walks in to register their child, the family is provided a translator, translated documents, a monitored hotline to leave messages in their native language, documents are sent home in the language of choice, translators and translations provided for all communications.
Wow! Lots of non-immigrant kids would be better off with this services, especially the counselors, social workers, psychologists. This sounds incredible.
All students have access to these resources.
Where exactly?
I think this proves my point - these resources may be available, but they're not offered, people don't know how to find them.
I am a HS teacher. We spent weeks during the 4th period SEL block going over these resources, what information/support can be found in each office, and how to make appointments. Students learned where to find contact information, how to request an appointment, and what to do if it were an emergency that couldn’t wait. I assume other schools disseminated similar information? At my school at least, the kids know.
Anonymous wrote:so those of us who have kids who still have a while to graduate but can't afford private schools? what do we do? I encourage my kids to read (they love reading), they take math enrichment...but what else? Is this also an issue with kids in honors and IB/AP classes?
Nope. My kids have been in AAP since 3rd, 1 is about to graduate with a full IB diploma, the other is in 10th taking AP classes. They are at 2 different schools. The senior pupil placed to an IB Scchool. The Board reads like fiction to me. My kids and their peers are studious and motivated and teachers love them. Teachers will reach out to me unsolicited about my kids with positive messages. I think I'm more the norm than this board would have you believe.
3 teachers my kids had in the past have since left FCPS, the rest have remained. All of the 3 that left, still keep in contact with my kids and my family. 2 of the 3 that left, along with his current English teacher, helped review my oldests's college/scholarship essays.
It's not fair that schools only focus on AAP/IP/AP children. My child is not AAP smart, but she's a hard worker, she doesn't ask for screen time, she doesn't watch a lot of TV, she's super well behaved but she's an average kid, she's in general education stuck with the poorly behaved kids and if you want to talk about a child who is COMPLETELY ignored and is falling behind because of inclusion/ADHD kids/ESOL kids/etc in the class, that's MY KID. We spend thousands on tutors because she's not learning anything in school. We got her tested because we thought maybe she had a learning disability or something, but no, she's just a perfectly normal, average child who isn't getting taught anything because her teachers are too busy with troubled kids and all the smart kids were sorted into AAP where they get all sorts of special treatment, special lessons, no disruption. IT'S NOT FAIR.
p.s. Not Catholic, we can't afford expensive private schools, we're just plain screwed.
I'm not sure what you want here. A class for only the super nice kids? It does stink that your kid isn't getting enough out of school, but lowering the bar for everyone is not the solution.
I don't think that's what the poster meant. I think they, like a lot of people, are fed up with their kids getting screwed over for being "normal." If the kid isn't smart enough for AAP, or protected by a 504/IEP, they are totally screwed. Gen Ed classes are dominated by children who should not be included in a general education classroom-- disruptive behavior issues that suck up all the teacher's time and attention. But any time anyone suggests this is a valid issue, you get people screaming about how their precious monster is entitled to be in the classroom and has a right to be disruptive and no one can suggest otherwise because of their "disability." And suggesting that a child with a disruptive disability should be in a separate classroom with more support somehow makes you ableist and evil and advocating for all disabilities to be excluded. Why arent normal kids entitled to FAPE?
I look at my grade level and none of the SPED kids are disruptive. All of our disruptive kids are the academically normal ones or ESOL students.
What consequences do they get?
Sometimes being moved to a different classroom. Getting sent to office. Sometimes in school suspension. In other grades there are SPED kids with behavior issues but the majority of the kids who are behavior problems aren’t SPED.
It doesn't matter if they are SPED or not, disruptive kids need to get kicked out of the classroom. There needs to be consequences -- I don't see or hear about anything that you're mentioning. I know that kids who get sent to the office just sit there and color or chat with the principal. It's like a reward to them. I have literally NEVER heard of a kid at our school getting suspended and we're talking about chair throwers and kids who have hurt other children. They're back the next day. The only kids that get moved are the victims, which is totally unfair. Kids are less likely to complain and tell their kids if they know it means they'll have to move to a different classroom. My kid flat out told me this.
This is exactly right. DEMAND that disruptive kids are expelled.
Schools are not psychiatric treatment centers.
Every time I read a declaration like this, I wonder. What qualifies as a disruptive kid? It’s it a one-time offender? A three-time? A wiggly, chatty kid who takes a lot of the teacher’s time for redirection? An ESOL student who gets frustrated? A yeller, or an eloper, or a class clown, or a puncher? All disruptive in different ways. Genuinely asking because I see huge challenges for this ahead. Who will make that call?
DP. I think the extremes can have some clear lines, even if the middle cases are judgment calls.
Th most clear situations are where there is real safety risk. The first time the rest of the class has to be evacuated from a room for safety, it should be considered. The second time, for the same child? That is too much of a safety risk and too disruptive to the other children's learning, which is equally important.
But that is the issue. Most classrooms don’t have the need to be evacuated due to one kid. It has certainly happened at our school but usually out of 20 classes, there might be 1-2 classes that have a kid like this. Most have disruptive behaviors where kids don’t shut up, refuse to do work, talk back to teachers, use inappropriate language, etc. I teach AAP and I have kids who literally talk all day and they need redirecting.
Sure. But why should the existence of cases in the gray zone prevent us from dealing with the clear-cut black & white cases? Why is the fact that there are some hard decisions prevent us from moving forward on the easy ones?
Start there. Then keep talking. But don't wait for the conversation to be finished before you do anything at all.
DP. Did you not understand what she said? Because those classes are far from the majority of cases. I teach an AP class and in one section a good number of the kids are astonishingly rude, talking over me while I teach or staring at their phones.
Right. And why aren't those classes dealt with appropriately? As shown in this thread, people start to hem and haw and say "but, but, these other cases aren't so clear cut, and those are harder to deal with .."
Sure. But why are the OTHER clear-cut cases not dealt with? Nothing is changing. Stopping those smaller awful recurring cases shouldn't depend on whether you can figure out other things. Start there.
Because as the principal above says, if the student has an IEP, the parent has to agree to another placement. And many, many parents refuse to have their kid moved to a center program.
Thanks to the school board.
Very ignorant comment-school board has no say with IEP's and the laws of SPED
Anonymous wrote:I wish that schools would provide (and willingly offer) an ombudsman type person to immigrant families to help them understand what their options are. So many of the disruptive children in my kids' school are children of low income immigrants who are scared of the school and don't understand what is going on.
Really I teach at an affluent school guess who's tearing up the classrooms and being disruptive....I'll give you a clue....not low income immigrants. And also stop trolling.
Anonymous wrote:I wish that schools would provide (and willingly offer) an ombudsman type person to immigrant families to help them understand what their options are. So many of the disruptive children in my kids' school are children of low income immigrants who are scared of the school and don't understand what is going on.
Really I teach at an affluent school guess who's tearing up the classrooms and being disruptive....I'll give you a clue....not low income immigrants. And also stop trolling.
Anonymous wrote:I wish that schools would provide (and willingly offer) an ombudsman type person to immigrant families to help them understand what their options are. So many of the disruptive children in my kids' school are children of low income immigrants who are scared of the school and don't understand what is going on.
FCPS has Ombuds, ESOL staff, Homeless Liaisons, plus free: Breakfast, Lunch, school supplies, computers, wifi, take home meals on the weekends, backpacks, food pantries, and the counselors, social workers, psychologists, and staff to provide the services. The Title 1 schools that many immigrant families attend are given large amounts of money and extra staff. From the moment an immigrant family walks in to register their child, the family is provided a translator, translated documents, a monitored hotline to leave messages in their native language, documents are sent home in the language of choice, translators and translations provided for all communications.
Wow! Lots of non-immigrant kids would be better off with this services, especially the counselors, social workers, psychologists. This sounds incredible.
Um, the counselors, social workers, and psychologists are for all students. You have as much access to them as an immigrant family does.
Anonymous wrote:I wish that schools would provide (and willingly offer) an ombudsman type person to immigrant families to help them understand what their options are. So many of the disruptive children in my kids' school are children of low income immigrants who are scared of the school and don't understand what is going on.
Really I teach at an affluent school guess who's tearing up the classrooms and being disruptive....I'll give you a clue....not low income immigrants. And also stop trolling.
Why aren’t they getting punished?
there are no punishment. It’s go light. Just a phone call to the parent.
Anonymous wrote:I wish that schools would provide (and willingly offer) an ombudsman type person to immigrant families to help them understand what their options are. So many of the disruptive children in my kids' school are children of low income immigrants who are scared of the school and don't understand what is going on.
Really I teach at an affluent school guess who's tearing up the classrooms and being disruptive....I'll give you a clue....not low income immigrants. And also stop trolling.
Why aren’t they getting punished?
DP. None of these misbehaving kids are getting punished - that’s the point. FCPS won’t allow actual discipline/consequences. It’s absurd.
Anonymous wrote:I wish that schools would provide (and willingly offer) an ombudsman type person to immigrant families to help them understand what their options are. So many of the disruptive children in my kids' school are children of low income immigrants who are scared of the school and don't understand what is going on.
Really I teach at an affluent school guess who's tearing up the classrooms and being disruptive....I'll give you a clue....not low income immigrants. And also stop trolling.
Why aren’t they getting punished?
DP. None of these misbehaving kids are getting punished - that’s the point. FCPS won’t allow actual discipline/consequences. It’s absurd.
+1. The goal is zero discipline referrals. Anyone can guess how that’s working out.
Anonymous wrote:I wish that schools would provide (and willingly offer) an ombudsman type person to immigrant families to help them understand what their options are. So many of the disruptive children in my kids' school are children of low income immigrants who are scared of the school and don't understand what is going on.
Really I teach at an affluent school guess who's tearing up the classrooms and being disruptive....I'll give you a clue....not low income immigrants. And also stop trolling.
Why aren’t they getting punished?
DP. None of these misbehaving kids are getting punished - that’s the point. FCPS won’t allow actual discipline/consequences. It’s absurd.
+1. The goal is zero discipline referrals. Anyone can guess how that’s working out.
Anonymous wrote:so those of us who have kids who still have a while to graduate but can't afford private schools? what do we do? I encourage my kids to read (they love reading), they take math enrichment...but what else? Is this also an issue with kids in honors and IB/AP classes?
Nope. My kids have been in AAP since 3rd, 1 is about to graduate with a full IB diploma, the other is in 10th taking AP classes. They are at 2 different schools. The senior pupil placed to an IB Scchool. The Board reads like fiction to me. My kids and their peers are studious and motivated and teachers love them. Teachers will reach out to me unsolicited about my kids with positive messages. I think I'm more the norm than this board would have you believe.
3 teachers my kids had in the past have since left FCPS, the rest have remained. All of the 3 that left, still keep in contact with my kids and my family. 2 of the 3 that left, along with his current English teacher, helped review my oldests's college/scholarship essays.
It's not fair that schools only focus on AAP/IP/AP children. My child is not AAP smart, but she's a hard worker, she doesn't ask for screen time, she doesn't watch a lot of TV, she's super well behaved but she's an average kid, she's in general education stuck with the poorly behaved kids and if you want to talk about a child who is COMPLETELY ignored and is falling behind because of inclusion/ADHD kids/ESOL kids/etc in the class, that's MY KID. We spend thousands on tutors because she's not learning anything in school. We got her tested because we thought maybe she had a learning disability or something, but no, she's just a perfectly normal, average child who isn't getting taught anything because her teachers are too busy with troubled kids and all the smart kids were sorted into AAP where they get all sorts of special treatment, special lessons, no disruption. IT'S NOT FAIR.
p.s. Not Catholic, we can't afford expensive private schools, we're just plain screwed.
I'm not sure what you want here. A class for only the super nice kids? It does stink that your kid isn't getting enough out of school, but lowering the bar for everyone is not the solution.
I don't think that's what the poster meant. I think they, like a lot of people, are fed up with their kids getting screwed over for being "normal." If the kid isn't smart enough for AAP, or protected by a 504/IEP, they are totally screwed. Gen Ed classes are dominated by children who should not be included in a general education classroom-- disruptive behavior issues that suck up all the teacher's time and attention. But any time anyone suggests this is a valid issue, you get people screaming about how their precious monster is entitled to be in the classroom and has a right to be disruptive and no one can suggest otherwise because of their "disability." And suggesting that a child with a disruptive disability should be in a separate classroom with more support somehow makes you ableist and evil and advocating for all disabilities to be excluded. Why arent normal kids entitled to FAPE?
I look at my grade level and none of the SPED kids are disruptive. All of our disruptive kids are the academically normal ones or ESOL students.
What consequences do they get?
Sometimes being moved to a different classroom. Getting sent to office. Sometimes in school suspension. In other grades there are SPED kids with behavior issues but the majority of the kids who are behavior problems aren’t SPED.
It doesn't matter if they are SPED or not, disruptive kids need to get kicked out of the classroom. There needs to be consequences -- I don't see or hear about anything that you're mentioning. I know that kids who get sent to the office just sit there and color or chat with the principal. It's like a reward to them. I have literally NEVER heard of a kid at our school getting suspended and we're talking about chair throwers and kids who have hurt other children. They're back the next day. The only kids that get moved are the victims, which is totally unfair. Kids are less likely to complain and tell their kids if they know it means they'll have to move to a different classroom. My kid flat out told me this.
This is exactly right. DEMAND that disruptive kids are expelled.
Schools are not psychiatric treatment centers.
Every time I read a declaration like this, I wonder. What qualifies as a disruptive kid? It’s it a one-time offender? A three-time? A wiggly, chatty kid who takes a lot of the teacher’s time for redirection? An ESOL student who gets frustrated? A yeller, or an eloper, or a class clown, or a puncher? All disruptive in different ways. Genuinely asking because I see huge challenges for this ahead. Who will make that call?
DP. I think the extremes can have some clear lines, even if the middle cases are judgment calls.
Th most clear situations are where there is real safety risk. The first time the rest of the class has to be evacuated from a room for safety, it should be considered. The second time, for the same child? That is too much of a safety risk and too disruptive to the other children's learning, which is equally important.
But that is the issue. Most classrooms don’t have the need to be evacuated due to one kid. It has certainly happened at our school but usually out of 20 classes, there might be 1-2 classes that have a kid like this. Most have disruptive behaviors where kids don’t shut up, refuse to do work, talk back to teachers, use inappropriate language, etc. I teach AAP and I have kids who literally talk all day and they need redirecting.
Sure. But why should the existence of cases in the gray zone prevent us from dealing with the clear-cut black & white cases? Why is the fact that there are some hard decisions prevent us from moving forward on the easy ones?
Start there. Then keep talking. But don't wait for the conversation to be finished before you do anything at all.
DP. Did you not understand what she said? Because those classes are far from the majority of cases. I teach an AP class and in one section a good number of the kids are astonishingly rude, talking over me while I teach or staring at their phones.
Right. And why aren't those classes dealt with appropriately? As shown in this thread, people start to hem and haw and say "but, but, these other cases aren't so clear cut, and those are harder to deal with .."
Sure. But why are the OTHER clear-cut cases not dealt with? Nothing is changing. Stopping those smaller awful recurring cases shouldn't depend on whether you can figure out other things. Start there.
Because as the principal above says, if the student has an IEP, the parent has to agree to another placement. And many, many parents refuse to have their kid moved to a center program.
If the parent refuses, the school can go "due process" and fight the parents on it legally. This is what needs to start happening. Often.
This does happen often. And requires many, many pieces of data collection by teachers (both sped and classroom(. Which furthers the burnout cycles. Parents often file Office of Civil Rights complaints and the admin and teachers spend months producing documents for those, too.
Anonymous wrote:I wish that schools would provide (and willingly offer) an ombudsman type person to immigrant families to help them understand what their options are. So many of the disruptive children in my kids' school are children of low income immigrants who are scared of the school and don't understand what is going on.
FCPS has Ombuds, ESOL staff, Homeless Liaisons, plus free: Breakfast, Lunch, school supplies, computers, wifi, take home meals on the weekends, backpacks, food pantries, and the counselors, social workers, psychologists, and staff to provide the services. The Title 1 schools that many immigrant families attend are given large amounts of money and extra staff. From the moment an immigrant family walks in to register their child, the family is provided a translator, translated documents, a monitored hotline to leave messages in their native language, documents are sent home in the language of choice, translators and translations provided for all communications.
Wow! Lots of non-immigrant kids would be better off with this services, especially the counselors, social workers, psychologists. This sounds incredible.
All students have access to these resources.
Where exactly?
At the school. Call the main office and ask for their name.
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