Deal teacher hit by kid
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Anonymous
And your post is why lots of middle and high schools don’t suspend. Those suspension rates don’t mean other schools don’t have behavior issues and violence. It means principals don’t suspend. |
Anonymous
And what exactly is meant by “suspensions”’ working or not? I honestly think most people see some value in chronic troublemakers just not being around for a spell to give folks a break. This isn’t about resolving the troubled kids’ issues so much as trying to protect and preserve the educational experience of all the other students, many of whom may have their own issues, if not necessarily behavioral in a disruptive sense. Those kids matter too and are being actively harmed by the antics of the trouble makers. And I’m talking about serious chronic cases, not sporadic acting up of the normal variety. There is real value in some kids not being there. No, it’s not an ultimate solution, but it’s the most utilitarian near-term approach, especially given the limited learning time horizon for the other kids. When you choose to keep these kids around you are affirmatively choosing to sabotage all the other kids. |
Anonymous
Thank you. Would you consider sending your councilman this or speaking to the ADCA? - Very Overwhelmed Deal Teacher. |
Anonymous
This. Completely and totally this. I am so sick and tired of the reflexive responses telling me what is best for the troublemakers with zero regard for every other kid. If it hurts the troubled kid and allows hundreds of others to have a good education, I'm good. |
Anonymous
I don't have a child at Deal, but have kids at another school. We had an incident with a very dangerous student and what you're saying is exactly what is happening. I'm outraged that everyone is protecting this one student who has HURT other people, sent people to the hospital with his outbursts and yet, we're all just sitting around hoping he doesn't open fire one day on the school. I'm literally about to re-mortgage our house to figure out how to go private. This is just horrible. DCPS is going to hell real quick. Restorative "Practice" my a@@ |
Anonymous
To add on to this on why suspensions are effective- Besides giving everyone else a break from the seriously misbehaving kid, students who are wobblers who wouldn’t misbehave if they knew for sure there was a consequence see that there are no consequences when no one gets suspended and then join in on running amuck and misbehaving. So now instead of having 5 students who are really misbehaving you gave 50. It’s like driving over the speed limit. If no one ever got a ticket a few people would still never speed, a few would speed no matter what, but a whole bunch of people that would never risk driving 85-90 mph would start to go so because there would be no consequences. |
Anonymous
It’s a whole stack of Bandaids for the rest of the kids in the class who aren’t violent and who want to learn. |
Anonymous
If a kid is chronically disruptive for any reason it’s just not fair for the kid to continue as part of a class where their behavior undermines other students. |
Anonymous
It’s the opposite. Lots of suspensions means there are consequences. It’s so much worse having kids in a school that never suspends. |
Anonymous
| Kids can’t be punished at deal. That’s the rule. |
Anonymous
This isn't only an issue at Deal. This is really an issue of a well-intentioned piece of legislation that was written and passed by folks with ZERO classroom or school-based experience. It was passed over the objections of MULTIPLE school leaders (though none in DCPS because no principal or school-level staff dare testify and go against whatever canned response the Mayor/DME or other political actors declare is the DCPS position). There were working groups and meetings where school staff and career professionals told DC Council how this would play out. There were teachers and principals (again, charter) who showed up and said..."this will have a huge impact on our schools". Of course, that was seen (by some) as a statement that charters didn't want certain students. Maybe that wasn't the case? Seasoned teachers and school staff (like me) are leaving (or have gone) because we have no sense of safety in our work place. I could honestly deal with the threat of a school shootings. I couldn't take the fact that a kid could walk up to me and call me a wicked name (like the constant "gay" or other slurs), spit on me, slap me, or just come in my classroom to disrupt it. Honestly, it was not like that for me until about 5 years ago. It is just exhausting- I don't want kids in the prison pipeline, but I also don't need to feel threatened or to see other kids put in that position. It is really such a small number of people- we just need a "something" for them to help them get what they need to be successful with other kids. Of course I hate removing some from the opportunity to learn. But you know what I hate more? Dumbing everything down and not getting through 30% of my course material because 2 kids can't let the others learn...what do we owe to the other 22 students? Perhaps the pendulum just swung too far in the "restorative" without realizing that a necessary condition to "restoring" something is the actor realizing they did something wrong? Oddly, I was trained in restorative practices nearly 10 years ago and that was the first thing we learned- it only works with active participants and those that see a harm has occurred. It is sad that such a wonderful tool was put forward as the panica in education and then, it didn't pan out. There is no consequence, nor incentive that seems to be working to curb these enormously disturbing and disruptive behaviors. There are so few tools for schools to handle these situations. THEY HAVE NO OPTIONS. For some, I think they believed that this was all in the name of anti-racism and providing more opportunities for under-invested youth. I agree we need something (and I believe there is an answer) but lowering the expectations (academic or behavioral) for significant numbers of students and our schools because we can't figure out something better is only allowing our schools to continue to fail large numbers of DC youth. I'm glad folks are realizing these issues are present- email your elected reps, because I guarantee you that Ms. Neal and other school-based staff want a solution WAY more than you can every believe. |
Anonymous
Great post. I have a kid who acts out and the school is not willing to give him consequences that I think would be appropriate. On the flip side, his behavior is very much learned from/kindled by other children’s bad behavior. I honestly think if “being sent to the principal’s office” was still a thing, he’d be much better. Kids need swift, unemotional consequences, but somehow it turns into a giant production that gives too much attention to it. The flip side is that DCPS is woefully unprepared to deal with behavioral issues that stem from legitimate diagnoses. That means kids stay in gen ed dysregulated because everyone knows the BES classes are only for the really really tough kids. |
Anonymous
This is incredible. I'm a parent at an elementary school. In the past month I have had to dive head first into the situation with safety because there are a few students who have consistently had zero consequences. I also agree with you and said as much to people in a meeting with DCPS about this, that these students are kids who either don't see they did anything wrong or don't even know what they are doing and how they are behaving. Every single thing said back to me in our meeting pointed back to the Grosso legislation of 2018. That piece of garbage written by people in a show of being anti-racist and all it did is drag every school down and put students and teachers in danger. One of our teachers was attacked and ended up in the hospital. This is a god damned outrage. I'm outraged for all of you and what I said to our instructional superintendent was that the school admin tries to bury these issues. I feel if a child is a danger to everyone that people deserve to know that. I'm disgusted. I've never seen such a piece of crap legislation and Grosso should be ashamed of himself. You're right. A decision made by idiots who have no clue. I'd love to chat with you offline because I'm truly on a campaign about school safety. I just don't know how to connect with you. |
Anonymous
This was our experience!! (elementary at DCPS) We BEGGED them to pull our kid with medium level behavior issues out of the school and place her in a different setting. She wasn't "bad" enough to go to BES, they said, "you don't want her with *them*") -- I was like ... ok, well you aren't equipped to deal w/ her in gen ed, so ... what do you propose? SHe was absolutely disrupting others. (But not hurting them) I had to pull her and file a due process complaint. I won, but like -- WHO was served w/ that initial policy? Not my kid. Not the other kids in the class. Literally served no one -- except DCPS who didn't want to pay for non public |
Anonymous
Can you tell me what BES is? |