Elementary schools falling apart?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not about a sped kid acting out.

It's about the teacher not maintaining control of the class.

Do non-SPED teachers receive training for maintaining control of students with significant special needs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not about a sped kid acting out.

It's about the teacher not maintaining control of the class.

Incorrect. Some students are so out of control, so often, it takes more than one person to help. For example, in my class last year, I was fine with 17 of my students. But the other two were a different story. There was often 3-4 other adults in the room on a daily basis attempting to calm those two kids (mostly unsuccessfully). When the behavior specialist, the sped teacher, the principal and a TA can't get a kid to stop raging, there's something more going on.

[Anonymous]

I finally was able to get my child placed in a nonpublic setting after 15 months. As the parent, I was begging for a placement change. Being in a class of 28 kids was too overwhelming for my child and on a daily basis there was the flight or fight response.

As for discipline, schools cannot do anything. Then can call the parents to come and get them or have them sit in an office but that's it. Its a catch 22---if the child is out of the classroom a significant amount, a smart parent will argue that FAPE is not being provided and then the school needs to provide an IEP. IEPs cost the schools money, they aren't staffed for it, and they cannot support the IEPs that they currently have so they don't want to create more so they don't create a situation where a parent can argue that their child needs one.

I eventually pulled my son from his school and got approved for homebound instruction while I waited for placement. Here's the thing though--I had the ability to work from home and supervise my kid all day. On homebound instruction, an adult must be in the house while the teacher is there. If you don't have this flexibility, homebound is not an option for your family.

We moved from gen ed, to self contained class, to non public. What surprised me most is how small these classes are. His self contained class had 10 kids. His non public has 5. That's it--for the entire grade. There has to be room in these programs for more kids. Or expand the self contained classrooms to more schools.

I know there are more kids that need this type of support. I believe that if classes were smaller a lot of the behaviors would go away. Certainly not for all kids, but for a lot of them. I think we all can agree that smaller classes would benefit all kids. But that's not going to happen in MCPS.

On another thread, someone asked if you would pay extra taxes for increased special ed services. I wouldn't for special ed but I would for smaller classes for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I finally was able to get my child placed in a nonpublic setting after 15 months. As the parent, I was begging for a placement change. Being in a class of 28 kids was too overwhelming for my child and on a daily basis there was the flight or fight response.

As for discipline, schools cannot do anything. Then can call the parents to come and get them or have them sit in an office but that's it. Its a catch 22---if the child is out of the classroom a significant amount, a smart parent will argue that FAPE is not being provided and then the school needs to provide an IEP. IEPs cost the schools money, they aren't staffed for it, and they cannot support the IEPs that they currently have so they don't want to create more so they don't create a situation where a parent can argue that their child needs one.

I eventually pulled my son from his school and got approved for homebound instruction while I waited for placement. Here's the thing though--I had the ability to work from home and supervise my kid all day. On homebound instruction, an adult must be in the house while the teacher is there. If you don't have this flexibility, homebound is not an option for your family.

We moved from gen ed, to self contained class, to non public. What surprised me most is how small these classes are. His self contained class had 10 kids. His non public has 5. That's it--for the entire grade. There has to be room in these programs for more kids. Or expand the self contained classrooms to more schools.

I know there are more kids that need this type of support. I believe that if classes were smaller a lot of the behaviors would go away. Certainly not for all kids, but for a lot of them. I think we all can agree that smaller classes would benefit all kids. But that's not going to happen in MCPS.

On another thread, someone asked if you would pay extra taxes for increased special ed services. I wouldn't for special ed but I would for smaller classes for everyone.

Can you clarify what you mean by non public? Is that a charter school? Private? School paid with public funding? Free school provided by private benefactors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's almost like a hugely disruptive global pandemic is continuing to have disruptive effects...

This stuff was happening before the pandemic. Every year in elementary, my kids have had 1-2 disruptive kids in their class that demand disproportionate amounts of teacher attention. Maybe coincidence, but the kids are always the children of single mothers, and I've noticed quite a few of them move to different schools after a year or two.

It’s a combination the pandemic after effects and the result of special education inclusion laws that require kids with emotional and behavioral disabilities to be in a mainstream classroom instead of a separate class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not about a sped kid acting out.

It's about the teacher not maintaining control of the class.

Incorrect. Some students are so out of control, so often, it takes more than one person to help. For example, in my class last year, I was fine with 17 of my students. But the other two were a different story. There was often 3-4 other adults in the room on a daily basis attempting to calm those two kids (mostly unsuccessfully). When the behavior specialist, the sped teacher, the principal and a TA can't get a kid to stop raging, there's something more going on.

This was the case in my child’s class last year. The vast majority of kids were relatively well-behaved, but a few kids who had, for whatever reason, significant emotional regulation issues.

Based on the class rosters, I cynically think the school deliberately put about 15 “easy” kids in with the 2-4 “toughest” kids in that grade in an attempt to balance the chaos and it backfired on a spectacularly bad way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I finally was able to get my child placed in a nonpublic setting after 15 months. As the parent, I was begging for a placement change. Being in a class of 28 kids was too overwhelming for my child and on a daily basis there was the flight or fight response.

As for discipline, schools cannot do anything. Then can call the parents to come and get them or have them sit in an office but that's it. Its a catch 22---if the child is out of the classroom a significant amount, a smart parent will argue that FAPE is not being provided and then the school needs to provide an IEP. IEPs cost the schools money, they aren't staffed for it, and they cannot support the IEPs that they currently have so they don't want to create more so they don't create a situation where a parent can argue that their child needs one.

I eventually pulled my son from his school and got approved for homebound instruction while I waited for placement. Here's the thing though--I had the ability to work from home and supervise my kid all day. On homebound instruction, an adult must be in the house while the teacher is there. If you don't have this flexibility, homebound is not an option for your family.

We moved from gen ed, to self contained class, to non public. What surprised me most is how small these classes are. His self contained class had 10 kids. His non public has 5. That's it--for the entire grade. There has to be room in these programs for more kids. Or expand the self contained classrooms to more schools.

I know there are more kids that need this type of support. I believe that if classes were smaller a lot of the behaviors would go away. Certainly not for all kids, but for a lot of them. I think we all can agree that smaller classes would benefit all kids. But that's not going to happen in MCPS.

On another thread, someone asked if you would pay extra taxes for increased special ed services. I wouldn't for special ed but I would for smaller classes for everyone.

Can you clarify what you mean by non public? Is that a charter school? Private? School paid with public funding? Free school provided by private benefactors?

Non public is an IEP placement. It is considered the most restrictive placement. It is paid for by the school system but it is a private SN school like Ivymount.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are two large contributing factors.

First, in the past SPED students were separated from genpop. While it was terrible for the SPED students, it was good for the gen pop. We have now swung too far in the other direction. We have now incorporated the SPED students in the gen pop. While that is good for most of the SPED students, there are some SPED students who are too far outside the social norms that teachers can handle and we are requiring the teachers to keep them there. I have a child who was in a class with one of these way too difficult SPED children and at least every other day, the students had to be evacuated from the room when the child became violent and the teacher was not allowed to discipline or restrict the child. The other 22 children had to them go and sit in the hallway while a SPED teacher was brought from another assignment to come and deal with the child. The other 22 children lost valuable learning time repeatedly for this one child. We need to be able to find a middle ground. Incorporate the SPED students into the gen pop, but when some children because a danger to the teacher and other students, they should be removed from the general classroom and and alternative learning plan needs to be developed for that child. This bending over backwards to accommodate is not at all fair to the larger population of students who have to deal with these children. Now the policies towards SPED children are often dictated at the state level and not at the county/school district level. This needs to be addressed by the state school superintendent, but it is not political advantageous to do so.

Second, entitled parents have become worse. I know several MCPS teachers who have said that they have a lot of problems maintaining discipline in classrooms because the attitude of the school district is now to cave to whiny entitled parents. Children are children. Teachers try to discipline them and the child complains at home. In the past, many parents would try to then deal with the situation at home, teach their children manners, teach them how to cope and move on. Now, many of those entitled parents demand meetings with the teacher and/or administration and complain about how their little snowflake was treated in class. And the administration is caving to them and changing the way that teachers deal with such children and restricting teachers from maintaining discipline in class. My friends tell me the number of difficult parents has been on a steady rise for some time now and there is no evidence of it declining.

So, MD state needs to address the SPED problem and there needs to be a way to curb the overentitled parents for the situation to change.

👏. Thank you for educating folks that not all issues are the direct result of a school or district. The are many county, state, and federal policies that must be adhered to that require time, resources, and funding that most parents on this board have not spent any time to understand. If they did, they would stop complaining here, and move their voices to a much higher level where these decisions are made.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's almost like a hugely disruptive global pandemic is continuing to have disruptive effects...

It’s almost as though my kid didn’t have those issues at her private school this past year.

But sure. Continue to pretend it’s like that everywhere.

It's almost like schools that can choose whom to admit and whom to kick out have fewer disruptive students than public schools that are required to accept everyone.

When I was a kid, they disciplined disruptive kids and separated out kids who are unable to sit quietly to learn. Consequently I actually learned something from real hard copy textbooks and teachers actually taught grammar and we read high quality works.

I feel sorry for sped students who are unable to sit quietly to learn and end up wandering around the classroom, and then often meltdown by the end of the day. How is this good for the sped student? The class atmosphere is inappropriate for them and it is difficult for neurotypical students to learn in this environment.

Suspensions were a serious matter and too many could lead to being expelled. Consequently, the well behaved students were rewarded for their good behavior and the disruptive students faced consequences.

Exactly. Public schools can do quite a bit, up to and including expulsions. They just choose not to.

Public schools cannot expel elementary schoolers, or at least not without a massive struggle. Nor do we want them to be able to expel elementary schoolers because that's terrible for society.

Many of us are not suggesting expelling them, but segregating them. Students are in the general population until they become a danger to the teacher and/or other students. Children who exhibit violence need to be taken out of the general population and put into classes where SPED teachers can work with them. In many cases, these children are overstimulated in the general population. Having a child with sensory issues in a busy classroom with 24 other children, the associated noise and commotion, may be too much for them to handle and putting them into a smaller population with more focused attention from an educator that is trained to handle them is a better use of time and resources for everyone involved.

Federal law entitles a student with a disability to a free appropriate public education. There is no asterisk for *except if the student bothers other students.

Nowhere in my reply above does it say that they should not get FAPE. IT says that when they become violent and a danger to staff and/or other students that they be segregated from the gen ed classroom and get the education in a different setting that the large classroom. FAPE does not require every child to sit in a large generic classroom with all of their peers. Schools would be well served by having classrooms where the population is smaller and the staff is trained to deal with SPED issues. Right now, many schools distribute SPED teachers to various classrooms to check in on students. If those students were moved to another lower stimulus environment, many of them would achieve better than having a SPED teacher check on them in a large high stimulus classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are two large contributing factors.

First, in the past SPED students were separated from genpop. While it was terrible for the SPED students, it was good for the gen pop. We have now swung too far in the other direction. We have now incorporated the SPED students in the gen pop. While that is good for most of the SPED students, there are some SPED students who are too far outside the social norms that teachers can handle and we are requiring the teachers to keep them there. I have a child who was in a class with one of these way too difficult SPED children and at least every other day, the students had to be evacuated from the room when the child became violent and the teacher was not allowed to discipline or restrict the child. The other 22 children had to them go and sit in the hallway while a SPED teacher was brought from another assignment to come and deal with the child. The other 22 children lost valuable learning time repeatedly for this one child. We need to be able to find a middle ground. Incorporate the SPED students into the gen pop, but when some children because a danger to the teacher and other students, they should be removed from the general classroom and and alternative learning plan needs to be developed for that child. This bending over backwards to accommodate is not at all fair to the larger population of students who have to deal with these children. Now the policies towards SPED children are often dictated at the state level and not at the county/school district level. This needs to be addressed by the state school superintendent, but it is not political advantageous to do so.

Second, entitled parents have become worse. I know several MCPS teachers who have said that they have a lot of problems maintaining discipline in classrooms because the attitude of the school district is now to cave to whiny entitled parents. Children are children. Teachers try to discipline them and the child complains at home. In the past, many parents would try to then deal with the situation at home, teach their children manners, teach them how to cope and move on. Now, many of those entitled parents demand meetings with the teacher and/or administration and complain about how their little snowflake was treated in class. And the administration is caving to them and changing the way that teachers deal with such children and restricting teachers from maintaining discipline in class. My friends tell me the number of difficult parents has been on a steady rise for some time now and there is no evidence of it declining.

So, MD state needs to address the SPED problem and there needs to be a way to curb the overentitled parents for the situation to change.

+1. Although in fairness, I've had a lot of well-meaning parents who are at a loss to help their child with impulse control and emotional regulation. A couple other factors that I think may be contributing:

The structure of ES sets up a lot of kids to fail. Should kindergarteners really be sitting all day being taught to read? It's such a shift from even the 80s where kindergarten was much more play based. In many European countries academic doesn't start until the kids are a bit older and I think they are onto something.

Screens, both at school and home.

Too much sugary, processed junk food full of additives that we KNOW are bad for kids. And we hand them out at school every morning for breakfast and then expect these kids to sit still!

[Anonymous]

A couple of thoughts:

-how lucky to have smaller class sizes (my kids kinder through 2nd were 26+ talk about overwhelming when 2-3 are emotionally disregulated

-this is not about too much processed foods, it is about kids with ED or other special needs who are either not yet diagnosed, or, frequently, the parents are just in denial. How many times have I been told, "don't use the word autism with xx family, they've been told by a doctor their child does not have autism," or from parents, "they aren't Iike this at home, you just need to be nicer to them."

-the pendulum has swung from bad (lock special ed kids in the basement/closet and ignore them) to worse (mainstream everyone), and it isn't working. There isn't money, or teachers, to handle all the need.

-parents of these young children are exhausted. Many have had a parent desert the family home because it's just too hard. They do not have an ounce of energy left to use their voices with the Board, the Coucil, or anyone else. The ones with resources (family and dollars) and acknowledge their child's disability, realize the disaster and put their children in private special ed programs and supplement with other therapies

[Anonymous]

My child is in a title 1 school. He was a peer in a home school model classroom with a dual certified teacher, a special ed teacher who came to the class to pull small groups (within the classroom). There were maybe 16-18 kids. My DS complained about some of the behaviors of the kids but I think it was helpful that the kids with needs were already identified. In another classroom in the same grade and school there was a super disruptive child that wrecked havoc on the classroom that had the same number of kids but less classroom support because this child was not identified. I am hearing complaints from friends in both title 1 and non title 1 and in big classrooms and small classrooms of having 1-2 "disrupters" that are really making the learning environment challenging.

[Anonymous]

Why is everyone assuming that everyone who goofs off in class is sped? Y'all are ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

In regards to the poster who said that kindergarten sets kids up to fail....YES. I teach kindergarten. While my past district finally added in time to play, if it had been up to me, I would have added in even more. Our kids typically had 30 minutes of play in the morning and 30 minutes at lunch. There was a lot of talk about "play to learn" on top of this. Most teachers interpreted this to mean using active-ish centers as learning. While I agree that doing active and fun things to learn is a good idea, that is still not play. Imo, a typical day in K should look like this:

8:00 soft open with multiple choices for kids while attendance, lunch count and other administrative things happen
8:20 Reading/phonics/language arts/writing (not all sit and listen...movement included, centers, small groups included)
9:00 Indoor play/snack
9:45 Math (again, lots of movement, centers, etc)
10:30 Outdoor play
11:00 lunch
11:30 Science/Soc St./project based learning
12:00 Specials (music, gym, art, etc)
1:00 Play (indoors or out)
1:45 Reading and or math
2:15 read aloud and get ready to go home
2:30 Go home

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I posted the schedule above. But yeah, part of what is happening in K behaviorally is directly due to the lack of play and recess and developmentally appropriate activities. The other part is it takes too long to get services for kids who need them and kids who are violent or absolutely out of control need to be fast tracked into another setting, not taking a year or two to get placed elsewhere.