Are any other high school teachers experiencing worse freshman this year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, what are you doing to address it?

Everything in our power. The problem is the kids don’t care about consequences. In school suspension? So what. A phone call home? They laugh and say go ahead. There are no repercussions for them coming from parents and parents seem to think it’s on us for every single thing their kids does. It is absolutely as much of the parents fault these days as it is the kids. Our building already had two teachers quit.

Many of do care and there would be serious consequences at home, far worse than at school.

The ones that do care clearly aren’t the ones causing the problems.

This is not true at all. In DC's high FARMS, high ELD school the only thing that will stop a kid in their tracks is the threat of a phone call to mom. Teachers have actually called parents in the middle of class to report disrespect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, what are you doing to address it?

Everything in our power. The problem is the kids don’t care about consequences. In school suspension? So what. A phone call home? They laugh and say go ahead. There are no repercussions for them coming from parents and parents seem to think it’s on us for every single thing their kids does. It is absolutely as much of the parents fault these days as it is the kids. Our building already had two teachers quit.

Many of do care and there would be serious consequences at home, far worse than at school.

That is absolutely incorrect

[Anonymous]

The actual problem is that mcps has zero consequences for poor behavior.

This. Last year a middle school kid repeatedly stole from my kid. Hats, hoodie, etc. Then sent taunting text messages confirming he had the stolen items.

My kid reported it to the school. There were "restorative justice" circles -- which in actuality meant that my kid was pulled out of class, sat in a room with the counselor and the thief while the counselor encouraged the thief to explain his actions and make a plan to make it right with my kid. Guess what? The thief didn't say a single word, never returned any of the stolen items, and there was no other consequence. So my kid lost instructional time and faith that the adults in the building can do anything to help him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, what are you doing to address it?

Everything in our power. The problem is the kids don’t care about consequences. In school suspension? So what. A phone call home? They laugh and say go ahead. There are no repercussions for them coming from parents and parents seem to think it’s on us for every single thing their kids does. It is absolutely as much of the parents fault these days as it is the kids. Our building already had two teachers quit.

Many of do care and there would be serious consequences at home, far worse than at school.

There's always some parent out here who thinks teachers are talking *specifically* about them and get defensive. I wonder why?

And no...after working in schools for the past eleven years as a counselor...I would say about 95% of parents either don't care or they dont do anything to fix the problem, they just hope the schools can manage to do it. It's extremely sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The actual problem is that mcps has zero consequences for poor behavior.

This. Last year a middle school kid repeatedly stole from my kid. Hats, hoodie, etc. Then sent taunting text messages confirming he had the stolen items.

My kid reported it to the school. There were "restorative justice" circles -- which in actuality meant that my kid was pulled out of class, sat in a room with the counselor and the thief while the counselor encouraged the thief to explain his actions and make a plan to make it right with my kid. Guess what? The thief didn't say a single word, never returned any of the stolen items, and there was no other consequence. So my kid lost instructional time and faith that the adults in the building can do anything to help him.

Awful. I'm so sorry MCPS failed your son.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The actual problem is that mcps has zero consequences for poor behavior.

This. Last year a middle school kid repeatedly stole from my kid. Hats, hoodie, etc. Then sent taunting text messages confirming he had the stolen items.

My kid reported it to the school. There were "restorative justice" circles -- which in actuality meant that my kid was pulled out of class, sat in a room with the counselor and the thief while the counselor encouraged the thief to explain his actions and make a plan to make it right with my kid. Guess what? The thief didn't say a single word, never returned any of the stolen items, and there was no other consequence. So my kid lost instructional time and faith that the adults in the building can do anything to help him.

FYI, your child can and should refuse to participate in the RJ bs because you're right- it doesn't do anything. It only detracts from your child's learning time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my lower SES high school it seems that some freshman are pretty terrible. Cursing out teachers in the hallway. Throwing fits and disrupting class. We learned today that there isn’t really a referral for disrespect at them moment, only if it refers to gender, race or sexual identity. So, “F U Mr./Ms. teacher” doesn’t trigger an immediate consequence.

Is this worse at other school too?

I don’t have a feel for the 9th graders at our HS yet, but the hallway issues are mostly individual class avoidance rather than groups of kids. We’ve been focusing on limiting passes and putting extra adults to shooing kids into class at the bell. Still not under control, but not as bad as two years ago.

For folks who aren’t teachers, the cursing at a teacher isn’t acceptable, but administration and security are so overwhelmed with worse behaviors that they have no bandwidth for it. It isn’t worth reacting to as a teacher (when things are this awful). Just ignore the cursing and treat the behavior like you would a toddler having a tantrum. “I can’t hear you until you use polite language and a normal tone of voice.” Grey rock them. It’s not worth your energy to engage. At the end of the day, it’s the kid losing out, not the teacher.

Fair is fair. Teachers should be allowed to curse and throw things back.

As long as it’s equitable.

[Anonymous]

FYI, your child can and should refuse to participate in the RJ bs because you're right- it doesn't do anything. It only detracts from your child's learning time

Thank you! I did not know that a kid who is not at fault can decline the RJ circle. I will be spreading the word. I can see some limited applications for RJ but most of how it is used is a complete waste of time. We need to go back to loss of privileges (lunch detention), suspensions, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my lower SES high school it seems that some freshman are pretty terrible. Cursing out teachers in the hallway. Throwing fits and disrupting class. We learned today that there isn’t really a referral for disrespect at them moment, only if it refers to gender, race or sexual identity. So, “F U Mr./Ms. teacher” doesn’t trigger an immediate consequence.

Is this worse at other school too?

HS teacher here and my colleagues and I all agree that last year was worse!

[Anonymous]

What school is this that would not impose consequences for stealing? Our child's school certainly had lunch detention and in and out of school suspension in addition to phone calls home. I know kids whose parents were really working hard to discipline their kids at home but at that age it's really hard and even parents can't do anything.

I'm glad that counselor who posted is no longer a counselor if you're that negative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Security is busy babysitting the hall walkers. I get that they need to build relationships. But the kids have no reason to go to class when they get so much attention from security without any consequences. So, security and admin is not as available to respond to the disrespect issues.

I wish we could put these hallwalkers somewhere safe where they would not get attention or reinforcement for these negative behaviors.

This. Administration doesn’t know what to do with troublesome kids as there are no consequences anymore so they constantly talk about how building relationships solves all problems. Relationships are obviously important but they are not a magic cure-all

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my lower SES high school it seems that some freshman are pretty terrible. Cursing out teachers in the hallway. Throwing fits and disrupting class. We learned today that there isn’t really a referral for disrespect at them moment, only if it refers to gender, race or sexual identity. So, “F U Mr./Ms. teacher” doesn’t trigger an immediate consequence.

Is this worse at other school too?

I don’t have a feel for the 9th graders at our HS yet, but the hallway issues are mostly individual class avoidance rather than groups of kids. We’ve been focusing on limiting passes and putting extra adults to shooing kids into class at the bell. Still not under control, but not as bad as two years ago.

For folks who aren’t teachers, the cursing at a teacher isn’t acceptable, but administration and security are so overwhelmed with worse behaviors that they have no bandwidth for it. It isn’t worth reacting to as a teacher (when things are this awful). Just ignore the cursing and treat the behavior like you would a toddler having a tantrum. “I can’t hear you until you use polite language and a normal tone of voice.” Grey rock them. It’s not worth your energy to engage. At the end of the day, it’s the kid losing out, not the teacher.

Fair is fair. Teachers should be allowed to curse and throw things back.

I wish we could sometimes have a shoulder to cry on. It is always about the students wellbeing and mental health which I mostly understand but teachers are also struggling with anxiety and burnout stress. There is a constant drumbeat of how teachers need to do more and more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my lower SES high school it seems that some freshman are pretty terrible. Cursing out teachers in the hallway. Throwing fits and disrupting class. We learned today that there isn’t really a referral for disrespect at them moment, only if it refers to gender, race or sexual identity. So, “F U Mr./Ms. teacher” doesn’t trigger an immediate consequence.

Is this worse at other school too?

I don’t have a feel for the 9th graders at our HS yet, but the hallway issues are mostly individual class avoidance rather than groups of kids. We’ve been focusing on limiting passes and putting extra adults to shooing kids into class at the bell. Still not under control, but not as bad as two years ago.

For folks who aren’t teachers, the cursing at a teacher isn’t acceptable, but administration and security are so overwhelmed with worse behaviors that they have no bandwidth for it. It isn’t worth reacting to as a teacher (when things are this awful). Just ignore the cursing and treat the behavior like you would a toddler having a tantrum. “I can’t hear you until you use polite language and a normal tone of voice.” Grey rock them. It’s not worth your energy to engage. At the end of the day, it’s the kid losing out, not the teacher.

Maybe. But it’s exhausting for the teachers. I’m not a teacher, but having to deal with this kind of disrespect on a daily basis, as a professional (and as someone who is not working as a jail warden) seems too much to ask.

Admin and Central Office need to fix this. For teachers and for the sake of other students.

+100 This is why no one wants to be a teacher anymore. Not only do you have to go in 5 days a week, you get yelled at and cursed out. Not worth it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Security is busy babysitting the hall walkers. I get that they need to build relationships. But the kids have no reason to go to class when they get so much attention from security without any consequences. So, security and admin is not as available to respond to the disrespect issues.

I wish we could put these hallwalkers somewhere safe where they would not get attention or reinforcement for these negative behaviors.

This. Administration doesn’t know what to do with troublesome kids as there are no consequences anymore so they constantly talk about how building relationships solves all problems. Relationships are obviously important but they are not a magic cure-all

Also, relationships are a two-way street and students bear accountability and responsibility at the high school level for building positive relationships too.

You can't build a relationship with someone who's an absolute jerk.

[Anonymous]

I really don’t get being all hurt by teens cursing.