When a grade has a lot of challenging kids

[Anonymous]

Honestly this is how public school kids learn resilience.

Private school kids don’t have the opportunity to do so since they are in homogeneous classrooms with similarly abled peers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly this is how public school kids learn resilience.

Private school kids don’t have the opportunity to do so since they are in homogeneous classrooms with similarly abled peers.

Not true but keep telling yourself this. I’ve had kids in both public and private and will pull my last kid out of public this year and enroll him in private next year. Private schools get to pick who they accept and if they feel like it’s a bad fit then can eventually counsel you out. But the remaining batch of kids are by no means a monolith - there are still varying levels of educations ability, spirited kids and diversity. Public schools must accept everyone. And in recent years, there has been a big push to mainstream everyone into general education classrooms even if they shouldn’t be here, which impacts the learning of kids who SHOULD be there.

I understand helping your kid develop toughness through adversity and exposure to kids from different backgrounds but NOT at the expense of my kid’s education. There are literally kids pissing in the corner in my child’s classroom, yelling, being disruptive the entire day. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm tired of everyone acting like any criticism of the current state of inclusion is a blanket intolerance of kids with IEP's and special needs!

Majority of special education students are best served in the general education classroom! And I want them there. BUT lets not pretend there are not cases where MCPS is placing them in their "Least Restrictive Environment" inappropriately and without adequate supports and supervision and it therefore derails the learning of entire classrooms or terrorizes grade levels!

In fact, it's not always even kids with learning disabilities but kids with emotional issues.

By jumping to the conclusion that anyone who critiques the current state of education is intolerant just shuts down a needed discussion about change that can serve everyone better! Because there are some kids that need more support and are not getting it!

This! I’m not upset with the kids - they can’t help themselves. I’m upset with how MCPS has decided to handle the situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are at a top area private and I feel the kids are literally feral at every class party I volunteer for - which has been a lot in the past. However, I’ve also walked the halls on a normal school day and seen all orderly classrooms and well behaved kids. I think it’s the party atmosphere. Don’t judge a class on a party day.

Unless you are at GDS or Sidwell, you are not at a top private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm tired of everyone acting like any criticism of the current state of inclusion is a blanket intolerance of kids with IEP's and special needs!

Majority of special education students are best served in the general education classroom! And I want them there. BUT lets not pretend there are not cases where MCPS is placing them in their "Least Restrictive Environment" inappropriately and without adequate supports and supervision and it therefore derails the learning of entire classrooms or terrorizes grade levels!

In fact, it's not always even kids with learning disabilities but kids with emotional issues.

By jumping to the conclusion that anyone who critiques the current state of education is intolerant just shuts down a needed discussion about change that can serve everyone better! Because there are some kids that need more support and are not getting it!

This! I’m not upset with the kids - they can’t help themselves. I’m upset with how MCPS has decided to handle the situation.

I’m not at all surprised that MCPS does this. It’s so much cheaper to put all the special needs kids in one class and put the paras in that class.

And it also satisfies all the parents who want their child in an inclusion setting and, in this area, have the financial means to sue the school system for ‘not following sped law’ if they don’t include them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t catch what grade this is, but COVID did a number on some kids’ socialization skills and teachers are seeing a lot of behaviors. That combined with MCPS limiting how teachers can remove kids having a hard time from classrooms, it makes hard situations for one kid hard for the entire class a lot of times. The county listens to parents’ concerns much more than teacher’s concerns (it is messed up but true) so if you can 1) support the teacher however you can 2) document anytime your child’s learning is impacted 3) invite other parents to observe and volunteer and 4) share your observations with admin often - that may move things along a little faster to get the teacher the support they need. I would absolutely consider requesting a classroom change for my kids if things don’t improve.

I was about to mention Covid as well but stopped. We are now far enough removed from it for behaviors to stabilize or even improve from the unnecessarily-prolonged lockdown. MCPS needs to stop coddling disruptive kids - period. Some of the old school, non corporal punishment disciplinary methods worked well, but MCPS removed them over the years.

Which ones did they remove?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at a top area private and I feel the kids are literally feral at every class party I volunteer for - which has been a lot in the past. However, I’ve also walked the halls on a normal school day and seen all orderly classrooms and well behaved kids. I think it’s the party atmosphere. Don’t judge a class on a party day.

Unless you are at GDS or Sidwell, you are not at a top private.

You forgot a couple…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP -- Based on my DC's experience many years ago with a very disruptive and intermittently violent child in their ES class (sent one kid to the ER), I want to suggest that the teacher and admin may well be taking efforts to address at least some of what's happening, but for privacy reasons can't share that and for bureaucratic reasons might take time to work through. Providing additional documentation could well support their efforts to obtain addition in-class resources or, if warranted, move a child who needs a different environment to that environment.

I would suggest documenting any harmful (violence, theft, etc) events in an email to the principal, cc'ing the teacher, in as factual, dispassionate and non-accusatory way as possible, with the stated goal being to ensure that the teacher and all students get whatever help is needed to support them, whether it is additional in-class or in-school resources or transfer elsewhere. I would not name the particular students involved and would complement both teacher and paras on their efforts if that's warranted, but leave no doubt that admin has a record of what is going on -- again, assuming that it truly is an out of control situation.

In our case, it was clear after the fact that the teacher and admin knew the kid needed more, but the clear record made by parents was part of what enabled them to get a full time shadow for the kid at issue and then ultimately move them to a classroom program that was able to support their needs.

OP, I’m a former teacher who had a class like this. The advice I bolded above is the best advice on the thread. Document how the chaos is affecting your child’s education or wellbeing. It will allow the school to add more supports more quickly by clearing some legal hurdles. (Note I didn’t say it would be quick. Think months instead of years.) If you can get any other parents in the class to write similar letters, encourage them to do so too. Be sure to support that teacher. They usually give the most difficult kids to the best teachers. Your active, expressed support will go a long way towards keeping her in the profession. I guarantee you that she’s crying after school and is possibly considering a career change.

Can you give a little more detail about the legal hurdles/what needs to be demonstrated in order to get the additional supports?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t catch what grade this is, but COVID did a number on some kids’ socialization skills and teachers are seeing a lot of behaviors. That combined with MCPS limiting how teachers can remove kids having a hard time from classrooms, it makes hard situations for one kid hard for the entire class a lot of times. The county listens to parents’ concerns much more than teacher’s concerns (it is messed up but true) so if you can 1) support the teacher however you can 2) document anytime your child’s learning is impacted 3) invite other parents to observe and volunteer and 4) share your observations with admin often - that may move things along a little faster to get the teacher the support they need. I would absolutely consider requesting a classroom change for my kids if things don’t improve.

I was about to mention Covid as well but stopped. We are now far enough removed from it for behaviors to stabilize or even improve from the unnecessarily-prolonged lockdown. MCPS needs to stop coddling disruptive kids - period. Some of the old school, non corporal punishment disciplinary methods worked well, but MCPS removed them over the years.

MCPS is NOT coddling disruptive students - it is ignoring them and administrators definitely expect teachers to just suck it up and deal with the violent students, the students with a documented 55 IQ, the students who have experienced traumatic brain injury, and more, all in one class and with no help. It doesn't matter if students FINALLY get an IEP, they are left in mainstream classrooms if MCPS can get away with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not a McPS staffer, just a parent, but have heard that in my kids’ elementary school, they tend to cluster a lot of the kids with IEPs in the same class rather than distributing them evenly because it’s easier to provide similar extra resources (like extra paras to deal with special needs or extra reading specialists for dyslexia or whatever) if more kids with those needs are in one class.

My kid (who doesn’t have an IEP) was in one of the classes that seemed to have a lot of special needs kids last year, but not this year.

I definitely get fewer reports of kid misbehavior/meltdowns this year. But the paraprofessionals who helped my kid’s class last year (even the ones without special needs) don’t come to my kid’s class this year-it’s just the teacher. So there are tradeoffs. Kids with more needs bring more resources to the classroom that can benefit all the kids in that class.

Don’t judge your kids’ school by one class party.

The paras are doing nothing besides chasing or following around the most disruptive child and repeatedly telling people to sit down. My child doesn’t benefit from their presence in any way at all and it adds to the noise.

I should have mentioned in my OP that this is my 3rd time in this classroom and they have all been bad. One student only spends part of the day in the class (he is in a special program) and was not there for the first occasion and really added to the craziness today. I’m sure it was worse than usual because of the party but there’s no chance things are going well the rest of the time. I have heard reports teachers of older grades are already dreading this cohort.

Have your other times been "fly on the wall" type observing of regular class time? If not (and honestly even if so-- but certainly especially not if you're having it on special events) you can't assume that the paras are unhelpful.

+1. I would doubt anyone who would say paras are doing nothing but helping with a single kid. My kid has no special needs but has told me about the time Ms so and so helped with XYZ. That’s what adults do when they see a kid who needs a hand.

Any extra adult in the classroom is a help to the teacher.

Retired teacher here. There definitely are paras that do nothing but attend to one or two challenging children so that the teacher can instruct children who are better able to learn and who do not have significant challenges.

That's still more than what OP claimed, which is that the paras' presence in the classroom is not beneficial at all and they are basically useless.

OP here and that is not what I claimed. I was irritated that PP implied I should be grateful that my kid had these challenging kids in their class because it brought in all this extra help and I am 100 percent sure these paras are not adding to my child’s experience in any way. They are bodyguards. The only time my child has ever mentioned them is not even by name but just as “Larlos helper takes them to the other room sometimes”. I am sure the situation would be worse without them there and it is not my intention to bash anyone but the idea these paras are helping out is just not accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP -- Based on my DC's experience many years ago with a very disruptive and intermittently violent child in their ES class (sent one kid to the ER), I want to suggest that the teacher and admin may well be taking efforts to address at least some of what's happening, but for privacy reasons can't share that and for bureaucratic reasons might take time to work through. Providing additional documentation could well support their efforts to obtain addition in-class resources or, if warranted, move a child who needs a different environment to that environment.

I would suggest documenting any harmful (violence, theft, etc) events in an email to the principal, cc'ing the teacher, in as factual, dispassionate and non-accusatory way as possible, with the stated goal being to ensure that the teacher and all students get whatever help is needed to support them, whether it is additional in-class or in-school resources or transfer elsewhere. I would not name the particular students involved and would complement both teacher and paras on their efforts if that's warranted, but leave no doubt that admin has a record of what is going on -- again, assuming that it truly is an out of control situation.

In our case, it was clear after the fact that the teacher and admin knew the kid needed more, but the clear record made by parents was part of what enabled them to get a full time shadow for the kid at issue and then ultimately move them to a classroom program that was able to support their needs.

Sped para here. For the record, I love my job, but the system sometimes moves very, very slowly which can be frustrating for everyone involved. This is good advice.

OP here and I think what I’m struggling with is I think the class could likely be ok if there was just ONE of these kids instead of 2 very challenging kids and two others that are the more typical level of challenging that I saw in my older child’s grade. I don’t know if any one of them individually will meet the criteria for being fully removed (as I mentioned one child already spends part of the day in a different setting, and I do believe the class functions better during those times but I have less experience with that period). I really do feel for the school and the teacher, it feels like a different senario than having one incredibly off the charts difficult kids your child had to deal with for one year until they switch classes and/or the child gets moved to an more appropriate placement. I tried to ask my DC some non-leading questions and they say this year is overall better than last year because the teacher doesn’t yell as much even though people are disruptive. I guess the one thing that I can do is try and support and encourage the teacher so she isn’t completely burnt out like last year. I will redouble my efforts on that. I have not been wanting to complain generically about how loud the classroom is because like I said she’s doing a good job, it’s just not possible for anyone to get those kids to behave enough to actually teach too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Educator of 26 years, mom of 5 - we will be seeing COVID consequences for YEARS in our classrooms. We are no way “far enough removed” when COVID trauma hit and our kids were surrounded with stress during critically important periods of emotional development. Our COVID babes are now in K/1st. Our COVID K’s are in 5th/6th. Many didn’t have early preschool or normal socialization. I am seeing every grade impacted and statistically having more social and challenging behaviors. All teachers need more support because of this and no one is talking about it. Please don’t downplay the effects COVID had on many developing kids and how classroom dynamics can be affected.

OP here and I honestly don’t know if COVID played into it. Maybe? These would be kids who likely didn’t have as much but I would think many of them could have had some pre-k at least (my kid did). But I have wondered if there’s been a delay in diagnosis for some of these kids? Or these are kids who spent a huge chunk of their toddler years in front of iPads because their parents were trying to work without child care. I don’t know but the end result is still affecting my kid. Private school would be a real stretch for us financially but we will have to look into it if things stay like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not a McPS staffer, just a parent, but have heard that in my kids’ elementary school, they tend to cluster a lot of the kids with IEPs in the same class rather than distributing them evenly because it’s easier to provide similar extra resources (like extra paras to deal with special needs or extra reading specialists for dyslexia or whatever) if more kids with those needs are in one class.

My kid (who doesn’t have an IEP) was in one of the classes that seemed to have a lot of special needs kids last year, but not this year.

I definitely get fewer reports of kid misbehavior/meltdowns this year. But the paraprofessionals who helped my kid’s class last year (even the ones without special needs) don’t come to my kid’s class this year-it’s just the teacher. So there are tradeoffs. Kids with more needs bring more resources to the classroom that can benefit all the kids in that class.

Don’t judge your kids’ school by one class party.

Yeah, no. WAY better to be in the other class with no paras and no “more resources,” thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The unfortunate truth is one single kid can absolutely ruin the learning of an entire class for the year. So can a handful of hard to manage kids. And there's no guarantee that that kid or other kids won't be a problem next year.

Private schools typically offer a less likelihood of this since they can give consequences the public school can not.

So, if you have the means, it may be something to consider, especially during elementary where it is one class. Middle and high school can still have these type of issues, but at least your child's not likely to be stuck in one class all day with a student who impedes everyone's learning.

Yea. Solid choice since private schools don’t have to let in those terrible IEP and special needs kids 🙄

Oh, grow up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have advice for the OP nor am I here to opine on what kids to put in which classroom. Just wanted to point that that I'm frankly appalled at the number of posters in this thread who use IEP status as a proxy for kids who are violent or have behavioral problems.

Point out where you see it then and explain what is wrong.

She won’t, because it isn’t there.