Reply to Innovative Ideas to reduce educational disparity

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

We're at a Focus school and crap like this happens every year.  In every classroom.  Truly.  I volunteer on and off, and my kids are older so we hear about it in details.

Even good teachers are in such a tough position because the kids learn early that they can get away with pretty terrible behavior.  Our Focus school follows the PBIS system.  So, they really don't want to implement any 'punitive' type measures.  And, they want to keep the kids in the classroom.  No suspensions.  Really, no punishment, except that maybe the kid doesn't get a sticker at the end of the day.

This year in 1st grade, we already had a kid who hit the teacher.  Lots of kids who sprawl out on the floor and kick around, not paying attention.  We've had so many issues on the playground, during recess - kids pushing other kids off, kids getting in fights.  Admin can't or doesn't do much.  It's a pretty terrible learning environment, IMO.  [/quote]

Why do these things seem to happen more at lower SES schools?  Is it actually true that it happens more?  Is it that the kids are perceived as “bad” rather than SN and it actually happens with similar frequency?  Is it just some schools have bad administration?  Is it that wealthier parents are more successfully advocating for supports for their SN kids so that major classroom disruptions are less frequent?  Are kids with similar capacities just dealing with more trauma/stressors in low income communities leading to more acting out?  I really have no idea but I don’t think it’s because of PBIS.  We are a PBIS “W” elementary school and I have only heard of one classroom having to evacuate for an out of control child in the 5 years we’ve been at the school.  That was a year the first grade class barely missed an additional classroom and by the end of the year there were 29 first graders in each class.  It was a bad year, but unusual.  My daughter got a paper cut in her eye from a SN kid waving papers around, but I felt confident it was not intentional - totally an accident - and I think the school handled it appropriately.  I don’t think there was a serious consequence for the paper-waver, but I also don’t think it would have been appropriate to impose one.

I think ideally a school with more consistently disruptive students would have extra floating adults whose job it is to come in and deal with the disruptive child so that the classroom teacher can continue teaching the rest of the class.  [/quote]

It's not limited to schools located in lower SES areas.  A consistently disruptive kid can come from any SES.  It's rather that for even one consistently disruptive child, you are asking way too much for the average teacher to both deal with that child AND teach the rest of the kids with the same time and attention the teacher would devote without that kid.  Just not happening.  And if you have a class full of even somewhat disruptive kids, you need many instructors.  In either case, thinking that the county is going to willingly provide another trained adult just because of the disruption is not realistic, at least in our experience.
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