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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My daughter says she doesn’t want to return to her in-bounds school this coming school year because “all the teachers yell.”  Truth be told, I have noticed this myself but have never directly discussed it with her before. I appreciate the difficulty teachers must have with managing ES kids, but it does seem like the default for many is yelling: in the classroom, in the hallways, at recess, at pick-up.

Why is this? Is it the default at other elementary schools? (Ours is Ludlow). I’m not trying to disparage LT - it has a lot of good points, too - but I’m interested in others’ experiences. Thanks.[/quote]

I have a lot of questions here.

1) How old is your daughter? I feel differently about a 4 year old saying this versus a 10 year old. Not that I dismiss it either way, but it means different things. Younger kids tend to view things that happened recently as permanent fixtures, older kids have a better sense of context. Some kids are more sensitive to negative events so even if it's occasional, it might impact them more or bother them more.

2) Why are the teachers yelling, and how? You say you have noticed this but... how? Are they yelling during pick-up/recess/in hallways to be heard? That is normal. Teachers sometimes have to be loud to be heard. Are they yelling indiscriminately at all kids or are they yelling at specific kids for specific behavior. Does the behavior merit yelling? Is the yelling worse than letting the behavior continue? And so on. I would be unbothered by seeing a teacher yell to stop a kid from getting out of the lunch line to wander off somewhere -- the teacher has to keep track of the kids and maybe that kid has a history of trying to sneak away during lunch. If the teacher was regularly just yelling at the whole class I'd be concerned. That's just weak classroom management.

Anyway, if you think you are going to find a public school in DC where the teachers never, ever yell for any reason, good luck. A lot of these schools have weak acoustics, sometimes you have to yell on the playground or during pickup to address a safety issue. If your kid is upset by the yelling, definitely investigate that and see if it's a school issue or something going on with your kid. I have a kid with a sensory disorder and raised voices at school are an issue for her (whether it's just a loud classroom or a kid yelling or a teacher raising their voice for any reason, even happily). But that's just an issue we as a family have to find solutions for to help her figure out how to navigate loud situations. I know she's gotten very upset when a teacher has yelled at school but I also have context to understand that the teachers are not just yelling at her all the time -- she's got a sensitivity that is making the normal noise at school more stressful for her, and the teachers at school have always worked with us (via IEP) to make sure she has the support she needs.

My experience in DCPS is that the kids are WAY more likely to be yelling than the teachers, and that most of the teachers have almost superhuman ability to deal with these kids who can be, frankly, a lot. [/quote]

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