Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These two posts do t name the “epidemic” to which hey refer... what is the epidemic?

Sounds like they mean mental illness...but they’re being very drama queeny about it.

Anonymous wrote:These two posts do t name the “epidemic” to which hey refer... what is the epidemic?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have worked in elementary self-contained classes in a few different districts and I have seen increasingly more severe behavioral issues over that last few years. My current cross-cat class has more challenging behaviors that the Emotional/Behavioral disorders class I worked in 7 years ago

Why these increases in behavioral issues??

There is an elephant in the room......no one wants to acknowledge the epidemic and everyone tiptoes around it.

We talk about the symptoms. We talk about the therapies. We talk about the medications. We talk about the schools "not doing enough". But we don't talk about the epidemic that I predict will cripple the country in more ways than one in the coming decades.



An entire generation is sick. Mentally and physically. Yet most people don't see.

Anonymous wrote:THere are a lot of reasons but in my school, it is lack of parenting in the home and kids growing up on screens. Kids who haven’t been given limits and structure at home often don’t react well to them at school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was instructed to not leave specific notes about student X in my sub plans because his parents believe he is being targeted by staff. So I had to make a generic note to watch students near the door. The last time I was out, student x intentionally shut a classmate’s hand in the door —something he has attempted with other kids before. Now the injured kid’s parents are irate that the sub let it happen.

Here is the crux of the issue. The sub didn’t “let” anything happen. The child purposely shut the door on someone’s else’s hand. Blame is misplaced in schools these days.

So, I have to ask--how is that kid's IEP formulated to address this behavior, given that you know it has been attempted with other kids? And would that IEP, as written, have imposed any requirements on whoever was working in the classroom that day as the classroom teacher? And if so, how were those requirements communicated or otherwise addressed re: having a sub?

Where did she mention that the kid had an IEP?

Point taken--but the behavior would indicate an obligation under child find based on the info in the post, I would say

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have worked in elementary self-contained classes in a few different districts and I have seen increasingly more severe behavioral issues over that last few years. My current cross-cat class has more challenging behaviors that the Emotional/Behavioral disorders class I worked in 7 years ago

Why these increases in behavioral issues??

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These threads make me so angry and rage cry. I've had a crap day and feel like slapping some of these posters.

My kid has some of these issues. The classroom has been cleared because of him. Do you know what we had to do in order to get him an appropriate placement where he is thriving? I'll tell you:

Thousands upon thousands of dollars of therapy, not including the amount of lost work/salary for me. I don't work anymore because it's too hard to manage.

At least 6 meetings with school a year, daily phone calls, IEP meetings, IEP revisions, FBAs/BIPs, etc. private testing. Daily phone call complaints from incompetent teachers, psychologists who told me "you don't seem to care about your kid (she got fired)," and a whole host of garbage comments from other parents.

Advocate and lawyer to help us through the process.
I had to have therapists who were baiting my child removed from the process after they admitted to baiting him to acting out.

More advocate and lawyer costs to get him into his correct placement, where he's thriving and doing very well.

And he's only in second grade. That's right, all of this and he's 7. This is a lifelong process for us. We'll do it again next year, and the year after, and the year after.

You know what I have to be able to do this: Time and Money. A lot of people don't have time and money to do these things. People can't quit their jobs to go to therapy. People can't pay lawyers and advocates to help them. We can and we're fortunate. I go to Special Ed group meetings near me and people are begging for help--they can't afford it, can't take time off, have trauma in their lives, etc.

Yes, some people ignore the problems until it's too late, or don't want their kid labeled, but I really believe that most people are doing the best they can, and, in some cases, they're relying on the school to help them through the process. You can't rely on them. You need need outside help and assistance and a lot of people can't afford that.

I don't want your kid to get his hand slammed in the door, or to have to evacuate the classroom. IT's not fair to any of the kids. But I also hate that this topic comes up once a week on this site and people don't seem to understand the other side of it. The lack of empathy for people on these threads is disgusting.

So I have an idea for you: Go use your voice to vote for candidates that support all aspects of public education, voice your concerns to your school board and principals, work for additional funding for schools, stop bitching about property taxes on your million dollar homes and then complain that we don't have enough aides for the SN kids. Stop thinking that parents aren't doing the best they can. Find some empathy for people who don't fit in the molds. Life is hard enough.

I have empathy and I feel very badly for you, I really do, but my child has started seeing tutors to help with reading and math because she's basically not being taught these subjects due to being in a class with not one, but two disruptive students and only one teacher and one aide. On top of that, all the attention spent on those kids means that other children are acting up more than normal and my child has a classmate constantly picking on and bothering her, and it has seriously impacted her ability to learn, her level of anxiety, and her love of school. We're also considering sending her to a psychologist to help with the anxiety issues. And yes, I've complained and documented and complained some more but apparently there's nothing the school can do for my child who was doing GREAT for two years before being put in this class with children the teachers can't handle. I really don't think this is fair to my child either, and has potentially long-term impacts on my child's mental health and well-being. You are not the ONLY one suffering.

This has nothing to do with one child. Your child is having tutors as they are struggling and probably also need assessed. Your child having anxiety probably is genetic or also something else going on. If its that bad ,send her to private. You don't get that these parents are doing the best they can and many are not equip to handle these indues and honestly, it doesn't sound like you can if you have to get tutors for a young child vs. working with them AND you are ignoring your child mental health.

Two sides to this and both have legitimate points of view. My child was in a class that was evacuated every few weeks in two different grades. I never even heard about it from her but a few parents mentioned it to me and I saw it happen once while volunteering. Not one of the kids seemed visibly upset. The evacuation was really quick and they just went to another classroom to continue the lesson. This was early elementary so it gave the kids a movement break and they continued with their lesson and were moved back into their classroom in about 5 minutes after another adult was able to come down and help the child who was upset.

DD has a friend with anxiety, and, her parents discovered a few years later, a learning disability. This situation was very difficult for her and the parents initially were in denial and blamed their DD's not being able to learn on the upset child. They did move her to a different classroom but found she was still struggling academically. This was about HER issue, not the other child's issue.

Public school is chaotic my friend and your child will encounter behavioral issues throughout K-12 so if this is making your child struggle you do have a right to bring it up with the administration but just know most students do fine with these disruptions.

Anonymous wrote:I’m the teacher who was told to be vague in the note to the sub. I am really not looking forward to Tuesday. We are supposed to do a class activity with scissors. It’s from our curriculum and one of those experiences that basically every student does at this grade. Yesterday, my AP told me that I could not problem-solve either of two logical solutions:
A) send Larlo to another class with an alternative lesson.
B) do an alternative lesson with the entire class.

No. We have to give him “the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them.”

I requested a second adult be present. No word yet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These threads make me so angry and rage cry. I've had a crap day and feel like slapping some of these posters.

My kid has some of these issues. The classroom has been cleared because of him. Do you know what we had to do in order to get him an appropriate placement where he is thriving? I'll tell you:

Thousands upon thousands of dollars of therapy, not including the amount of lost work/salary for me. I don't work anymore because it's too hard to manage.

At least 6 meetings with school a year, daily phone calls, IEP meetings, IEP revisions, FBAs/BIPs, etc. private testing. Daily phone call complaints from incompetent teachers, psychologists who told me "you don't seem to care about your kid (she got fired)," and a whole host of garbage comments from other parents.

Advocate and lawyer to help us through the process.
I had to have therapists who were baiting my child removed from the process after they admitted to baiting him to acting out.

More advocate and lawyer costs to get him into his correct placement, where he's thriving and doing very well.

And he's only in second grade. That's right, all of this and he's 7. This is a lifelong process for us. We'll do it again next year, and the year after, and the year after.

You know what I have to be able to do this: Time and Money. A lot of people don't have time and money to do these things. People can't quit their jobs to go to therapy. People can't pay lawyers and advocates to help them. We can and we're fortunate. I go to Special Ed group meetings near me and people are begging for help--they can't afford it, can't take time off, have trauma in their lives, etc.

Yes, some people ignore the problems until it's too late, or don't want their kid labeled, but I really believe that most people are doing the best they can, and, in some cases, they're relying on the school to help them through the process. You can't rely on them. You need need outside help and assistance and a lot of people can't afford that.

I don't want your kid to get his hand slammed in the door, or to have to evacuate the classroom. IT's not fair to any of the kids. But I also hate that this topic comes up once a week on this site and people don't seem to understand the other side of it. The lack of empathy for people on these threads is disgusting.

So I have an idea for you: Go use your voice to vote for candidates that support all aspects of public education, voice your concerns to your school board and principals, work for additional funding for schools, stop bitching about property taxes on your million dollar homes and then complain that we don't have enough aides for the SN kids. Stop thinking that parents aren't doing the best they can. Find some empathy for people who don't fit in the molds. Life is hard enough.

I have empathy and I feel very badly for you, I really do, but my child has started seeing tutors to help with reading and math because she's basically not being taught these subjects due to being in a class with not one, but two disruptive students and only one teacher and one aide. On top of that, all the attention spent on those kids means that other children are acting up more than normal and my child has a classmate constantly picking on and bothering her, and it has seriously impacted her ability to learn, her level of anxiety, and her love of school. We're also considering sending her to a psychologist to help with the anxiety issues. And yes, I've complained and documented and complained some more but apparently there's nothing the school can do for my child who was doing GREAT for two years before being put in this class with children the teachers can't handle. I really don't think this is fair to my child either, and has potentially long-term impacts on my child's mental health and well-being. You are not the ONLY one suffering.

This has nothing to do with one child. Your child is having tutors as they are struggling and probably also need assessed. Your child having anxiety probably is genetic or also something else going on. If its that bad ,send her to private. You don't get that these parents are doing the best they can and many are not equip to handle these indues and honestly, it doesn't sound like you can if you have to get tutors for a young child vs. working with them AND you are ignoring your child mental health.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was instructed to not leave specific notes about student X in my sub plans because his parents believe he is being targeted by staff. So I had to make a generic note to watch students near the door. The last time I was out, student x intentionally shut a classmate’s hand in the door —something he has attempted with other kids before. Now the injured kid’s parents are irate that the sub let it happen.

Here is the crux of the issue. The sub didn’t “let” anything happen. The child purposely shut the door on someone’s else’s hand. Blame is misplaced in schools these days.

So, I have to ask--how is that kid's IEP formulated to address this behavior, given that you know it has been attempted with other kids? And would that IEP, as written, have imposed any requirements on whoever was working in the classroom that day as the classroom teacher? And if so, how were those requirements communicated or otherwise addressed re: having a sub?

Where did she mention that the kid had an IEP?

Anonymous wrote:I have worked in elementary self-contained classes in a few different districts and I have seen increasingly more severe behavioral issues over that last few years. My current cross-cat class has more challenging behaviors that the Emotional/Behavioral disorders class I worked in 7 years ago

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have worked in elementary self-contained classes in a few different districts and I have seen increasingly more severe behavioral issues over that last few years. My current cross-cat class has more challenging behaviors that the Emotional/Behavioral disorders class I worked in 7 years ago

Curious. Do you have any idea why? I think it is because more people blame bad behavior on "disabilities." I don't question that some kids have disabilities which contribute to bad behavior, but I think some (most?) are due to poor parenting.