Anonymous wrote:

Suspensions are linked to future incarcerations and other things.

Association isn't causation. There are lots of students who don't get suspended in school for things that will lead to incarceration as adults outside of school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can you possibly know this? Was there a change in admin?

Most teachers are pretty open about the fact they’re leaving once they tell admin. This time of year we are all hearing from colleagues who aren’t coming back. It’s a significant number at my school, as it’s been every year since the current admin team arrived a few years ago.

The exodus continues at my school after two years with a terrible new principal. I was on leave this year and I am dreading going back to her reign, and the fact that all of my closest friends and allies have jumped ship.

Anonymous wrote:My struggle as a gen ed teacher is the LRE. I understand the laws in Virginia and I understand that we want these kids to be with general ed peers as much as possible. But in my case, I have kids who don’t benefit from being thrown into the gen ed class during academic times and it can be very disturbing/traumatic for the other students. At our school, we have several high need sped kids in one classroom and it is very difficult. They have one IA with them trying to support while the teacher is teaching.

And central office continues to take SPED positions away from schools because they don’t understand the real needs.

It's frustrating that people assume LRE means gen ed. No, it means "least restrictive environment." Big differentce!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Find a way to correct the issue with behavior problems and that will go a long way towards retaining staff. During my last few years teaching it was negative student behavior that was my biggest stressor and consumer of time. I had 30 years in an ES and I’d otherwise probably still be there.

Do you have a suggestion? No sarcasm. In an ideal world what would admin do?

It needs to be easier to expel students who are constant offenders. It needs to be easier to suspend kids. There need to be actual consequences. I am so sick of the same kids ruining it for everyone else. -teacher who had a day today!

+1 That might be pretty much it. You are just going to get more parental buy-in when a parent is inconvenienced by their child's suspension. As parents who don't know what is going on in the classroom and grew up with real discipline in schools, if they aren't suspended or expelled it isn't going to seem like a serious behavioral issue.

The issue with suspensions and expulsions is it's considered "exclusionary discipline." Exclusionary discipline can have long-term bad impacts on the child who is excluded, and, in the case of a students who are misbehaving due to trauma, poverty, or undiagnosed issues like ADHD, suspension doesn't do a lot to address the root cause. Suspensions are linked to future incarcerations and other things.

But my issue is that just having a broad policy of keeping the kids in the classroom with zero extra support for teachers is even worse. Because then, the students who just need some more boundaries and limits don't get them. Nobody learns. And those kids with trauma, poverty, and undiagnosed issues still have trauma, poverty, and undiagnosed issues. No amount of relationship building or restorative circles is going to solve those problems.

A lot of liberals are afraid that republicans are out to destroy public education, and I think there is something to that. But frankly I don't think we need their help. We are tanking it ourselves.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kids never do anything wrong. Look at the kid who is suing the school for not giving him what he needs.
He gave a teacher a concussion and sent her to the hospital and is suing the school for not stopping him.
The teacher is always to blame (did you make sure they were challenged? Did you make sure he felt secure? Etc).

The situation in Newport News is what happens when you have the trifecta of an unsupportive parent, unsupportive principal, and bad policy. The parent tried to go on national tv and put blame on her because “her son felt ignored” and he has adhd. This is an extreme example, but these behavioral situations are not as rare as we would like to think. Teachers only take 2 or 3 base level psychology classes when they are in college. The behavioral and therapy work that these kids need is far out of our scope of practice but they still end up in our rooms.

+1. I'll add that if a kid is in 5th grade and one teacher between K-5 claims the kid needs a more restrictive placement due to behaviors, it really might not be a great personality match with the kid and that teacher. If a kid is in 5th grade and every teacher since kindergarten has said the same thing, the teachers aren't wrong. It's negligent for schools to gaslight teachers and insinuate it's a failure of classroom management when the same thing has happened with multiple teachers over the years.
Also, there should be a zero tolerance policy for physical assault or threats of physical assault toward staff, especially at the secondary level. That should go to the hearings office the first time it happens with OSS in the meantime. If it's a manifestation of the child's disability, they need to be in a classroom with a crisis response team on constant standby.

My struggle as a gen ed teacher is the LRE. I understand the laws in Virginia and I understand that we want these kids to be with general ed peers as much as possible. But in my case, I have kids who don’t benefit from being thrown into the gen ed class during academic times and it can be very disturbing/traumatic for the other students. At our school, we have several high need sped kids in one classroom and it is very difficult. They have one IA with them trying to support while the teacher is teaching.

And central office continues to take SPED positions away from schools because they don’t understand the real needs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kids never do anything wrong. Look at the kid who is suing the school for not giving him what he needs.
He gave a teacher a concussion and sent her to the hospital and is suing the school for not stopping him.
The teacher is always to blame (did you make sure they were challenged? Did you make sure he felt secure? Etc).

The situation in Newport News is what happens when you have the trifecta of an unsupportive parent, unsupportive principal, and bad policy. The parent tried to go on national tv and put blame on her because “her son felt ignored” and he has adhd. This is an extreme example, but these behavioral situations are not as rare as we would like to think. Teachers only take 2 or 3 base level psychology classes when they are in college. The behavioral and therapy work that these kids need is far out of our scope of practice but they still end up in our rooms.

Yes!!! This year I feel that I am not just a teacher. I need to be a therapist and SPED teacher and I’m not!!! Even my “adjusted” kids have very high emotional needs that I don’t always know what to do with.

Anonymous wrote:The kids never do anything wrong. Look at the kid who is suing the school for not giving him what he needs.
He gave a teacher a concussion and sent her to the hospital and is suing the school for not stopping him.
The teacher is always to blame (did you make sure they were challenged? Did you make sure he felt secure? Etc).

The situation in Newport News is what happens when you have the trifecta of an unsupportive parent, unsupportive principal, and bad policy. The parent tried to go on national tv and put blame on her because “her son felt ignored” and he has adhd. This is an extreme example, but these behavioral situations are not as rare as we would like to think. Teachers only take 2 or 3 base level psychology classes when they are in college. The behavioral and therapy work that these kids need is far out of our scope of practice but they still end up in our rooms.

Anonymous wrote:The kids never do anything wrong. Look at the kid who is suing the school for not giving him what he needs.
He gave a teacher a concussion and sent her to the hospital and is suing the school for not stopping him.
The teacher is always to blame (did you make sure they were challenged? Did you make sure he felt secure? Etc).

This.
"What did you do to provoke him?"
"We don't care how our teachers feel. We just want our students to be happy."

Our HS has a huge problem with students being late/roaming the hallways/hiding in bathrooms instead of going to class. They instituted a system whereby teachers have to use part of their planning time to escort groups of students who are late to their individual classroom doors. When some teachers didn't show up, we received a threatening e-mail from admin telling us that there would be consequences if we weren't there for tardy duty. There have been zero consequences for the students. I have several students who have been late every.single.class all year to my first period (not a class for slackers). No consequences whatsoever. I've actually escorted them to other classes during my planning period because they seem to do this for every class.

The kids never do anything wrong. Look at the kid who is suing the school for not giving him what he needs.
He gave a teacher a concussion and sent her to the hospital and is suing the school for not stopping him.
The teacher is always to blame (did you make sure they were challenged? Did you make sure he felt secure? Etc).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Find a way to correct the issue with behavior problems and that will go a long way towards retaining staff. During my last few years teaching it was negative student behavior that was my biggest stressor and consumer of time. I had 30 years in an ES and I’d otherwise probably still be there.

Do you have a suggestion? No sarcasm. In an ideal world what would admin do?

It needs to be easier to expel students who are constant offenders. It needs to be easier to suspend kids. There need to be actual consequences. I am so sick of the same kids ruining it for everyone else. -teacher who had a day today!

Yes. There need to be consequences that students don’t like. In the early 2000s our ES had after school detention. They did not like that at all and behaviors didn’t get to the point they do today. There are students today that consistently back talk adults and they get away with it.

Do you have a suggestion? No sarcasm. In an ideal world what would admin do?