Anonymous wrote:You need to start a paper trail. After each time this happens, every parent of a kid that gets hit needs to email the principal saying that this is unacceptable and then email the principal’s direct supervisor, also. This child needs help and a different placement. In your email you need to refer to hitting as assault, and you need to say that witnessing other children get hit is causing your child secondary trauma. It is quite likely that this child is also hitting the teacher, which is also secondary trauma for your child to witness.

If the school has put in measures to try to manage this, the school staff cannot tell you, because of privacy laws. There are things they can try, but due to staffing shortages this might be hard.

Your child is entitled to FAPE (free and appropriate public education) and you need to say that your child is not getting FAPE because he is being assaulted repeatedly. Not getting FAPE is what spurs lawsuits.

You can file a state complaint that your child is not safe at school. The biggest bang for your buck is to contact your school board member to make them aware of the situation. They want to please you so you will vote for them again.

With each email I would ask that your child be moved to a different room.

I have been a special education teacher for many years and it is incredibly hard to get a child help if they are struggling to behave in school. I like working with that population, but am often surprised at how long it took to get a child from a general education classroom to my program. It’s unacceptable and parents need to make a big stink about it.

Especially in fcps they hate when things are in writing keep writing-everything in email if they call to avoid it in writing….follow up in writing and repeat what was said in phone call with a thanks again for speaking with me.

Anonymous wrote:You and the other parents need to become such a nuisance to the administration that the nuisance of actually dealing with the violent child is preferable for them.

Yup

Anonymous wrote:15 years ago or so, there was a boy in my DC's kindergarten who clearly needed more assistance than the standard classroom was equipped for. However, his parents enrolled him in K and denied that there was any problem at all. In spite of many incidents, the parents refused to agree to meet for an IEP that would have given this child 1:1 support. So the school had to work through a long drawn out process of creating a paper trail to eventually, like a year later, force the issue in a manner that would stick and not get them sued. In the meantime, the kindergarten teacher has a nervous breakdown and quit, so the series of substitutes basically spent the year trying to keep the other kids safe from this kid. I hope he eventually got the help he needed in spite of his parents.

My family had a similar experience with a student beginning in 1st grade. I don't know what happened behind the scenes with the parents and child, other than suspensions from time to time. Early on, I went to the school to discuss the physical violence inflicted on my own son, I was basically told that I should not make a big deal of it because the child had a difficult home life. I was made to feel that it was "entitled" to not want my kid to choked during lunch.

Each year there were multiple kids who were targets of this boy whose parents requested classroom changes, making the entire grade chaotic. One other boy threatened suicide in 3rd grade due to relentless bullying by the violent student and wound up changing schools. By 5th grade, the student injured his teacher, who wound up having to go on leave for the rest of the year. Meanwhile, I was struggling trying to keep my own son with ADHD on the right path. He would get punished for speaking out or for missing assignments while observing that there were virtually no consequences for the other boy's violent behavior and bullying. It was so difficult. How do you instill discipline and respect in an environment that is unsafe and undisciplined, and where you see the adults failing to protect students? At one point, after having been slammed to the ground on a blacktop, my son asked to spend recess in the office because he didn't feel safe outside. To him, I was constantly on his case to do his work, hand it in on time, and be respectful, yet the adults in his life (including me) let much worse behavior slide with minimal consequences. Before middle school, I'm not sure what can be done in that situation. I believe that the student did receive an alternative placement during the middle school years. As a fellow SN mom, I can attest that my job was made exponentially more difficult due to a school environment that allowed one student to disrupt so many lives.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You and the other parents need to become such a nuisance to the administration that the nuisance of actually dealing with the violent child is preferable for them.

Does this work?

It absolutely does. And after 1 email to the principal, feel free to go up the food chain to the superintendent or someone similar. Sometimes districts know a student needs an outplacement and it is expensive. Multiple parent complaints matter. Teacher and staff complaints literally mean nothing, admin either doesn't care what we think or their hands are tied. (some are worried about being "dinged" by the state for too many referrals)

Do you have school system knowledge? In my experience as a SN parent when advocating for my child, parent complaints don't matter either.

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who asked what has changed? Why are we seeing this more? Part of the answer is class sizes and expectations. I went to half day K with 12 kids in my class. My kids went to full day K with 27-30 kids in their class. Even well behaved classrooms are chaotic with that many kids - it is extra challenging for some kids to handle all that stimulation and interaction.

Right, but back in the day when there was half day kindergarten, if a kid showed continued bouts violence, they would be removed very quickly and separated from the general population. The trend is now to integrate these kids, so they stay.

To the poster who asked what has changed? Why are we seeing this more? Part of the answer is class sizes and expectations. I went to half day K with 12 kids in my class. My kids went to full day K with 27-30 kids in their class. Even well behaved classrooms are chaotic with that many kids - it is extra challenging for some kids to handle all that stimulation and interaction.

You have to threaten to go to the police about it or up the chain to the Super bc if you don't the admin will hold the violence against the teacher as bad classroom management and they will just blame blame blame the teachers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"There doesn't seem to be any action"

How in the world would you know what action has or hasn't been taken?

My kid was that kid. BEGGED AND PLEADED for him to be removed to a special school. It never happened. By all means, bug the administration, I'm sure his parents don't want him to hurt other kids either.

what is his diagnosis?

I know there’s been no action because the student is in the classroom and my child continues to be hit.

No you don’t.
Maybe they set up an eligibility meeting, but it takes a month to set that up.
Maybe they instituted a new behavior plan and it’s not working.
Maybe they’re documenting new strategies to build a case for a different placement.
Maybe the kid is in the process of getting tested.

The school legally has to protect the child’s privacy, so there could be a whole kerfluffle behind the scenes and you wouldn’t know until next year when the kid is grouped with the special ed cluster. The process is s l o w.

All of the above should be done with the kid removed. There are 20-30 other kids who are instantly more important and need to be saved than that one kid as soon as he or she has had multiple instances of violence. The laws need to be changed. And maybe sped parents with kids who have real learning disabilities need to disavow these types of kids. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

Ugh. Disavow? The kid’s five. He’s doing the best he can. Maybe you have a beef with his parents, his brain chemistry, or the TBI he got this past summer. You don’t disavow the kid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"There doesn't seem to be any action"

How in the world would you know what action has or hasn't been taken?

My kid was that kid. BEGGED AND PLEADED for him to be removed to a special school. It never happened. By all means, bug the administration, I'm sure his parents don't want him to hurt other kids either.

what is his diagnosis?

I know there’s been no action because the student is in the classroom and my child continues to be hit.

No you don’t.
Maybe they set up an eligibility meeting, but it takes a month to set that up.
Maybe they instituted a new behavior plan and it’s not working.
Maybe they’re documenting new strategies to build a case for a different placement.
Maybe the kid is in the process of getting tested.

The school legally has to protect the child’s privacy, so there could be a whole kerfluffle behind the scenes and you wouldn’t know until next year when the kid is grouped with the special ed cluster. The process is s l o w.

All of the above should be done with the kid removed. There are 20-30 other kids who are instantly more important and need to be saved than that one kid as soon as he or she has had multiple instances of violence. The laws need to be changed. And maybe sped parents with kids who have real learning disabilities need to disavow these types of kids. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"There doesn't seem to be any action"

How in the world would you know what action has or hasn't been taken?

My kid was that kid. BEGGED AND PLEADED for him to be removed to a special school. It never happened. By all means, bug the administration, I'm sure his parents don't want him to hurt other kids either.

what is his diagnosis?

I know there’s been no action because the student is in the classroom and my child continues to be hit.

No you don’t.
Maybe they set up an eligibility meeting, but it takes a month to set that up.
Maybe they instituted a new behavior plan and it’s not working.
Maybe they’re documenting new strategies to build a case for a different placement.
Maybe the kid is in the process of getting tested.

The school legally has to protect the child’s privacy, so there could be a whole kerfluffle behind the scenes and you wouldn’t know until next year when the kid is grouped with the special ed cluster. The process is s l o w.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You and the other parents need to become such a nuisance to the administration that the nuisance of actually dealing with the violent child is preferable for them.

Does this work?

Yes. It's the only thing that will move the needle.

+1 threaten to go to the local media if needed, email your school board

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You and the other parents need to become such a nuisance to the administration that the nuisance of actually dealing with the violent child is preferable for them.

Does this work?

Yes. It's the only thing that will move the needle.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You and the other parents need to become such a nuisance to the administration that the nuisance of actually dealing with the violent child is preferable for them.

Does this work?

It absolutely does. And after 1 email to the principal, feel free to go up the food chain to the superintendent or someone similar. Sometimes districts know a student needs an outplacement and it is expensive. Multiple parent complaints matter. Teacher and staff complaints literally mean nothing, admin either doesn't care what we think or their hands are tied. (some are worried about being "dinged" by the state for too many referrals)

Anonymous wrote:You and the other parents need to become such a nuisance to the administration that the nuisance of actually dealing with the violent child is preferable for them.

Does this work?

Nothing happens. Protect your kid. File a police report if you have to. No mercy.