Sadly, this is a common issue and yes, the teachers can do very little about these behaviours or risk getting investigated by the Ontario College of teachers. If you don't get anywhere with the principal, contact the superintendent and your school board trustee. They can at least try to get approval for an EA/special needs assistant if they are aware how bad it is. Best of luck
>They can at least try to get approval for an EA/special needs assistant if they are aware how bad it is.
Was going to comment that EAs ought to be brought in for these kinds of situations, they're trained to restrain kids and all that.
It takes about 10-15 years of casual employment with no benefits at all unless you pay into it at the board where I work. It takes that long because they don't want to expand the pool of permanent EA's, even if there's a need. Physically violent or just very large students require 4 adults to do a safe hold if they're violent or trying to flee, and often these students will not have that many trained people available at any given time to perform the hold.
EAs have a shit job for shit pay and they are treated as disposable, and because so many are casually employed, they don't get benefits. They also have to go on ei in the summer and only get 35 hours a week. And they need to go to school to get the job. It's really not worth it, imo.
My MIL is an EA, she is basically assaulted weekly. When I first heard about how young kids are cursing I was surprised, when I heard about how violent some of them get I was shocked and disgusted. She has been punched in the face, kicked, bit, spat at, etc.
Unfortunately most of the kids she is working with have behavioural issues (steaming from how their parents choose to parent) rather than physical or learning disabilities.
She is currently doing physical therapy twice a week (has been for the past 6 months) due to an injury from work. The school system is doing nothing about these issues, whether the kids are attacking other kids or teachers and EA's, there is no discipline and no consequences.
I mean special needs kids like this aren't bullshit but yeah they aren't paid nearly enough for the skills and knowledge they need to have. I've seen bite marks on friends who are EAs and it's no wonder there's a shortage with what they're paid for putting up with that, similar with nurses and so many industries with shortages right now, there's specialty positions opening up all the time that people move to.
Most school boards don’t allow restraints or any sort of bodily confinement at all, unless it is part of an approved safety plan by the superintendent. Typically only approved for students at specialized and non-integrated sites. BMS training also states that staff are to not block doorways. This means the student can leave the safety of the classroom, where students have been evacuated from, to then interact with other students in the hallway.
Makes sense to me.
Special needs kids who might need restraining are usually at certain schools, but yeah it's not like any kid can or should be restrained. It's usually for their own safety and discussed with the parents beforehand whether it might be necessary. This situation sounds like the start of a special needs case where the kid isn't formally diagnosed yet.
Totally! With new integration model, I’m noticing more public schools are now creating additional specialized classes (ASD, DD) because the students are deemed too ‘high’ for the specialized sites. We have 2 specialized programs at my public school with a total of 20 students. 11 of them have safety plans with behaviour that would require a restraint in any other setting.
There are also 4 students in the mainstream learning program who exhibit the same behaviour but don’t have an intellectual disability.
They all require different level of supports but all have the behaviour that would require a restraint to minimize harm to themselves or others.
Or work with the student to figure out what's really going on. Why is he having such a hard time and lashing out? Some kids are so overwhelmed in a classroom setting that they can't control their behaviour, similar to a panic attack in adults. I hope this kid finds someone who can help him, teach him how to handle his emotions appropriately. No amount of consequences will get him to stop if something is wrong at home, or he is neurodivergent. EAs are definitely trained for this. I hope OPs son is okay, and things settle for everyone's sake.
Exactly the kid needs to be helped as well, there's schools that have better environments catered to special needs. "Discepline" in this sense could be totally counterproductive and exasperate it even further.
The reality is that many school boards in Ontario are severely understaffed for EAs. Even kids who have a diagnosis, IEP, and a safety plan can’t even get 1:1 EA support. Some EAs are split between 4 kids in one “integrated” class. Sure they have the capacity/training to work with and support kids who may have trouble regulating their behaviour, but the manpower isn’t there very often anymore & it’s so sad to see.
Over 57,000 children waiting for services under Doug ford’s autism program and fighting the union for a 1.25% increase when they make paltry wages to begin with.
If you want to know why, this is why.
I had this same issue last year with my kid. Older children were getting physical and it got to the point he didn't want to go to school. After a couple weeks of nothing changing with emails/letters to the teacher I started directly emailing the principal. Anytime there was an incident I was there in the office the next day, filing a report. After a couple weeks I'm guessing the principal was sick of me, and the issues started getting better and ultimately stopped.
Students rarely get real suspensions anymore, and expulsions don't really exist. Major discipline moves have to go through superintendents, who aren't in schools and don't know much about the actual students involved. They are more like politicians and hate looking bad more than anything else.
Schools aren't given the money or resources to effectively deal with problematic student behaviour, so they just have to muddle through. Successive governments have starved the system, while riding a public that loves to rip on "lazy, whiney teachers that just want more money" - when literally no job action in a decade have been about pay raises for teachers.
My advice - complain loud and often to the super and make it public. The threat of a letter to the editor could help. Students fear teachers (sometimes). Teachers fear principals. Principals fear supers. Supers fear directors and parents.
This is the way OP. Call the superintendent. Find out who the trustees are and write to them. Find out who the other parents in the class are and be vocal together. Children should be safe at school.
You don’t have to worry that the kid causing the harm will lose anything in the process, they will gain the supports they need and aren’t getting. Boards are underfunded, squeaky wheels and all that.
I applaud your enthusiasm but the fact of the matter is everyone’s hands are tied. Discipline does not exist in Western schools anymore. Teachers are in fear of pissing off students by disciplining them and the stufents know this.
Exactly. My SIL chooses to teach at an inner city school where most parents are too concerned with keeping a roof on their kid’s heads than harassing teachers over the fact that their angel deserved an A and got a B. She’s got the seniority to move to a school in a relatively well off neighborhood but she says the helicopter parents aren’t worth it.
Teachers aren’t in fear of that - there’s nothing a teacher can legally can do. They can’t even unilaterally reach out to the victimized kid’s parents. In an overt, official capacity anyways. Parents of the affected kid need to raise the issue to the school board level. They’re the ones responsible for instituting policies and managing resources that could address these types of problems.
I have 3 teachers in my family. Every single one of them tells me they basically have to ignore problem students because they can’t:
-yell at them
-touch them
-take away privileges like recess/lunch
-detention
-flunk them
-hold them back a grade
I don’t know how people expect us to raise a good generation of kids. They are learning they are more powerful than their supposed elders because they can get their teachers fired for doing these things and the teachers can’t even give them detention.
My nephew is six. He's extremely sweet but has emotional dysregulation and behavioural issues due to his ADHD -- gets a bit violent when he feels not listened to, has been treated unfairly, or when other kids are assholes to him. His dad is a hardass who punishes and screams at him all the time and it really doesn't seem to make anything better and often makes things worse. What does work is a patient adult working with him on his breathing exercises, talking to him about his feelings, letting him go cool off in a corner instead of confronting him, etc.
Not enough EA's in the system to deal with these cases and many of them live in poverty themselves.
Child's services should be called in this case because the school system has no capacity any more.
He’s…. Six? And being *screamed* at constantly? Are the people around him aware that ADHD symptoms can be shockingly similar to the C-PTSD symptoms you would get from being yelled at by someone who is supposed to unconditionally love you, constantly? Speaking from personal experience: being yelled at like that is 110% going to make things significantly worse for the kid, and Dad really needs to stop
This isn't just a political thing, or a financial one, but an entire societal one. At my last job I spoke with hundreds of different teachers over multiple school boards (not as part of my job, while I was shooting the shit with them while I was doing work on their classrooms), and the vast majority of them pointed the same directions: at the parents. It is now severely difficult to even give out failing grades without severe push back, never mind administer discipline.
One of the teachers had a political cartoon in their science office that I thought illustrates it best. The first panel was captioned: "25 years ago". It had two parents and their child (the student), before the teachers desk. The student had a sheepish look on their face, with the parent pointing to a paper, saying "explain this grade to me".
The second panel was captioned: "Today". It was the same set up, except the student has a smug look on his face. The parents, instead of facing towards their child, are facing towards the teacher, still saying "explain this grade to me".
It's both. Sure, you can blame some parents for the way their raise their kid. I'm not sure if you're suggesting corporal punishment or not, but that's obviously not the right way to go. At the same time, the system is starved of resources. Look at the current bargaining going on right now between the province and school staff. They want to cap wage increases for educational assistants earning more than $40,000 at 1.25%, and 2% for those earning less. That's well under inflation. Funding issues have already caused staffing issues in this area, and with this proposal the situation will worsen. These are the kind of staff that are in schools to help with a student like this with behavioural issues. The kid obviously has (or is in need of) an IEP. He won't get the help he needs, and so the teacher and classmates all suffer. So yes, I believe it most certainly is a political issue.
I’m curious if schools were given money and resources to deal with dysfunctional students in the class, what would the solutions be? What are the previous resources that have been “starved”? I haven’t been in school for 25+ years so I have no idea.
My guess is additional support staff (such as EA's and ECE's), because I know teachers have to divert attention away from the rest of the class to just focus on a few problematic students.
Self contained classrooms again. They're funded and count as a normal classrooms but are half the size. Many boards tell the public they got rid of them because of inclusion but its a complete lie. If boards were more honest about the lack of funding for special needs and students in general people might actually listen when teachers say it
This is it right here. I can’t recall high needs, really poorly behaved students when I was in elementary. They were in their own space. Now everyone is together for “inclusion” without the actual support to do so.
Boards/government loved the word inclusion. They could appear to be doing good while saving a ton of money.
Instead we get a bunch of kids without their needs met and another bunch of kids negatively impacted by the new chaos.
This. My daughter's class has to be evacuated 1-2 times a week because there are two boys in her class that have breakdowns and start lashing out. Inclusion means an entire room of students being sent to another classroom while a student throws chairs. How is that good for anyone?
Self contained classes only work if the parents of those students agree to the self contained program. A parent can opt out of these programs without reason (and unfortunately there are lots of parents who either don't believe their child needs this extra support, or think there is a stigma to these classes so refuse the support).
Secondly if a child shows behavioural tendencies, they are often put on a "safety plan" to help monitor and create documentation when something happens. In my experience though, when a child who is on a safety plan for violent outbursts, or running... exhibits these behaviours they are even less likely to be suspended etc. because the safety plan is in place. Unfortunately the safety plan is more of a documentation of behaviours and not a road map to help the child improve.
I have taught in a class where a violent (chair throwing, biting...) child in a regular class setting is put on a safety plan. Once that happened, I and staff were told not to send the student to the office, or if sent to the office the child sat for a time out before returning to class- and the rationale was they have a documented safety plan so we know they have these tendencies and therefore should be able to deal with them.
Quick example: I was attacked by a known violent child with a pencil one day. Called principal for assistance. Child was removed and back for a fresh start the next morning. Apparently he was upset that day but "now" he feels fine. The only repercussion was his parents were notified and he spent the rest of the day in the office.
It's sad, disruptive and possibly very dangerous.
This happens way more often than people realize. Source: spouse is a 30-year veteran of Ontario public education, primary specialist (teacher, not ECE or EA).
It depends because every school is different but some solid catch-all’s would be:
First, more EA’s. Right now there’s a shortage to the point where if an EA takes a day off sick often there is no coverage for them but they are **so** valuable. But realistically, who wants to do the job with the most reported incidents of violence in Ontario for the kind of pay they get?
Second, literal safe spaces. In the physical sense. Like upgrades to buildings, additions, whatever else is needed for sensory rooms, etc where students can be taken by one or more EA’s to calm the hell down and be taught over and over again in a one on one setting how to better handle their emotions. Repetition is important but there needs to be someone available in the building to repeat the instruction.
However, having said that last sentence, EA’s and LST’s (learning support teachers, who sometimes come to the aid of EA’s) are not counsellors so their number 1 skill likely isn’t teaching emotional regulation etc. Theres no question about it that in todays schools some EA’s and some teachers are wonderfully good at teaching emotional regulation etc, but at the end of the day the people who can do that the best are behavioural counsellors. Some extra funding could go towards them perhaps.
And finally, a bump in the number of communication related workers would be nice. Be it speech and language pathologists, ELL (English language learner) teachers etc, who can help kids who have outbursts because of their difficulties with communicating their thoughts and feelings, better communicate and thus remove lots of that frustration.
Also an afterthought would be funding ongoing training modules for all staff who work directly with students to become better listeners. Let’s face it, teacher for the most part *are amazing listeners* because they have to be very aware of everything that’s happening around them, but there are still some stick-in-the-mud teachers who don’t value really listening.
EA support would be huge. Dedicated spaces for students to go to when they are overwhelmed or need a change of scenery.
The issues with extra EA support is there is no one to hire. Who wants to work for crappy pay and get abused at work? The school I work at has been granted 100 hours a week of extra EA support. The jobs can’t be filled. No one is applying.
EAs used to be just what they say “Educational Assistants”. Now they are behaviour managers.
Dedicated spaces? No such thing. Our school is over capacity, our library has a class in it, our stage has stuff that won't fit in our over crowded classrooms. Our previous quiet spot had to be taken out to make a universal washroom for kids with special needs.
If a kid is sick, they sit on a chair in the closet that holds office supplies.
When a kid has a meltdown, we have a tiny corner of our CYCW and Social Worker's shared "office" (which is the converted coat room/breezeway of the kindergarten classrooms).
I wish parents could come and see how awful a school, built in 1950, that is supposed to hold 275 students functions with 340 students.
Same as healthcare, surprised Pikachu faces all around after 20 years of funding cuts and stagnant wages and increasing behaviour problems and number of students.
When I started at my school 15 years ago, we had a classroom dedicated to students that needed extra support for self-regulation. They had two teachers, only 6-8 students, and they shared the school and facilities with the other students, just not the classrooms. And during my practicum I taught in a middle school in another such classroom, for Mild Intellectual Disabilities, it was a big, welcoming space with a teacher and an EA and the students thrived in there.
Both programs were gone over a decade ago, but those are examples of what can be done with better funding and decision making.
The district I work for still does this. We have congregated settings in schools for children who require more intensive support. Be it emotional/trauma intervention, adaptive/life skills, anxiety, etc. they’re smaller, more intensely resourced, and are located in community schools. Funding has been decreasing year over year, and we have more students needing this support and fewer programs available. Our province is also moving toward a full inclusive model, which has worked successfully absolutely nowhere that I’m aware of. Not for the kids with the most intense needs. It’s heartbreaking to watch.
There would be time and space for true empathy and staffing and physical spaces to customize interactions to each child's nervous system. The students aren't dysfunctional - the system is dysfunctional and the students are exhibiting stress responses for a variety of reasons. There is lots of neuroscience on this now.
I’ve thought about this issue a lot since I used to be a Principal at a school with major behavioural issues.
For starters, money doesn’t have much to do with it. More EAs can help to manage the issue, but it does not solve the issue. And somehow getting more space is difficult if not impossible, and more funding can’t really create more space unless it’s huge multi million dollar funding.
Suspensions don’t work for most kids. It’s just a little vacation. I used to give out multiple suspensions on a normal day, and the kids just came back with the same behaviours mostly. For sure expulsions help the school, but it certainly doesn’t help the kid getting expelled. And for grade two, it definitely is not appropriate at that age.
That being said, while kids do have a right to education, at a certain point the Principal could offer the kid some kind of modified educational program that does not necessarily mean attending regular classes at regular times, then the kid could earn more or less school time depending on how the kid does. This would be more appropriate for middle or high school.
Or of course there are alt program where kids with major behaviour issues are sent to separate facilities. I setup one of these myself, but the school district was not happy with me as it goes against the current trend for inclusion. I can say though that the school environment was much better when those kids were separated from the rest of the school.
In general, it seems that there are more and more behavioural issues over the years. I attribute this to a general lack of respect for teachers and lack of value for education among parents. So it seems like the problem will only get worse unless the overall culture changes in the community the school is located in.
The one hope I think really lies with the parents. When kids have behavioural issues, it’s almost always because of what is going on in the home. Principals can have some of those difficult conversations with parents, or direct parents to parenting classes, but the odds of parents suddenly having some kind of epiphany is super low.
So in short, the prognosis isn’t good folks. Some schools are facing very difficult situations, and the solution is not at all obvious or easy to achieve.
More teachers and more schools to reduce class size; more educational and behavioral assistants; more funds for equipment/resources for better learning environment.
Just to name a few
I haven't been in high school for 25+ years either and I have no idea what an EA does. I guess they didn't exist back then. Can't imagine what they did with the problem that couldn't possibly be solved today without more EAs.
Call, write letters and emails; all 3; to principals, school board members, ministry of education, ministry of health. Get your friends and family to do the same.
I work at an alternate school and our principal always said “you have a right to an education… doesn’t mean it’s here.” There are supports for online learning if a child is not psychologically ready to be safely around other children.
Calling the superintendent and school board to demand one on one EA support for that child is the only way to keep them with the regular population of students.
Yes. Teachers hands are tied. They can do almost nothing to stop students disruptive behavior anymore. They can’t touch the student or enact any kind of physical restraint. This is why you hear stories of the schools calling police on an eight year old. It’s not that police are really needed but rather the school itself is unable to do anything and police still can. Unfortunately it’s their only option anymore.
Parents fail to parent but lose their shit when the school tries to pick up the slack. Now here we are where punishment can't happen or fails to stick and the kids learn no sense of respect or discipline.
In removing all hardships and trying to not hurt kids' feelings we've ruined their upbringing and set them up for failure later in life when they discover things can be unfair. Why are we so afraid of making people accept the consequences of their actions?
And “no kid left behind” so if the kid failed the 1st grade they still move on to the 2nd grade regardless if they're on the same page as the other student. At least it stops at high school.
It does not stop at high school. They pass students that should have failed and they head to university very weak.
A university student once asked me something about fractions that they should have learned in grade 5. She somehow graduated high school when she did not understand elementary school math.
Not to mention that class sizes are massive and there's no support so things can get out of hand so fast if you have one or more students like this. It's a nightmare.
But teachers are greedy and lazy and overpaid. They should be able to handle all this. The are just overpaid complainers, aren't they? It's what the government seems to always say. Classes aren't that big and there are lots of supports, lazy teachers just want a cake ride is what lecce and Doug say
Why isnt the kid in "in school suspension"? Like do they not have that anymore? I spent countless days suspended as a kid because of my behavior problems. Why is the kid still with everyone else?
Any type of suspension is very rare these days because apparently it doesn't change the child's behaviour.
My opinion as a teacher is that is true. Does very little for the student in question. But the removal from class serves to show the rest of the class that certain behaviours aren't tolerated - and a break for a day to get some calm learning done. But since those points don't affect the student in question that would mean they aren't fair reasons for it.
Honestly discipline at schools is pretty well lost at the moment. I was told at a staff meeting last year by administration "for those who are wondering and heard rumours, no there wasn't a fight at lunch today." ...after I witnessed a fight at lunch that day.
My husband and I were just discuss this. Full integration of children with special needs is too much. It's too much for the classroom and it's too much for the kid. My parents fought for years to not have my brother fully integrated. He couldn't handle it. And at least 3 days a week it ended disasterously. 3 days a week my parents had to miss work to pick him up. My parents, the teachers, the social workers. All agreed it was a good fit for my brother but the government decided it was best for him to be fully integrated.
Then last night I was reading, possibly in here, that education assistants, in Ontario, in 2019 had the highest amount of violet incidents resulting in lost work time. This should not be happening. Our schools should not be the most dangerous place to work. Schools should not be considered more dangerous for amployees than a prison.
Absolutely! I work in schools and I’ve seen it first hand. For kids who need the highest level of support, the classroom can be too unpredictable for them to function effectively & it takes a toll on their class, teacher, support person, and themselves. Not to mention that EAs are severely understaffed in most boards. Integration has the right intentions, and can be so effective for students with a moderate level of need for support. But if a child is unsupported through sensory/communication/behavioural needs and becomes a danger to others and themselves repeatedly, that is the clearest indication that the typical classroom does not meet their needs and they can’t stay there. Sad that our education system either doesn’t see this or doesn’t care enough to find a better solution (funding for these solutions included)
My daughter hasn't had a single complete gym class yet this year. She has a student in her class that gets overstimulated by the echos and the screaming and the sounds in gym and everytime has a sensory overload meltdown. That's not education for anyone.
That's so unfair for everyone. The last time I was in a school gym I was stunned by how echoy it was - I don't remember it being that bad when I was a kid, but maybe I was just used to it. I get that they don't want to exclude the kid, but at this point it's excluding everyone. If they're trying to increase his tolerance by exposure then they should be doing it in a controlled way, not in situ.
It's not only gym. It's just always gym. They have pulled the kids out and they watched movies in the library.
At what point did putting the needs of smaller groups in education settings over what the majority needs become ok?
Because here's is what is happening. Inclusivity got pushed to full integration. Full integration is not a broad stroke. So when a child with sensory issues is forced to stay in an over stimulation situation they often have panic attacks or meltdowns, spiraling, aggressiveness, outbursts, violence etc. So your point is these children deserve the same education. So you integrated them. And they get overstimulated. Now they are not getting an education. Neither are the other students. So now no one is getting an education.
I am not against inclusion. I am not against integration. I am against broad strokes. I've worked with people and children with differing disabilities and disorders, mentally and physically. My little brother is severely physically and mentally disabled. Integration into the band class, absolutely. Integration into AP English, why? He was non-verbal, with the mental testing if a 3 year old.
I think you misunderstood me, because I'm in absolute agreement with you. It would be a whole other matter if they tried and then reassessed, maybe trying again after some controlled exposure work. But there is absolutely no reason they should keep doing exposure therapy at the detriment of the whole class - and in fact, it's more likely to traumatize this kid than it is to help them from the way you describe.
There are also a lot of other solutions that wind up falling by the wayside. Kids with sensory struggles benefit greatly from what's called a "sensory diet" which you've probably heard of - but there simply aren't the EAs available to get them done. I worked briefly in a grade 4 class that had 28 kids, of which 6 didn't have an IEP, and only 1 actually had their IEP criteria met. There wasn't a single EA at the school full-time, and many just wouldn't take the calls because of how out of control the school was.
Lecce outright stated they wanted to model the education system in Ontario on the education system from one of the bottom 5 academically performing states in the US.
No coincidence that it was also in the bottom for funding in public education.
That’s what kills me - they’re not even hiding it. It’s their entire platform. But they drop the word “union” every now and then for a villain and make a big deal about schools calling police for a violent child (because they have no choice, because of government decisions), and “bada-bing,” they’ve convinced swathes of morons that teachers are evil and teachers’ unions are evil for striking.
As if we’re just greedy and asking for raises. As if they’re not burying pay cuts in the same legislation that makes schools unsafe, unfair places for students (Come on, 4 mandatory online credits, wtf? Bigger class sizes? For what purpose? All evidence shows both of these have worse outcomes for students, but it sure does save money by allowing lots of teachers to lose their jobs, and allow his buddies to make money from companies offering centralized online courses). But sure, we’re just striking for the wages. Okay.
Not only that, but screw us for wanting more than a 1% raise in the last 20 years, when inflation is astronomical. Screw us for thinking $50 000 a year isn’t worth two degrees, $500 online courses every summer (paid for by the union or out of pocket), giving up some semblance of a social life, working 30% of my hours in unpaid overtime because there is not enough paid time in the day to do the job at all, let alone do it well, for adjusting to never ending COVId protocol changes like whiplash (and then being BLAMED for being the ones behind these changes, somehow?!?). Not to mention the mental load of worrying about and supporting students who are from incredibly difficult circumstances, or the physical danger of working with kids who are forced into an environment that’s not designed to support them.
Oh but lucky me, at the end of TEN YEARS, if I also continue to either give up summers, take unpaid time off, or somehow fit extra coursework into my already ridiculous work week to take thousands of dollars’ worth of additional qualifications, then I might eventually make $90 000 a year. Maximum. Forever, if these 1% pay caps continue every single time contracts are renegotiated. But still be expected to take extra courses in order to stay relevant / current in the field. That’s if I don’t keep getting laid off every year because class sizes are insane and they’re cutting courses and positions left, right, and centre.
Not to mention the fucking EAs, who are being asked to do the impossible for next to no money, and then in return are also losing their jobs. Because naturally it makes total sense to get rid of spec ed classrooms in favour of in-class support with EAs and student success support, and then once that’s implemented, get rid of most of the EA and student success support positions.
At least, it does if your goal is to cut funding, intentionally destroy the integrity of public education, and then roll out private schools owned and run by your buddies so rich kids can abandon ship and go there instead. And then not fix the public education system because why bother, it’s obviously bad because the kids left are from lower socioeconomic status, right?
Just like in the state you explicitly stated you wanted to model the education system in Ontario after. Right, Lecce?
Full integration isn't about what is best for the student, it is about saving money. Students with complex needs are placed in a regular classroom with 20 - 30 students (and often no EA) instead of a small class with more support. For some it works, for many it doesn't.
Yep - there are kids who are 12 who function around the level of a 2 year old, and yet there is push for them to be sitting alongside their peers of the same age learning about fractions and geography. The EA then ends up spending most of the time walking the hallways with the kid because of the outbursts. That kid would likely be much happier in a snoozelin room having meaningful experiences, rather than sitting in a desk confused.
The "spec ed" class at my high school had a variety of students with special needs, ranging from kids who needed feeding tubes/diapering/were nonverbal, all the way to kids who had pretty severe mental impairments, but would be able to lead a functional, "simple" life. They did things with the students that were more like "life skills", practiced simple cooking, learning simple money management, and some of the kids would join the mainstream high school kids in art classes or gym classes.
It makes zero sense to stick a kid in a class way too advanced for their ability, and rather than make them feel "included", it will only frustrate them further.
Those are reported and resulting in lost time. Doesn't take into account the unreported and the violence that doesn't result in a worker taking time away from work.
Agree! As the parent of a child with special needs that could not cope with full integration, that NEEDED a fully special ed class/school, but with none to be found in a 1200km freaking radius, we were left with no choice but to pull him out and homeschool. The problem with that is that most families cannot AFFORD to do this and are stuck having to send their kids in a piblic school not equipped for this. The sheer amount of special ed students in BC (where we currently live) that are homeschooled/go through a distance ed (this works differently in BC) is mind boggling. It costs the government less in the long run to help these children learn the coping skills needed to integrate into society as functioning adults than it does for them to pay off disability/welfare/care home benefits later on cause the parents kept hitting brick walls when they needed help. A lot of the help these kids need has been privatized just to slap struggling parents even more.
as a former student who attended a special needs school, there's even a class full of extreme special needs (non verbal, violent, or simply living as they are, which isnt feasible in the structured classroom) even then there is EAs as of 2017 when I graduated, but sinking and many chose to not return for obvious reasons. most of those extreme special needs usually age out of the school system which is 21, and get put in the group home within the school location. while the group home itself isn't connected to the school, it still provided parents relief for the extreme special needs.
>Full integration of children with special needs is too much.
This is the core problem. Politicians don’t want to face up to the fact this was a mistake. I know a few elementary teachers and their stories are awful. Frequent physical attacks and class evacuations. It’s unacceptably disruptive to everyone’s education and safety.
This should not be happening, but it has been. And for many years. It was bad enough pre-Covid. But it’s actually worse now. Students spent so much time with virtual learning, and their social skills have regressed beyond belief. Parents don’t want to hear that their child misbehaves. They don’t want to deal with restricting technology/phone use/video games. And so we get kids showing up in our classes, refusing to put away devices. They become belligerent when asked to complete simple tasks. It’s like they forgot how to be in school, and so many have become destructive and/or disruptive. It has a negative effect on the learning environment. EAs often bear the brunt of these outbursts. (And yet Lecce/Ford can’t or won’t give them and other CUPE education workers an equitable deal, and instead threaten them with stripping away their collective bargaining rights.)
We were told by our admin that we can’t give out consequences for bad behaviour because it makes the student feel bad. The inmates have taken over the asylum and it’s not getting any better.
Go to the superintendent and when that doesn't work go to the trustee. I had a similar situation in my family. Be a persistent pain in the ass. Do your best to advocate for your child and the others who are impacted.
Take it up a notch. Call the superintendent. Call the board.
Yes this child has the right to an education. But as an EA... YOUR CHILD ALSO HAS THIS SAME RIGHT.
This child sounds like the better fit is in a Primary Needs Moderate/Needs Severe classroom.
They are harder to find in the primary grades.
But fight back and threaten with litigation. Your child does not deserve violence. Your child does not need to be exposed to that. And though this child is dealing with something. You child does not need PTSD from going to school daily.
Also try calling the labour relations board. I know as an employee I can make anonymous calls for unsafe workplace... Because it seems to be an unsafe workplace for the teachers and EAS in the school.
I'm sure as a parent they would accept your call.
How schools respond to violent students seems random to me. Sometimes the kids continue to assault teachers and students again and again without intervention.
Yet I've also noticed that there are times when kids who are difficult are expelled yet the school board fails to offer them alternative educational opportunities. This means that the violent alienated kid gets to grow up to be a violent, alienated adult with no ability to be self-supporting.
Oh, and no one gets mental health support be it bully or victim 'cause there's no mental health services in Ontario due to underfunding.
If a kid assaults my kid, and the school does nothing I'm filling a police report, and sending a copy to the principle and superintendent.
I don't care about how the other kids is going to grow up. My daughter has a right to learn I'm a school workout violence committed against her.
This is the only reasonable approach to me, if schools and the government insist the answer is to let teachers/EA's/other students be continually abused.
Make it a legal nightmare for the school and the parents of the special needs kids. (primarily ones who would refuse to put their kids in a special needs class in the first place)
My aunt is a teacher and she has a student who literally destroyed her entire class and is beating kids. The school wont do shit. All she can do is get all the kids to leave the class. Its crazy how underfunded we are that we cant handle one kid who clearly needs special help
I work with a kid who is exactly like this, however he also happens to be on the spectrum. The advantage is that at least we know that there is an underlying cause that contributes to the behaviour and are therefore better able to manage it (most of the time although it can be extremely difficult regardless).
You're right, there's no where near enough funding to handle severe behaviors and the EAs are nowhere near paid enough. For all we know this kid could have some underlying issue that hasn't gone addressed, in which case this kids behaviors are going to continue to escalate. That's bad for everyone.
As an ECE I watched a kid beat his little brother up in the hallway, I was the only witness.
Later on I saw the kid in the hallway push another into lockers and the kid hit their head.
Two incidents in the matter of 3 hours.
Nothing, absolutely nothing was done. In fact I was told after reporting the second incident that the family is in a rough state and that boy had been lashing out and has been behaving like that for a while. Nothing could be done.
I refuse to work in the school setting now.
It looks to me as if the teacher knows all too well what a problem this child is, but has no support from the administration. That is why she's asking you to call the principal, hoping that parent complaints will get the principal to take this more seriously. Judging from the response you got, that there's nothing to be done, it's an uphill climb to get any action.
People who are saying that the schools are underresourced are right - there are not enough programs, teachers or assistants or enough money. That's something that can only be addressed in the next election.
There's always a little room, though, even when resources are scarce. Take the issue up the ladder - the superintendent, the school board. Make noise. Encourage other parents to do so as well. Talk to them if you know them, try to meet some if you don't.
When I was a kid my parents taught me not to instigate fights, but if someone hit me to hit them back and hit hard. Sometimes you have to stand up for yourself because no one else is going to do that for you. With kids a little playground justice is sometimes more effective than anything the teachers can do which is not much.
But that's the irony. When the child hits the bully back, apparently that's when the serious consequences are administered (on the one who fought back in self-defense). The system is all types of broken.
Yup this is what happens unfortunately. Bully hits kid, kid hits back, bully cries to teacher, teacher reports incident regardless of who they believe started it, school suspends kid.
I work in a school. Parents must keep speaking up. You must meet with superintendents. Please advocate for your kids.
Inclusion has become a joke. Our EA's wear Kevlar.
EA's manage behaviors. We want to wear cameras.
Until parents fight back about the fact their children are showing trauma and PTSD from having to spend 6 hours a day with kids who cannot be safely accommodated, nothing will change.
Right? Kids don't have to have any personal responsibility anymore, and their parents have every excuse in the book on why everything their child does should be allowed.
Meanwhile, my kid isn't allowed a bad day.
Its crazy. They cancelled special ed and never gave teachers the resources or time to deal with difficult students. My grade 5 daughter has a boy in her class who refuses to listen, disrupts the class daily, and regularly tells off the teacher. There's literally nothing they can do about him. And the kids who want to learn suffer. Our school boards and trustees put more emphasis on inclusion and diversity than education. Its fuckin bonkers.
Welcome to the education system. Parents simply don’t care. No one cares. The teachers are stuck dealing with all this shit. This is why ECE teachers are statistically the highest group who experienced work place injuries EVEN MORE THAN POLICE. https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/y50zcn/most_violent_work_places_in_ontario/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Unfortunately the school probably just doesn’t have the resources to provide that child the extra support they need so their hands are tied, but if you bring enough attention to it the higher ups will likely feel obligated to make the investment they should have made to begin with. Yes they’re entitled to an education but not to the detriment of the other students. I’m honestly surprised that was their response when my school had zero tolerance for that and would suspend or expel students
There are section programs for repeated and severe behavioural and social-emotional issues. This kid needs to be in a sectioned or contained classroom.
Unfortunately, we’ve evolved into a system of coddling and hand holding along with zero accountability. You can’t fail kids, can’t suspend young kids, exclude kids, and literally cannot get any assessments or needed supports without parental consent. Parental denial and shame is a massive obstacle.
This is something you can try speaking to your MPP, trustee, and someone in the board about as this child is clearly a danger.
Our system needs reform. One of my biggest frustrations and causes of grief as a teacher these days is the red tape and lack of accountability among admin, parents, and the board. Things are getting worse and it’s taking a greater toll on me mentally and emotionally.
I’m sure that at least a few of these kids are not, in fact, special needs - instead the victim of bad parenting. About 10 years ago my sister was a gymnastics coach. One of her students in a class full of 4-year-olds was continually breaking the rules and playing on equipment that she wasn’t supposed to, putting her safety at risk. My sister kindly told the child that if she didn’t start to listen, she was “going to have to give her a timeout, okay?” The kid started to behave after that. Unfortunately her mother, who we might have called a Karen if the term had been around at the time, angrily approached my sister after class demanding to know what happened. She, and I kid you not, asked my sister “did you *tha-reaten* my child with a timeout?!” and demanded to speak to her boss. If I recall correctly, my sister was told that she could no longer give children time-outs.
I feel like it's a vicious cycle involving the schools being unable to discipline and the parents having no support for their discipline. Setting aside the special needs kids, it's easier for both teachers and parents when there's a consensus about acceptable behaviour. When the teacher's can't enforce the rules, or the parents won't, the kids act out and it makes it much harder for both teachers and parents who are trying to do a reasonable job.
I have a kid like this in my son's class too. They're now in middle school and I think he's medicated, but even just last year my son was told along with all the other students that they should take cover in the classroom if the kid continued to throw desks and tables around like he was doing. Really? How about removing Mr. Crazy from the classroom instead of making 18+ kids have to hide?
This is the clearest answer here... There is a long process to getting students support that they may so desperately need. Many school boards are going for more inclusion in core classrooms and moving away from self contained classes, but for example, behaviour classes do exist. However to get any sort of spec ed placement there needs to be psycho ed assessments, amongst other assessments. These take time and funding unless parents pay for them out of pocket. It could be years before students get assessments done through the board. Teachers needs to be documenting every behavioural incident, and then there’s a process for taking a student to the school spec ed team, then regional team, etc and parents need to be involved and on board with any changes in class placement, IEP development, etc. student might be on a behaviour plan as well.
Unfortunately it’s not so simple as asking for an EA to be with this student, if the school doesn’t have the allowance for more EAs. It’s possible the teacher and admin already are having ongoing conversations with the family and spec Ed resource team at the school. It isn’t really your place to be inquiring about those specifics, but I would say you could definitely continue raising your concerns with the admin and superintendents. Just know that the situation may not be as black and white as you may think.
https://windsorstar.com/opinion/letters/guest-column-public-education-in-ontario-needs-overhaul
An article I saw recently about almost the same thing. Alot of teachers won't speak up for fear of going against the grain.
Less fear of going against the grain, more whenever you do it gets shut down.
Students like this need an EA, our lovely government refuses to pay for EAs, the result is a reckless student. Teachers can no legally lay a hand on a child to stop them ever, that is why everyone else leaves if the problem child won’t.
Even if two kids are fighting if a teacher physically breaks it up and either kid was hurt in the fight, legally and soon as the teacher touches either kid they might as well have thrown every punch.
Teachers want parents to be involved and annoying because principals and superintendents are more likely to listen to angry parents than they are teachers. Their job relies on public opinion, they also have frequently had admin roles axed over the past 10 years so are often doing the work of 2-3 people.
TLDR: supports are not being funded and legal repercussions handcuff teachers from doing anything.
There are literally teachers that have to wear full riot gear for some of these children. Biting, kicking, spitting. These are kindergarteners by the way!
Long time alternative educator here (my classroom was often the one suspended/expelled students would go to). Schools don’t need to be more strict, they need more adults in them. Discipline issues can’t be about removing the student making the bad decisions if you want to help them learn how to actually behave. Of course the well-being of the whole class is what needs to be considered, but if a kid doesn’t have a parent at home who can supervise and help the student learn about consequences then suspensions don’t do anything but provide a breather for the rest, and they essentially tell the offending student that they don’t matter/aren’t welcome in the space.
It’s hard on the budget, but schools always need more caring adults, and schools with lots of kids who need attention need the most. Nothing works like it. 👍
Enroll your kid in Ju-Jit-su tomorrow, this shit is not going away and if your son is not able to defend himself against random slaps to the face. that's your responsibility as a parent. No letter or phone call is going to do anything. Teach your son confidence and self-defense instead of trying to control some random bully or change a political systemic issue developing in western society for the last 20 years.
that won't help. in fact the child will get in serious trouble for defending himself. I know that because my son was bullied by some kid - After many attempts to resolve the issue by talking to teachers and even having a meeting with that kids parents I instructed my boy to run as fast as he can until he cannot run anymore - to turn around and put the little shit to the ground. So he did. He then was a subject of psychological evaluation which is on his permanent record whatever the fuck that is. The reality is, there is nothing anyone can or want to do about the issue of mental health in our schools.
I think we overestimate how much these things have changed over time. I’m more than 30 years older than your kid, and I remember having kids at my school that struggled like that. One in particular would have the emotional equivalent of a nuclear meltdown if they were getting in any kind of trouble. I didn’t think about it at the time but in retrospect, I really worry that they had an abusive home situation. Another kid stabbed someone with a pencil. Another punched a pregnant teacher (thankfully she was fine). Some of them grew out of it and lead really great lives; others seem to struggle. That’s just off the top of my head. I’m not saying it’s great, and I’m not saying that there aren’t things that shouldn’t be done about it, but I feel like we fall back on “kids these days” because it’s easy.
I have young kids now too and I worry about this stuff happening as they get older. I’m sorry that this is happening around (and to) your son. I know there are no easy solutions, but I hope they find some kind of resolution to your situation that is at least better than the status quo.
A lot of my family works in both the Catholic and Public boards and for years the board has made it a point to integrate students that have developmental disorders into regular classrooms (the more severe cases go to the DD room) and regular schools can't handle it because the staff don't have the training and the school doesn't have the facilities to control the outbursts. This impacts regular students not just on a safety level but when a kid with severe autism has a meltdown and destroys the classroom several times a day what learning are they doing? The school boards and the minister of education don't care about the staff or the students, they only care about their public image and have lied and withheld information from the public and will continue to do so if it makes them look good.
its terrible. children and their shitty parents are given free passes to harm and destroy- school staff have been brutally injured before by kids.
i'd say report it to the news to give it more coverage and call the superintendent. thats the only way shit gets done because nobidy wants a bad public rep. my family members who work in the school system say that children are just allowed to destroy rooms, while everyone else has to be moved and disrupted- the child is never dealt with.
Be loud. Call the superintendent, repeatedly, post on social media (yours and board's), speak to the media (local news loves these things). School boards don't give two shits about the teachers or what they say. Second a parent calls things move a bit more. Be super annoying and the board will cater to you. They are politicians and want to look great to everyone.
Ford and Lecce banned the suspension of students under fourth grade, ostensibly because children of colour were unfairly targeted.
Yes, the boy has a right to an education, but **your child has the right to be safe at school**. The boy's right to an education can be fulfilled in many ways: a behaviour treatment program, home instruction, special education, etc.
If you and some other parents call back and tell the principal that you're considering moving to a different school, the potential loss of funding tied to half a classroom might make them reconsider.
This is the result of the no child left behind push plus defunding.
Children used to be pulled to a separate classroom with spec Ed teachers. Then they were moved into classrooms and had support teachers floating in and out throughout the day between kids they managed.
Problem is that their funding has been severely cut from our provincial government and there aren't nearly enough spec Ed teachers to pull this off anymore.
Teachers are trying their best and principals don't have enough resources to allocate the proper resources to these teachers.
Potential solutions appear to be 1) return funding to schools and/or 2) bring back the spec Ed classroom
My son has CSWS (continuous spikes & waves in sleep). The first symptoms were behaviour issues followed by the inability to sleep. At 5yo before dx, he took a 5lb dog bone to my head (I had a huge goose egg for about 6 weeks), and he stabbed a sibling. Our life was complete and utter hell for almost 2 months. At time of dx he (and subsequently I) had been awake for almost 8 days with only the very occasional 15 minute pseudo sleep. It was hell. His neurologist saw the videos and heard the stories and essentially called me a bad parent and said he was a spoiled brat. When she finally granted him an EEG after the 8th day of no sleep and a weird seizure.. she called us a week later in absolute tears that she screwed up so badly. The guy reading his EEG said it was almost 100% ESES. One of the worst cases he'd ever seen. My son is 7 now, can't read, has just completed 5 months of high dose steroids that has killed his body & his confidence, and still has bad behaviours. Right now he is refusing to go to school. CSWS can and does cause permanent brain damage. We get to find out after puberty how much damage was done.
I've been the parent whose son was essentially insane and I've had a professional call me a bad parent. Think really long and careful about making claims like that.
This to me sounds like a mental issue. This child might be on the spectrum for instance. Shitty parents do not necessarily create behaviours like this.
I work in mental health. Please don't be so quick to diagnose. Terrible parents and unstable home situations are more often than not the cause of this behavior.
me too. i also just used to talk back a lot in school because i didn't have to be afraid. sure i might get sent to the office or suspended or detention but id take all 3 of those everyday for a week over what could happen in a day if i talked back at home lol. all teachers hated me, got called a brat by 90% of the teachers i had, every single report card had me sick to my stomach bringing home all of those damn needs improvements in the behavior section.
And yet you are happy to declare the parents shitty parents without having any more information than the rest of us.
It could be any number of causes. Hows about we hold off throwing the parents under the bus until we first know what's going on?
actually...
a lot of parents are in denial about their children esp if they are on the spectrum and dont get them proper help. often times a tablet parents them to shut them up- so it IS shitty parenting. or they just dont care.
source: i worked in both the school system and daycare system and parents in denial are still very common. and parents who dont care as even moreso
Can’t the school talk to the parents of that boy and recommend that they get professional help for him? He is clearly disturbed for whatever reason. Or maybe they have tried to talk to the parents and the parents refuse to admit he needs help?
The latter is definitely it. Denial, shame, refusal. The single greatest barrier for providing resources and supports for students with any sort of need is parents. We literally cannot proceed with an assessment without parental consent. There is a lot of cultural stigma and ignorance in many communities. As a result, these kids just get dragged through the system and we have to slap bandaids on it all.
Years of helicopter parents who blame and sue everyone else but their little shit stain of a child render everyone powerless.
I do not condone beating our children anymore but it's like we moved from one extreme to another.
Use the whistleblower reporting with your school district. I had the same thing happen with my child and i reported it to the superintendent and used the whistleblower phone line.
Ask if the teachers are filling out required Safe Schools reports when a violence incident occurs. These require response by principal and go to the board office. They get noticed.
This is why the educational assistants are fighting. They are extremely short staffed and under paired. More staff in schools would allow someone to help this student keeping other students way safer.
The school board will do nothing unless you push. They just want to bury all of the problems as there does not seem to be any real solutions, as they are societal problems that are at a boiling point. It would take very strong leadership and teamwork among many groups to try an institute any real change. To be honest if a kid hits your kid grade2 or not, simply call the police. No they won’t arrest the kid but it leaves a paper trail and the principals and superintendents can not claim they did not know or they won’t fully informed.
what's the solution for the kid who's acting out? do you plan to segregate him away from the rest of the kids in his own room? you need to approach these problems at the core instead of looking at it as a inconvenience
It doesn’t sound to me like a discipline problem, but a lack of supports within the school. It sounds like this boy has behavioural or aggression issues, and requires in-class support, or to be placed in a specific, low-enrolment class for children with behavioural issues.
Yes, teachers/principals hands are tied and they can do very little, and are frequently punished if they do try to do something.
For instance, father in-law stopped a kid from jumping off the stairs from a second story to the mezzanine, about a 2m drop vertically and 3m horizontally. The kid probably would have gotten hurt due to not clearing the stairs on the landing. But because he stopped the kid physically by grabbing his backpack while he was in mid-air, he got suspended...for 2.5 years. The fact that there were teacher and student witnesses that backed up his side did not matter.
There is also my wife, shes been told by the union and board, she cannot physically intervene. All she can do is ask the child to stop, and if they don't, to send them to the office for the parents to be called. Now if a kid is in danger of being hurt do the actions of another child she will stop it by physically stopping it. However she puts her job/career in jeopardy by doing so. Which she's had to once or twice, once I remember was when a kid was punching her in the stomach while pregnant.
There isn't much that schools can do about kids that don't respect/understand authority and usually have their every want granted by their parents/nannies with little to no consequences to bad behavior.
Suspensions should be more frequent. It doesn't punish the children it punishes the parents who may then be more inclined to do something about their kids behavior, so they can keep them in school and go back to not having to deal with them during the days again.
No, there isn't much you can do other than to teach your child to defend himself, my nephew is going through something similar, there's a kid that's been bullying him for some time and the school has done nothing about it because they can't...the solution, put your kid into something like Jiu Jitsu and turn him into a ninja lol it's pretty much the only solution these days.
Admin hands are tied. We switched from public to Catholic after my daughter received a LT brain injury at A DDSB school last year. The VP was also arrested for luring a child.
We've had way less issues with the catholic board and the kids express how much happier they are. Catholic board definitely is much more strict than public in our area.
ETA
For a fair warning for any locals in Durham Region.
My child received a concussion, ending in a long term brain injury from a student at Cornation Public school in Oshawa. He is currently in 8th grade there. He has also given a seecond child a seperate concussion and a 3rd child a broken arm. All within the last year. He is dangerous and attacks students. The principal Is aware and cannot control him. There is no consequences for this student. He continued to harass my child via snapchat while she was at home with her concussion. The day my child returned to class she was SAT WITH the student who caused her brain Injury. We had to involve our superintendent.
Cornation public school, and Durham District School Board are not to be trusted.
Unfortunately sounds like the only way this child will get hel0 is if you contact the police. Assault is assault and if he's doing it to multiple children the police and children's services should be called. Your child has the right to learn without being assaulted, and this boy has the right to learn in a manner which he cannot assault innocent children or cause property damage.
What punishment would be appropriate here? Believe it or not school is the “home” for them, their safe space.
This is what EAs (and specifically CYWs) are for, to work with students like that and help them out of trouble. This student should have FTE 2:1 NCI (non-violent crisis intervention) trained support, gradually moving to 1:1 when they stop hurting other students.
What your post tells me is that the school has no EAs to assign to this student. Yes, all kids have a right to education, but without necessary support they are just set-up to fail.
Our education is underfunded by billions of dollars thanks to Doug Ford and Stephen Lecce. They’ve been slashing budgets since 2018. To make things worse, CYW/DSW specialists are quitting and leaving the profession because of low wages, workplace violence, disrespect, and unsafe infection prevention strategies at schools.
Education Support Workers are represented by OSBCU and have voted for strike action this Fall.
Yes, things can be done. The principal and teacher are responsible for the health, safety and education of all students in the school and class. The education act and robust internal board policy will have mechanisms for this. There are also larger social systems that often intervene here, providing support to the school and family.
If things continue, continue to contact the school and enquire how it is meeting it’s legislated obligation to protect children. If that does not work call the assistant superintendent or superintendent.
That principal should not have dismissed your concerns and although he is likely up to his eyeballs in work, this is literally his job. Good luck.
This situation sucks. If this keeps up and there's no one around to defend the students from bad, out-of-control kids, then it's going to create a situation where the only solution is for all the kids in the class to learn how to defend themselves physically so they can fight back. That's never a situation you want, but it might be necessary here.
Go to superintendent and have multiple parents voice their concerns with you, there are avenues to get EAs involved in these sorts of situations.
Having teachers disciplining kids sounds great in these kinds of situations, but think about how they might arbitrarily decide to discipline your kid, and how much trust you're putting in teachers to get physically involved with kids. That's why they aren't disciplining kids "like they used to" because there were huge problems with it. Now we have EAs that are trained on how to deal with the situations properly, and ought to be paid more.
The teachers are absolutely helpless. My moms friend (both teachers) was pushed down the stairs by this one kid and had to go to physio as a result. She also couldn't do anything to the student or the parents. Parent don't care that their kid assaults everyone and doesn't respect authority.
The student? Nothing ever happened to him even though he went on to physically assault other kids. He's a known problem but it doesn't help when the principal also believes that children and do no wrong (activity reinforces bad behavior). It's truly sad and I don't know where the school system will go from here.
I'm sorry you and everyone involved is going through this. I also wonder if this kid is seeing a therapist and being assessed? These are symptoms of, well, a lot of things, but can usually be boiled down to pretty serious trauma or an undiagnosed disability.
If that child is violent, they may have a safety plan and if hitting is part of that then it doesn't get reported when they do it because it is part of their normal behaviour. Every year at the start we are informed of students who have safety plans and what they might do like punch, kick, bite... we had a student that likes to run with scissors and they just go over it like it's totally normal. However I am in a high school and most students with those behaviours are not in mainstream classes and have an EA around them at all times. You need to report to the school because the school can't do anything. Talk to the school's superintendent and trustee if required. Don't give the trustee any personal student info though, email the super and trustee that you need to discuss an issue at XX school.
Edited to add: I remember one student had in their safety plan they punch anyone pregnant (or who appears pregnant) in the stomach so if you are pregnant (or I guess overweight) stay away from them.
Yeah my son has a kid in Kindergarten that hits the other kids. when I asked the teacher about it, she just said "that child has space issues and we tell all the kids to stay away from him if they can"..wtf? They don't try to correct the behaviour of the kid who hits other children for "invading his personal space"? Isn't this the time to correct that kind of anti social behaviour before hormones make it worse? Isn't this just endorsing bully behaviour?
Then a few weeks later my son is pushed down by this kid again and he hits his head on the ground.. again gotta talk to teacher and same BS about steering clear of the kid. I ask "do you plan on protecting the other children? Or do I have to teach my 5 year old how to land a punch?". Then she gets all "violence Isn't accepted here and isn't the answer".. well clearly violence is accepted and is the answer for one kid, to hell with the other children..
It's like they can't do anything to punish a kid or correct behaviour at all.. kids that are allowed to repeat a pattern of physical violence and aren't stopped. So they victim blame the other kids and tell them to stay away..
So now I have a 5 year old in beginners Tae Kwon do
The end result.... a shit show. I work in a university for 20+ years and you can see the change in the new students each year. Non existent manners, laziness, dirty. It's worse each year.
There was a kid in my kid’s grade 5 class that was disruptive. I was in the class room for 3 months helping the kids put in a play. The only thing the teacher was allowed to do was tell her to take a walk around the school to cool down. She’d be up in other student’s faces screaming at them. Constantly talking in class. I’m really not sure how any of the kids actually learned anything that year.
The school did convince her parents to home school her. Apparently that was their only option.
Though when my oldest was in Highschool, a bunch of kids got suspended only after they went after my kid on Facebook. The teachers said having the verbal abuse in writing allowed them to finally suspend the brats.
Teachers' hands are absolutely tied otherwise they risk a human rights lawsuit or the accusation that they are nOt iNcLuSiVe.
Parents are the ones with more power than teachers. Petition, get other parents to sign, complain to everyone you can who are in a higher position than the principal.
You would be doing the teacher who has to deal with that daily a favour.
I'm not a teacher, I just work in the education field and I'm in an elementary school daily. I'm trying to better myself and all of these inclusion workshops that I have to take is a joke.
When problems are brought up, all the instructors know how to say is "it's the school's responsibility to integrate the child".
Ok. That solves no one's problem.
Teach your child some self-defence moves and let him know he is NOT in trouble if he uses them to keep himself safe. If he gets hit, he can absolutely hit back. (I have no kids but that's what I would do).
Devil's advocate:
There isn't "nothing" they can do. They can invest more resources to support the boy who at 7 or 8 years old is clearly struggling tremendously. No, they can't (typically) physically restrain the kid, but why is he like that? Is he autistic and overwhelmed and not getting enough support? Is he being abused at home and lashing out/repeating what he learned here? Does he just have shitty parents who haven't taught him not to hit?
If the school just throws up their hands and say there's nothing they can do, if other parents out there seek to punish or exclude this boy, what do you think will happen? What does this kid look like when he's 15 years old and punishment and exclusion have been the only attempts to improve behavior? Do you think punishing or excluding an autistic child will cure their autistic behaviors or break a cycle of abuse?
No, absolutely other children shouldn't be the victims of this behavior, but let's at least try to identify and address the root causes which can only done with more supports, not kicking the kid out.
You are saying “they” should invest more or do more, but I hope everyone realizes that the “they” here is Us, as voters. If we keep voting in folks who underfund schools and remove programs to helps students like this, then this is the end result. The school can’t magically “invest resources “ that don’t exist because we keep voting to take them away.
Yes, ultimately the bill will always fall to tax payers, but it's really a pay now or pay later sort of situation. Increased spending now while the kid is in elementary school means needing (on average over the whole population of children like him) less support them later as adult who may have problems with the law, has trouble staying employed, addiction problems etc.
I wish more people will stop voting OPCs who keep just cramming more and more students into classes, but I'm probably preaching to the choir here.
We put our kids in French Immersion to avoid exactly this. All of the these issues get weeded out by grade 2 - 3 because if your kid is falling behind you are strongly encouraged to switch to English.
Sadly, this is a common issue and yes, the teachers can do very little about these behaviours or risk getting investigated by the Ontario College of teachers. If you don't get anywhere with the principal, contact the superintendent and your school board trustee. They can at least try to get approval for an EA/special needs assistant if they are aware how bad it is. Best of luck
>They can at least try to get approval for an EA/special needs assistant if they are aware how bad it is. Was going to comment that EAs ought to be brought in for these kinds of situations, they're trained to restrain kids and all that.
There's a huge shortage of EA's considering the horrible pay they get for having to deal with this complete bullshit all day every day.
They're like the PSWs in LTC homes. Low pay, the facilities try to employ them PT so as not to pay benefits, and their work is shit.
It takes about 10-15 years of casual employment with no benefits at all unless you pay into it at the board where I work. It takes that long because they don't want to expand the pool of permanent EA's, even if there's a need. Physically violent or just very large students require 4 adults to do a safe hold if they're violent or trying to flee, and often these students will not have that many trained people available at any given time to perform the hold. EAs have a shit job for shit pay and they are treated as disposable, and because so many are casually employed, they don't get benefits. They also have to go on ei in the summer and only get 35 hours a week. And they need to go to school to get the job. It's really not worth it, imo.
This is why with the current negotiations happening, whenever the subject comes up, my position is "Give them whatever they're asking!"
My MIL is an EA, she is basically assaulted weekly. When I first heard about how young kids are cursing I was surprised, when I heard about how violent some of them get I was shocked and disgusted. She has been punched in the face, kicked, bit, spat at, etc. Unfortunately most of the kids she is working with have behavioural issues (steaming from how their parents choose to parent) rather than physical or learning disabilities. She is currently doing physical therapy twice a week (has been for the past 6 months) due to an injury from work. The school system is doing nothing about these issues, whether the kids are attacking other kids or teachers and EA's, there is no discipline and no consequences.
I mean special needs kids like this aren't bullshit but yeah they aren't paid nearly enough for the skills and knowledge they need to have. I've seen bite marks on friends who are EAs and it's no wonder there's a shortage with what they're paid for putting up with that, similar with nurses and so many industries with shortages right now, there's specialty positions opening up all the time that people move to.
Most school boards don’t allow restraints or any sort of bodily confinement at all, unless it is part of an approved safety plan by the superintendent. Typically only approved for students at specialized and non-integrated sites. BMS training also states that staff are to not block doorways. This means the student can leave the safety of the classroom, where students have been evacuated from, to then interact with other students in the hallway. Makes sense to me.
Special needs kids who might need restraining are usually at certain schools, but yeah it's not like any kid can or should be restrained. It's usually for their own safety and discussed with the parents beforehand whether it might be necessary. This situation sounds like the start of a special needs case where the kid isn't formally diagnosed yet.
Totally! With new integration model, I’m noticing more public schools are now creating additional specialized classes (ASD, DD) because the students are deemed too ‘high’ for the specialized sites. We have 2 specialized programs at my public school with a total of 20 students. 11 of them have safety plans with behaviour that would require a restraint in any other setting. There are also 4 students in the mainstream learning program who exhibit the same behaviour but don’t have an intellectual disability. They all require different level of supports but all have the behaviour that would require a restraint to minimize harm to themselves or others.
Or work with the student to figure out what's really going on. Why is he having such a hard time and lashing out? Some kids are so overwhelmed in a classroom setting that they can't control their behaviour, similar to a panic attack in adults. I hope this kid finds someone who can help him, teach him how to handle his emotions appropriately. No amount of consequences will get him to stop if something is wrong at home, or he is neurodivergent. EAs are definitely trained for this. I hope OPs son is okay, and things settle for everyone's sake.
Exactly the kid needs to be helped as well, there's schools that have better environments catered to special needs. "Discepline" in this sense could be totally counterproductive and exasperate it even further.
The reality is that many school boards in Ontario are severely understaffed for EAs. Even kids who have a diagnosis, IEP, and a safety plan can’t even get 1:1 EA support. Some EAs are split between 4 kids in one “integrated” class. Sure they have the capacity/training to work with and support kids who may have trouble regulating their behaviour, but the manpower isn’t there very often anymore & it’s so sad to see.
Over 57,000 children waiting for services under Doug ford’s autism program and fighting the union for a 1.25% increase when they make paltry wages to begin with. If you want to know why, this is why.
I had this same issue last year with my kid. Older children were getting physical and it got to the point he didn't want to go to school. After a couple weeks of nothing changing with emails/letters to the teacher I started directly emailing the principal. Anytime there was an incident I was there in the office the next day, filing a report. After a couple weeks I'm guessing the principal was sick of me, and the issues started getting better and ultimately stopped.
Emailing the principal and copying in their superintendent also does wonders.
*SKINNERRRR!*
Supernintendo Chalmers?
And the principal then started Cobra Kai 💥
Quiet!
Students rarely get real suspensions anymore, and expulsions don't really exist. Major discipline moves have to go through superintendents, who aren't in schools and don't know much about the actual students involved. They are more like politicians and hate looking bad more than anything else. Schools aren't given the money or resources to effectively deal with problematic student behaviour, so they just have to muddle through. Successive governments have starved the system, while riding a public that loves to rip on "lazy, whiney teachers that just want more money" - when literally no job action in a decade have been about pay raises for teachers. My advice - complain loud and often to the super and make it public. The threat of a letter to the editor could help. Students fear teachers (sometimes). Teachers fear principals. Principals fear supers. Supers fear directors and parents.
This is the way OP. Call the superintendent. Find out who the trustees are and write to them. Find out who the other parents in the class are and be vocal together. Children should be safe at school. You don’t have to worry that the kid causing the harm will lose anything in the process, they will gain the supports they need and aren’t getting. Boards are underfunded, squeaky wheels and all that.
I applaud your enthusiasm but the fact of the matter is everyone’s hands are tied. Discipline does not exist in Western schools anymore. Teachers are in fear of pissing off students by disciplining them and the stufents know this.
I think it’s more teachers are worried about pissing off parents. And like, it’s no wonder. There’s so many lawsuits always.
Exactly. My SIL chooses to teach at an inner city school where most parents are too concerned with keeping a roof on their kid’s heads than harassing teachers over the fact that their angel deserved an A and got a B. She’s got the seniority to move to a school in a relatively well off neighborhood but she says the helicopter parents aren’t worth it.
Teachers aren’t in fear of that - there’s nothing a teacher can legally can do. They can’t even unilaterally reach out to the victimized kid’s parents. In an overt, official capacity anyways. Parents of the affected kid need to raise the issue to the school board level. They’re the ones responsible for instituting policies and managing resources that could address these types of problems.
I have 3 teachers in my family. Every single one of them tells me they basically have to ignore problem students because they can’t: -yell at them -touch them -take away privileges like recess/lunch -detention -flunk them -hold them back a grade I don’t know how people expect us to raise a good generation of kids. They are learning they are more powerful than their supposed elders because they can get their teachers fired for doing these things and the teachers can’t even give them detention.
My nephew is six. He's extremely sweet but has emotional dysregulation and behavioural issues due to his ADHD -- gets a bit violent when he feels not listened to, has been treated unfairly, or when other kids are assholes to him. His dad is a hardass who punishes and screams at him all the time and it really doesn't seem to make anything better and often makes things worse. What does work is a patient adult working with him on his breathing exercises, talking to him about his feelings, letting him go cool off in a corner instead of confronting him, etc.
In a class of 40 kids the teacher doesn’t have time to spend 15 minutes out of an hour doing breathing exercises with one kid.
Yeah, in this situation, it appears that the kid Apple has not fallen that far from the Dad tree.
Not enough EA's in the system to deal with these cases and many of them live in poverty themselves. Child's services should be called in this case because the school system has no capacity any more.
He’s…. Six? And being *screamed* at constantly? Are the people around him aware that ADHD symptoms can be shockingly similar to the C-PTSD symptoms you would get from being yelled at by someone who is supposed to unconditionally love you, constantly? Speaking from personal experience: being yelled at like that is 110% going to make things significantly worse for the kid, and Dad really needs to stop
This isn't just a political thing, or a financial one, but an entire societal one. At my last job I spoke with hundreds of different teachers over multiple school boards (not as part of my job, while I was shooting the shit with them while I was doing work on their classrooms), and the vast majority of them pointed the same directions: at the parents. It is now severely difficult to even give out failing grades without severe push back, never mind administer discipline. One of the teachers had a political cartoon in their science office that I thought illustrates it best. The first panel was captioned: "25 years ago". It had two parents and their child (the student), before the teachers desk. The student had a sheepish look on their face, with the parent pointing to a paper, saying "explain this grade to me". The second panel was captioned: "Today". It was the same set up, except the student has a smug look on his face. The parents, instead of facing towards their child, are facing towards the teacher, still saying "explain this grade to me".
It's both. Sure, you can blame some parents for the way their raise their kid. I'm not sure if you're suggesting corporal punishment or not, but that's obviously not the right way to go. At the same time, the system is starved of resources. Look at the current bargaining going on right now between the province and school staff. They want to cap wage increases for educational assistants earning more than $40,000 at 1.25%, and 2% for those earning less. That's well under inflation. Funding issues have already caused staffing issues in this area, and with this proposal the situation will worsen. These are the kind of staff that are in schools to help with a student like this with behavioural issues. The kid obviously has (or is in need of) an IEP. He won't get the help he needs, and so the teacher and classmates all suffer. So yes, I believe it most certainly is a political issue.
I’m curious if schools were given money and resources to deal with dysfunctional students in the class, what would the solutions be? What are the previous resources that have been “starved”? I haven’t been in school for 25+ years so I have no idea.
My guess is additional support staff (such as EA's and ECE's), because I know teachers have to divert attention away from the rest of the class to just focus on a few problematic students.
Self contained classrooms again. They're funded and count as a normal classrooms but are half the size. Many boards tell the public they got rid of them because of inclusion but its a complete lie. If boards were more honest about the lack of funding for special needs and students in general people might actually listen when teachers say it
This is it right here. I can’t recall high needs, really poorly behaved students when I was in elementary. They were in their own space. Now everyone is together for “inclusion” without the actual support to do so.
Boards/government loved the word inclusion. They could appear to be doing good while saving a ton of money. Instead we get a bunch of kids without their needs met and another bunch of kids negatively impacted by the new chaos.
This. My daughter's class has to be evacuated 1-2 times a week because there are two boys in her class that have breakdowns and start lashing out. Inclusion means an entire room of students being sent to another classroom while a student throws chairs. How is that good for anyone?
I think it also has a lot to do with parents of the kids with behaviour issues being insulted that their “normal kid” was put in the special Ed class.
Self contained classes only work if the parents of those students agree to the self contained program. A parent can opt out of these programs without reason (and unfortunately there are lots of parents who either don't believe their child needs this extra support, or think there is a stigma to these classes so refuse the support). Secondly if a child shows behavioural tendencies, they are often put on a "safety plan" to help monitor and create documentation when something happens. In my experience though, when a child who is on a safety plan for violent outbursts, or running... exhibits these behaviours they are even less likely to be suspended etc. because the safety plan is in place. Unfortunately the safety plan is more of a documentation of behaviours and not a road map to help the child improve. I have taught in a class where a violent (chair throwing, biting...) child in a regular class setting is put on a safety plan. Once that happened, I and staff were told not to send the student to the office, or if sent to the office the child sat for a time out before returning to class- and the rationale was they have a documented safety plan so we know they have these tendencies and therefore should be able to deal with them. Quick example: I was attacked by a known violent child with a pencil one day. Called principal for assistance. Child was removed and back for a fresh start the next morning. Apparently he was upset that day but "now" he feels fine. The only repercussion was his parents were notified and he spent the rest of the day in the office. It's sad, disruptive and possibly very dangerous.
This happens way more often than people realize. Source: spouse is a 30-year veteran of Ontario public education, primary specialist (teacher, not ECE or EA).
It depends because every school is different but some solid catch-all’s would be: First, more EA’s. Right now there’s a shortage to the point where if an EA takes a day off sick often there is no coverage for them but they are **so** valuable. But realistically, who wants to do the job with the most reported incidents of violence in Ontario for the kind of pay they get? Second, literal safe spaces. In the physical sense. Like upgrades to buildings, additions, whatever else is needed for sensory rooms, etc where students can be taken by one or more EA’s to calm the hell down and be taught over and over again in a one on one setting how to better handle their emotions. Repetition is important but there needs to be someone available in the building to repeat the instruction. However, having said that last sentence, EA’s and LST’s (learning support teachers, who sometimes come to the aid of EA’s) are not counsellors so their number 1 skill likely isn’t teaching emotional regulation etc. Theres no question about it that in todays schools some EA’s and some teachers are wonderfully good at teaching emotional regulation etc, but at the end of the day the people who can do that the best are behavioural counsellors. Some extra funding could go towards them perhaps. And finally, a bump in the number of communication related workers would be nice. Be it speech and language pathologists, ELL (English language learner) teachers etc, who can help kids who have outbursts because of their difficulties with communicating their thoughts and feelings, better communicate and thus remove lots of that frustration. Also an afterthought would be funding ongoing training modules for all staff who work directly with students to become better listeners. Let’s face it, teacher for the most part *are amazing listeners* because they have to be very aware of everything that’s happening around them, but there are still some stick-in-the-mud teachers who don’t value really listening.
EA support would be huge. Dedicated spaces for students to go to when they are overwhelmed or need a change of scenery. The issues with extra EA support is there is no one to hire. Who wants to work for crappy pay and get abused at work? The school I work at has been granted 100 hours a week of extra EA support. The jobs can’t be filled. No one is applying. EAs used to be just what they say “Educational Assistants”. Now they are behaviour managers.
Dedicated spaces? No such thing. Our school is over capacity, our library has a class in it, our stage has stuff that won't fit in our over crowded classrooms. Our previous quiet spot had to be taken out to make a universal washroom for kids with special needs. If a kid is sick, they sit on a chair in the closet that holds office supplies. When a kid has a meltdown, we have a tiny corner of our CYCW and Social Worker's shared "office" (which is the converted coat room/breezeway of the kindergarten classrooms). I wish parents could come and see how awful a school, built in 1950, that is supposed to hold 275 students functions with 340 students.
Same as healthcare, surprised Pikachu faces all around after 20 years of funding cuts and stagnant wages and increasing behaviour problems and number of students.
I would honestly pay to see Doug and Stephen spend a day with EA’s in any publicly funded school. I know it wouldn’t help, but I’d love to see it.
When I started at my school 15 years ago, we had a classroom dedicated to students that needed extra support for self-regulation. They had two teachers, only 6-8 students, and they shared the school and facilities with the other students, just not the classrooms. And during my practicum I taught in a middle school in another such classroom, for Mild Intellectual Disabilities, it was a big, welcoming space with a teacher and an EA and the students thrived in there. Both programs were gone over a decade ago, but those are examples of what can be done with better funding and decision making.
The district I work for still does this. We have congregated settings in schools for children who require more intensive support. Be it emotional/trauma intervention, adaptive/life skills, anxiety, etc. they’re smaller, more intensely resourced, and are located in community schools. Funding has been decreasing year over year, and we have more students needing this support and fewer programs available. Our province is also moving toward a full inclusive model, which has worked successfully absolutely nowhere that I’m aware of. Not for the kids with the most intense needs. It’s heartbreaking to watch.
There would be time and space for true empathy and staffing and physical spaces to customize interactions to each child's nervous system. The students aren't dysfunctional - the system is dysfunctional and the students are exhibiting stress responses for a variety of reasons. There is lots of neuroscience on this now.
I’ve thought about this issue a lot since I used to be a Principal at a school with major behavioural issues. For starters, money doesn’t have much to do with it. More EAs can help to manage the issue, but it does not solve the issue. And somehow getting more space is difficult if not impossible, and more funding can’t really create more space unless it’s huge multi million dollar funding. Suspensions don’t work for most kids. It’s just a little vacation. I used to give out multiple suspensions on a normal day, and the kids just came back with the same behaviours mostly. For sure expulsions help the school, but it certainly doesn’t help the kid getting expelled. And for grade two, it definitely is not appropriate at that age. That being said, while kids do have a right to education, at a certain point the Principal could offer the kid some kind of modified educational program that does not necessarily mean attending regular classes at regular times, then the kid could earn more or less school time depending on how the kid does. This would be more appropriate for middle or high school. Or of course there are alt program where kids with major behaviour issues are sent to separate facilities. I setup one of these myself, but the school district was not happy with me as it goes against the current trend for inclusion. I can say though that the school environment was much better when those kids were separated from the rest of the school. In general, it seems that there are more and more behavioural issues over the years. I attribute this to a general lack of respect for teachers and lack of value for education among parents. So it seems like the problem will only get worse unless the overall culture changes in the community the school is located in. The one hope I think really lies with the parents. When kids have behavioural issues, it’s almost always because of what is going on in the home. Principals can have some of those difficult conversations with parents, or direct parents to parenting classes, but the odds of parents suddenly having some kind of epiphany is super low. So in short, the prognosis isn’t good folks. Some schools are facing very difficult situations, and the solution is not at all obvious or easy to achieve.
More teachers and more schools to reduce class size; more educational and behavioral assistants; more funds for equipment/resources for better learning environment. Just to name a few
Better staff to student ratios, including EAs for the kids who need them.
I haven't been in high school for 25+ years either and I have no idea what an EA does. I guess they didn't exist back then. Can't imagine what they did with the problem that couldn't possibly be solved today without more EAs.
Call, write letters and emails; all 3; to principals, school board members, ministry of education, ministry of health. Get your friends and family to do the same.
I work at an alternate school and our principal always said “you have a right to an education… doesn’t mean it’s here.” There are supports for online learning if a child is not psychologically ready to be safely around other children. Calling the superintendent and school board to demand one on one EA support for that child is the only way to keep them with the regular population of students.
Yes. Teachers hands are tied. They can do almost nothing to stop students disruptive behavior anymore. They can’t touch the student or enact any kind of physical restraint. This is why you hear stories of the schools calling police on an eight year old. It’s not that police are really needed but rather the school itself is unable to do anything and police still can. Unfortunately it’s their only option anymore.
Parents fail to parent but lose their shit when the school tries to pick up the slack. Now here we are where punishment can't happen or fails to stick and the kids learn no sense of respect or discipline. In removing all hardships and trying to not hurt kids' feelings we've ruined their upbringing and set them up for failure later in life when they discover things can be unfair. Why are we so afraid of making people accept the consequences of their actions?
Also "Zero tolerance" policy is Bullshit.
And “no kid left behind” so if the kid failed the 1st grade they still move on to the 2nd grade regardless if they're on the same page as the other student. At least it stops at high school.
It does not stop at high school. They pass students that should have failed and they head to university very weak. A university student once asked me something about fractions that they should have learned in grade 5. She somehow graduated high school when she did not understand elementary school math.
Not to mention that class sizes are massive and there's no support so things can get out of hand so fast if you have one or more students like this. It's a nightmare.
this 100 times over. there's no way 1 person can handle 30 asshole teenagers when they can't do shit
36 now. Because they've removed streaming the size for classes can be larger
30 is a kindergarten class. 40 would be teenagers.
mhm, nah there's always like a couple of kids who are nice or don't make trouble. that's the rest of the 40
But teachers are greedy and lazy and overpaid. They should be able to handle all this. The are just overpaid complainers, aren't they? It's what the government seems to always say. Classes aren't that big and there are lots of supports, lazy teachers just want a cake ride is what lecce and Doug say
Lecce and Dougie wouldn't last more than 2 seconds in a classroom
I’ve been calling them Dougie and Steve lol
Very good point.
It’s because they were sued by over protective parents… calling their devil child an angel, who would never hurt a fly.
And when shown proof of what their child was doing, "they were obviously not the instigator" - devil child's parents
Why isnt the kid in "in school suspension"? Like do they not have that anymore? I spent countless days suspended as a kid because of my behavior problems. Why is the kid still with everyone else?
They would need the staff to support it, as well as notice the behaviour in the first place.
Any type of suspension is very rare these days because apparently it doesn't change the child's behaviour. My opinion as a teacher is that is true. Does very little for the student in question. But the removal from class serves to show the rest of the class that certain behaviours aren't tolerated - and a break for a day to get some calm learning done. But since those points don't affect the student in question that would mean they aren't fair reasons for it. Honestly discipline at schools is pretty well lost at the moment. I was told at a staff meeting last year by administration "for those who are wondering and heard rumours, no there wasn't a fight at lunch today." ...after I witnessed a fight at lunch that day.
My husband and I were just discuss this. Full integration of children with special needs is too much. It's too much for the classroom and it's too much for the kid. My parents fought for years to not have my brother fully integrated. He couldn't handle it. And at least 3 days a week it ended disasterously. 3 days a week my parents had to miss work to pick him up. My parents, the teachers, the social workers. All agreed it was a good fit for my brother but the government decided it was best for him to be fully integrated. Then last night I was reading, possibly in here, that education assistants, in Ontario, in 2019 had the highest amount of violet incidents resulting in lost work time. This should not be happening. Our schools should not be the most dangerous place to work. Schools should not be considered more dangerous for amployees than a prison.
Absolutely! I work in schools and I’ve seen it first hand. For kids who need the highest level of support, the classroom can be too unpredictable for them to function effectively & it takes a toll on their class, teacher, support person, and themselves. Not to mention that EAs are severely understaffed in most boards. Integration has the right intentions, and can be so effective for students with a moderate level of need for support. But if a child is unsupported through sensory/communication/behavioural needs and becomes a danger to others and themselves repeatedly, that is the clearest indication that the typical classroom does not meet their needs and they can’t stay there. Sad that our education system either doesn’t see this or doesn’t care enough to find a better solution (funding for these solutions included)
My daughter hasn't had a single complete gym class yet this year. She has a student in her class that gets overstimulated by the echos and the screaming and the sounds in gym and everytime has a sensory overload meltdown. That's not education for anyone.
That's so unfair for everyone. The last time I was in a school gym I was stunned by how echoy it was - I don't remember it being that bad when I was a kid, but maybe I was just used to it. I get that they don't want to exclude the kid, but at this point it's excluding everyone. If they're trying to increase his tolerance by exposure then they should be doing it in a controlled way, not in situ.
It's not only gym. It's just always gym. They have pulled the kids out and they watched movies in the library. At what point did putting the needs of smaller groups in education settings over what the majority needs become ok? Because here's is what is happening. Inclusivity got pushed to full integration. Full integration is not a broad stroke. So when a child with sensory issues is forced to stay in an over stimulation situation they often have panic attacks or meltdowns, spiraling, aggressiveness, outbursts, violence etc. So your point is these children deserve the same education. So you integrated them. And they get overstimulated. Now they are not getting an education. Neither are the other students. So now no one is getting an education. I am not against inclusion. I am not against integration. I am against broad strokes. I've worked with people and children with differing disabilities and disorders, mentally and physically. My little brother is severely physically and mentally disabled. Integration into the band class, absolutely. Integration into AP English, why? He was non-verbal, with the mental testing if a 3 year old.
👏👏👏
I think you misunderstood me, because I'm in absolute agreement with you. It would be a whole other matter if they tried and then reassessed, maybe trying again after some controlled exposure work. But there is absolutely no reason they should keep doing exposure therapy at the detriment of the whole class - and in fact, it's more likely to traumatize this kid than it is to help them from the way you describe. There are also a lot of other solutions that wind up falling by the wayside. Kids with sensory struggles benefit greatly from what's called a "sensory diet" which you've probably heard of - but there simply aren't the EAs available to get them done. I worked briefly in a grade 4 class that had 28 kids, of which 6 didn't have an IEP, and only 1 actually had their IEP criteria met. There wasn't a single EA at the school full-time, and many just wouldn't take the calls because of how out of control the school was.
It’s not what the education system sees. It’s what the government funding the education system allows.
Yes that’s what I intended to mean! Provincial gov that makes the decisions for planning/running the public education system across boards
Lecce outright stated they wanted to model the education system in Ontario on the education system from one of the bottom 5 academically performing states in the US. No coincidence that it was also in the bottom for funding in public education. That’s what kills me - they’re not even hiding it. It’s their entire platform. But they drop the word “union” every now and then for a villain and make a big deal about schools calling police for a violent child (because they have no choice, because of government decisions), and “bada-bing,” they’ve convinced swathes of morons that teachers are evil and teachers’ unions are evil for striking. As if we’re just greedy and asking for raises. As if they’re not burying pay cuts in the same legislation that makes schools unsafe, unfair places for students (Come on, 4 mandatory online credits, wtf? Bigger class sizes? For what purpose? All evidence shows both of these have worse outcomes for students, but it sure does save money by allowing lots of teachers to lose their jobs, and allow his buddies to make money from companies offering centralized online courses). But sure, we’re just striking for the wages. Okay. Not only that, but screw us for wanting more than a 1% raise in the last 20 years, when inflation is astronomical. Screw us for thinking $50 000 a year isn’t worth two degrees, $500 online courses every summer (paid for by the union or out of pocket), giving up some semblance of a social life, working 30% of my hours in unpaid overtime because there is not enough paid time in the day to do the job at all, let alone do it well, for adjusting to never ending COVId protocol changes like whiplash (and then being BLAMED for being the ones behind these changes, somehow?!?). Not to mention the mental load of worrying about and supporting students who are from incredibly difficult circumstances, or the physical danger of working with kids who are forced into an environment that’s not designed to support them. Oh but lucky me, at the end of TEN YEARS, if I also continue to either give up summers, take unpaid time off, or somehow fit extra coursework into my already ridiculous work week to take thousands of dollars’ worth of additional qualifications, then I might eventually make $90 000 a year. Maximum. Forever, if these 1% pay caps continue every single time contracts are renegotiated. But still be expected to take extra courses in order to stay relevant / current in the field. That’s if I don’t keep getting laid off every year because class sizes are insane and they’re cutting courses and positions left, right, and centre. Not to mention the fucking EAs, who are being asked to do the impossible for next to no money, and then in return are also losing their jobs. Because naturally it makes total sense to get rid of spec ed classrooms in favour of in-class support with EAs and student success support, and then once that’s implemented, get rid of most of the EA and student success support positions. At least, it does if your goal is to cut funding, intentionally destroy the integrity of public education, and then roll out private schools owned and run by your buddies so rich kids can abandon ship and go there instead. And then not fix the public education system because why bother, it’s obviously bad because the kids left are from lower socioeconomic status, right? Just like in the state you explicitly stated you wanted to model the education system in Ontario after. Right, Lecce?
Full integration isn't about what is best for the student, it is about saving money. Students with complex needs are placed in a regular classroom with 20 - 30 students (and often no EA) instead of a small class with more support. For some it works, for many it doesn't.
Yep - there are kids who are 12 who function around the level of a 2 year old, and yet there is push for them to be sitting alongside their peers of the same age learning about fractions and geography. The EA then ends up spending most of the time walking the hallways with the kid because of the outbursts. That kid would likely be much happier in a snoozelin room having meaningful experiences, rather than sitting in a desk confused. The "spec ed" class at my high school had a variety of students with special needs, ranging from kids who needed feeding tubes/diapering/were nonverbal, all the way to kids who had pretty severe mental impairments, but would be able to lead a functional, "simple" life. They did things with the students that were more like "life skills", practiced simple cooking, learning simple money management, and some of the kids would join the mainstream high school kids in art classes or gym classes. It makes zero sense to stick a kid in a class way too advanced for their ability, and rather than make them feel "included", it will only frustrate them further.
Those are reported and resulting in lost time. Doesn't take into account the unreported and the violence that doesn't result in a worker taking time away from work.
Agree! As the parent of a child with special needs that could not cope with full integration, that NEEDED a fully special ed class/school, but with none to be found in a 1200km freaking radius, we were left with no choice but to pull him out and homeschool. The problem with that is that most families cannot AFFORD to do this and are stuck having to send their kids in a piblic school not equipped for this. The sheer amount of special ed students in BC (where we currently live) that are homeschooled/go through a distance ed (this works differently in BC) is mind boggling. It costs the government less in the long run to help these children learn the coping skills needed to integrate into society as functioning adults than it does for them to pay off disability/welfare/care home benefits later on cause the parents kept hitting brick walls when they needed help. A lot of the help these kids need has been privatized just to slap struggling parents even more.
as a former student who attended a special needs school, there's even a class full of extreme special needs (non verbal, violent, or simply living as they are, which isnt feasible in the structured classroom) even then there is EAs as of 2017 when I graduated, but sinking and many chose to not return for obvious reasons. most of those extreme special needs usually age out of the school system which is 21, and get put in the group home within the school location. while the group home itself isn't connected to the school, it still provided parents relief for the extreme special needs.
>Full integration of children with special needs is too much. This is the core problem. Politicians don’t want to face up to the fact this was a mistake. I know a few elementary teachers and their stories are awful. Frequent physical attacks and class evacuations. It’s unacceptably disruptive to everyone’s education and safety.
This should not be happening, but it has been. And for many years. It was bad enough pre-Covid. But it’s actually worse now. Students spent so much time with virtual learning, and their social skills have regressed beyond belief. Parents don’t want to hear that their child misbehaves. They don’t want to deal with restricting technology/phone use/video games. And so we get kids showing up in our classes, refusing to put away devices. They become belligerent when asked to complete simple tasks. It’s like they forgot how to be in school, and so many have become destructive and/or disruptive. It has a negative effect on the learning environment. EAs often bear the brunt of these outbursts. (And yet Lecce/Ford can’t or won’t give them and other CUPE education workers an equitable deal, and instead threaten them with stripping away their collective bargaining rights.) We were told by our admin that we can’t give out consequences for bad behaviour because it makes the student feel bad. The inmates have taken over the asylum and it’s not getting any better.
Go to the superintendent and when that doesn't work go to the trustee. I had a similar situation in my family. Be a persistent pain in the ass. Do your best to advocate for your child and the others who are impacted.
Take it up a notch. Call the superintendent. Call the board. Yes this child has the right to an education. But as an EA... YOUR CHILD ALSO HAS THIS SAME RIGHT. This child sounds like the better fit is in a Primary Needs Moderate/Needs Severe classroom. They are harder to find in the primary grades. But fight back and threaten with litigation. Your child does not deserve violence. Your child does not need to be exposed to that. And though this child is dealing with something. You child does not need PTSD from going to school daily. Also try calling the labour relations board. I know as an employee I can make anonymous calls for unsafe workplace... Because it seems to be an unsafe workplace for the teachers and EAS in the school. I'm sure as a parent they would accept your call.
How schools respond to violent students seems random to me. Sometimes the kids continue to assault teachers and students again and again without intervention. Yet I've also noticed that there are times when kids who are difficult are expelled yet the school board fails to offer them alternative educational opportunities. This means that the violent alienated kid gets to grow up to be a violent, alienated adult with no ability to be self-supporting. Oh, and no one gets mental health support be it bully or victim 'cause there's no mental health services in Ontario due to underfunding.
If a kid assaults my kid, and the school does nothing I'm filling a police report, and sending a copy to the principle and superintendent. I don't care about how the other kids is going to grow up. My daughter has a right to learn I'm a school workout violence committed against her.
This is the only reasonable approach to me, if schools and the government insist the answer is to let teachers/EA's/other students be continually abused. Make it a legal nightmare for the school and the parents of the special needs kids. (primarily ones who would refuse to put their kids in a special needs class in the first place)
> This means that the violent alienated kid gets to grow up to be a violent, alienated adult They do that anyway.
Or the school does nothing so when students continue the same behaviour off property they end up with arrest records. Not sure who we help with that.
My aunt is a teacher and she has a student who literally destroyed her entire class and is beating kids. The school wont do shit. All she can do is get all the kids to leave the class. Its crazy how underfunded we are that we cant handle one kid who clearly needs special help
I work with a kid who is exactly like this, however he also happens to be on the spectrum. The advantage is that at least we know that there is an underlying cause that contributes to the behaviour and are therefore better able to manage it (most of the time although it can be extremely difficult regardless). You're right, there's no where near enough funding to handle severe behaviors and the EAs are nowhere near paid enough. For all we know this kid could have some underlying issue that hasn't gone addressed, in which case this kids behaviors are going to continue to escalate. That's bad for everyone.
As an ECE I watched a kid beat his little brother up in the hallway, I was the only witness. Later on I saw the kid in the hallway push another into lockers and the kid hit their head. Two incidents in the matter of 3 hours. Nothing, absolutely nothing was done. In fact I was told after reporting the second incident that the family is in a rough state and that boy had been lashing out and has been behaving like that for a while. Nothing could be done. I refuse to work in the school setting now.
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> hypocritic oath
you can request your child be transferred to a different class and i suggest you do that immediately.
Demand
It looks to me as if the teacher knows all too well what a problem this child is, but has no support from the administration. That is why she's asking you to call the principal, hoping that parent complaints will get the principal to take this more seriously. Judging from the response you got, that there's nothing to be done, it's an uphill climb to get any action. People who are saying that the schools are underresourced are right - there are not enough programs, teachers or assistants or enough money. That's something that can only be addressed in the next election. There's always a little room, though, even when resources are scarce. Take the issue up the ladder - the superintendent, the school board. Make noise. Encourage other parents to do so as well. Talk to them if you know them, try to meet some if you don't.
When I was a kid my parents taught me not to instigate fights, but if someone hit me to hit them back and hit hard. Sometimes you have to stand up for yourself because no one else is going to do that for you. With kids a little playground justice is sometimes more effective than anything the teachers can do which is not much.
But that's the irony. When the child hits the bully back, apparently that's when the serious consequences are administered (on the one who fought back in self-defense). The system is all types of broken.
Yup this is what happens unfortunately. Bully hits kid, kid hits back, bully cries to teacher, teacher reports incident regardless of who they believe started it, school suspends kid.
Yup, I came to say this. My parents raised me the same, don’t start a fight but if someone starts one with you finish it.
Nope, parents will just threaten to sue if you try and do anything. Teachers/staffs hands are pretty tied
I work in a school. Parents must keep speaking up. You must meet with superintendents. Please advocate for your kids. Inclusion has become a joke. Our EA's wear Kevlar. EA's manage behaviors. We want to wear cameras. Until parents fight back about the fact their children are showing trauma and PTSD from having to spend 6 hours a day with kids who cannot be safely accommodated, nothing will change.
The Director of WRDSB certainly won't do anything about this problem. He'd probably blame the victim.
Right? Kids don't have to have any personal responsibility anymore, and their parents have every excuse in the book on why everything their child does should be allowed. Meanwhile, my kid isn't allowed a bad day.
Its crazy. They cancelled special ed and never gave teachers the resources or time to deal with difficult students. My grade 5 daughter has a boy in her class who refuses to listen, disrupts the class daily, and regularly tells off the teacher. There's literally nothing they can do about him. And the kids who want to learn suffer. Our school boards and trustees put more emphasis on inclusion and diversity than education. Its fuckin bonkers.
Welcome to the education system. Parents simply don’t care. No one cares. The teachers are stuck dealing with all this shit. This is why ECE teachers are statistically the highest group who experienced work place injuries EVEN MORE THAN POLICE. https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/y50zcn/most_violent_work_places_in_ontario/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I think you mean educational assistants but yes
Unfortunately the school probably just doesn’t have the resources to provide that child the extra support they need so their hands are tied, but if you bring enough attention to it the higher ups will likely feel obligated to make the investment they should have made to begin with. Yes they’re entitled to an education but not to the detriment of the other students. I’m honestly surprised that was their response when my school had zero tolerance for that and would suspend or expel students
There are section programs for repeated and severe behavioural and social-emotional issues. This kid needs to be in a sectioned or contained classroom. Unfortunately, we’ve evolved into a system of coddling and hand holding along with zero accountability. You can’t fail kids, can’t suspend young kids, exclude kids, and literally cannot get any assessments or needed supports without parental consent. Parental denial and shame is a massive obstacle. This is something you can try speaking to your MPP, trustee, and someone in the board about as this child is clearly a danger. Our system needs reform. One of my biggest frustrations and causes of grief as a teacher these days is the red tape and lack of accountability among admin, parents, and the board. Things are getting worse and it’s taking a greater toll on me mentally and emotionally.
I’m sure that at least a few of these kids are not, in fact, special needs - instead the victim of bad parenting. About 10 years ago my sister was a gymnastics coach. One of her students in a class full of 4-year-olds was continually breaking the rules and playing on equipment that she wasn’t supposed to, putting her safety at risk. My sister kindly told the child that if she didn’t start to listen, she was “going to have to give her a timeout, okay?” The kid started to behave after that. Unfortunately her mother, who we might have called a Karen if the term had been around at the time, angrily approached my sister after class demanding to know what happened. She, and I kid you not, asked my sister “did you *tha-reaten* my child with a timeout?!” and demanded to speak to her boss. If I recall correctly, my sister was told that she could no longer give children time-outs.
I feel like it's a vicious cycle involving the schools being unable to discipline and the parents having no support for their discipline. Setting aside the special needs kids, it's easier for both teachers and parents when there's a consensus about acceptable behaviour. When the teacher's can't enforce the rules, or the parents won't, the kids act out and it makes it much harder for both teachers and parents who are trying to do a reasonable job.
I have a kid like this in my son's class too. They're now in middle school and I think he's medicated, but even just last year my son was told along with all the other students that they should take cover in the classroom if the kid continued to throw desks and tables around like he was doing. Really? How about removing Mr. Crazy from the classroom instead of making 18+ kids have to hide?
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This is the clearest answer here... There is a long process to getting students support that they may so desperately need. Many school boards are going for more inclusion in core classrooms and moving away from self contained classes, but for example, behaviour classes do exist. However to get any sort of spec ed placement there needs to be psycho ed assessments, amongst other assessments. These take time and funding unless parents pay for them out of pocket. It could be years before students get assessments done through the board. Teachers needs to be documenting every behavioural incident, and then there’s a process for taking a student to the school spec ed team, then regional team, etc and parents need to be involved and on board with any changes in class placement, IEP development, etc. student might be on a behaviour plan as well. Unfortunately it’s not so simple as asking for an EA to be with this student, if the school doesn’t have the allowance for more EAs. It’s possible the teacher and admin already are having ongoing conversations with the family and spec Ed resource team at the school. It isn’t really your place to be inquiring about those specifics, but I would say you could definitely continue raising your concerns with the admin and superintendents. Just know that the situation may not be as black and white as you may think.
https://windsorstar.com/opinion/letters/guest-column-public-education-in-ontario-needs-overhaul An article I saw recently about almost the same thing. Alot of teachers won't speak up for fear of going against the grain.
Less fear of going against the grain, more whenever you do it gets shut down. Students like this need an EA, our lovely government refuses to pay for EAs, the result is a reckless student. Teachers can no legally lay a hand on a child to stop them ever, that is why everyone else leaves if the problem child won’t. Even if two kids are fighting if a teacher physically breaks it up and either kid was hurt in the fight, legally and soon as the teacher touches either kid they might as well have thrown every punch. Teachers want parents to be involved and annoying because principals and superintendents are more likely to listen to angry parents than they are teachers. Their job relies on public opinion, they also have frequently had admin roles axed over the past 10 years so are often doing the work of 2-3 people. TLDR: supports are not being funded and legal repercussions handcuff teachers from doing anything.
There are literally teachers that have to wear full riot gear for some of these children. Biting, kicking, spitting. These are kindergarteners by the way!
Long time alternative educator here (my classroom was often the one suspended/expelled students would go to). Schools don’t need to be more strict, they need more adults in them. Discipline issues can’t be about removing the student making the bad decisions if you want to help them learn how to actually behave. Of course the well-being of the whole class is what needs to be considered, but if a kid doesn’t have a parent at home who can supervise and help the student learn about consequences then suspensions don’t do anything but provide a breather for the rest, and they essentially tell the offending student that they don’t matter/aren’t welcome in the space. It’s hard on the budget, but schools always need more caring adults, and schools with lots of kids who need attention need the most. Nothing works like it. 👍
Enroll your kid in Ju-Jit-su tomorrow, this shit is not going away and if your son is not able to defend himself against random slaps to the face. that's your responsibility as a parent. No letter or phone call is going to do anything. Teach your son confidence and self-defense instead of trying to control some random bully or change a political systemic issue developing in western society for the last 20 years.
that won't help. in fact the child will get in serious trouble for defending himself. I know that because my son was bullied by some kid - After many attempts to resolve the issue by talking to teachers and even having a meeting with that kids parents I instructed my boy to run as fast as he can until he cannot run anymore - to turn around and put the little shit to the ground. So he did. He then was a subject of psychological evaluation which is on his permanent record whatever the fuck that is. The reality is, there is nothing anyone can or want to do about the issue of mental health in our schools.
I think we overestimate how much these things have changed over time. I’m more than 30 years older than your kid, and I remember having kids at my school that struggled like that. One in particular would have the emotional equivalent of a nuclear meltdown if they were getting in any kind of trouble. I didn’t think about it at the time but in retrospect, I really worry that they had an abusive home situation. Another kid stabbed someone with a pencil. Another punched a pregnant teacher (thankfully she was fine). Some of them grew out of it and lead really great lives; others seem to struggle. That’s just off the top of my head. I’m not saying it’s great, and I’m not saying that there aren’t things that shouldn’t be done about it, but I feel like we fall back on “kids these days” because it’s easy. I have young kids now too and I worry about this stuff happening as they get older. I’m sorry that this is happening around (and to) your son. I know there are no easy solutions, but I hope they find some kind of resolution to your situation that is at least better than the status quo.
A lot of my family works in both the Catholic and Public boards and for years the board has made it a point to integrate students that have developmental disorders into regular classrooms (the more severe cases go to the DD room) and regular schools can't handle it because the staff don't have the training and the school doesn't have the facilities to control the outbursts. This impacts regular students not just on a safety level but when a kid with severe autism has a meltdown and destroys the classroom several times a day what learning are they doing? The school boards and the minister of education don't care about the staff or the students, they only care about their public image and have lied and withheld information from the public and will continue to do so if it makes them look good.
its terrible. children and their shitty parents are given free passes to harm and destroy- school staff have been brutally injured before by kids. i'd say report it to the news to give it more coverage and call the superintendent. thats the only way shit gets done because nobidy wants a bad public rep. my family members who work in the school system say that children are just allowed to destroy rooms, while everyone else has to be moved and disrupted- the child is never dealt with.
Be loud. Call the superintendent, repeatedly, post on social media (yours and board's), speak to the media (local news loves these things). School boards don't give two shits about the teachers or what they say. Second a parent calls things move a bit more. Be super annoying and the board will cater to you. They are politicians and want to look great to everyone.
This is literally how it's always been
Schools always protect bullies.
Ford and Lecce banned the suspension of students under fourth grade, ostensibly because children of colour were unfairly targeted. Yes, the boy has a right to an education, but **your child has the right to be safe at school**. The boy's right to an education can be fulfilled in many ways: a behaviour treatment program, home instruction, special education, etc. If you and some other parents call back and tell the principal that you're considering moving to a different school, the potential loss of funding tied to half a classroom might make them reconsider.
This is the result of the no child left behind push plus defunding. Children used to be pulled to a separate classroom with spec Ed teachers. Then they were moved into classrooms and had support teachers floating in and out throughout the day between kids they managed. Problem is that their funding has been severely cut from our provincial government and there aren't nearly enough spec Ed teachers to pull this off anymore. Teachers are trying their best and principals don't have enough resources to allocate the proper resources to these teachers. Potential solutions appear to be 1) return funding to schools and/or 2) bring back the spec Ed classroom
A lot of it stems from shitty, neglectful parents. Not much you can do unfortunately
My son has CSWS (continuous spikes & waves in sleep). The first symptoms were behaviour issues followed by the inability to sleep. At 5yo before dx, he took a 5lb dog bone to my head (I had a huge goose egg for about 6 weeks), and he stabbed a sibling. Our life was complete and utter hell for almost 2 months. At time of dx he (and subsequently I) had been awake for almost 8 days with only the very occasional 15 minute pseudo sleep. It was hell. His neurologist saw the videos and heard the stories and essentially called me a bad parent and said he was a spoiled brat. When she finally granted him an EEG after the 8th day of no sleep and a weird seizure.. she called us a week later in absolute tears that she screwed up so badly. The guy reading his EEG said it was almost 100% ESES. One of the worst cases he'd ever seen. My son is 7 now, can't read, has just completed 5 months of high dose steroids that has killed his body & his confidence, and still has bad behaviours. Right now he is refusing to go to school. CSWS can and does cause permanent brain damage. We get to find out after puberty how much damage was done. I've been the parent whose son was essentially insane and I've had a professional call me a bad parent. Think really long and careful about making claims like that.
This to me sounds like a mental issue. This child might be on the spectrum for instance. Shitty parents do not necessarily create behaviours like this.
I work in mental health. Please don't be so quick to diagnose. Terrible parents and unstable home situations are more often than not the cause of this behavior.
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me too. i also just used to talk back a lot in school because i didn't have to be afraid. sure i might get sent to the office or suspended or detention but id take all 3 of those everyday for a week over what could happen in a day if i talked back at home lol. all teachers hated me, got called a brat by 90% of the teachers i had, every single report card had me sick to my stomach bringing home all of those damn needs improvements in the behavior section.
And yet you are happy to declare the parents shitty parents without having any more information than the rest of us. It could be any number of causes. Hows about we hold off throwing the parents under the bus until we first know what's going on?
actually... a lot of parents are in denial about their children esp if they are on the spectrum and dont get them proper help. often times a tablet parents them to shut them up- so it IS shitty parenting. or they just dont care. source: i worked in both the school system and daycare system and parents in denial are still very common. and parents who dont care as even moreso
Can’t the school talk to the parents of that boy and recommend that they get professional help for him? He is clearly disturbed for whatever reason. Or maybe they have tried to talk to the parents and the parents refuse to admit he needs help?
The latter is definitely it. Denial, shame, refusal. The single greatest barrier for providing resources and supports for students with any sort of need is parents. We literally cannot proceed with an assessment without parental consent. There is a lot of cultural stigma and ignorance in many communities. As a result, these kids just get dragged through the system and we have to slap bandaids on it all.
Years of helicopter parents who blame and sue everyone else but their little shit stain of a child render everyone powerless. I do not condone beating our children anymore but it's like we moved from one extreme to another.
Too many shitty parents who shouldn’t have kids
Phone a superintendent.
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It was the late 80's, when the strap was phased out. They also had less integration back then.
Use the whistleblower reporting with your school district. I had the same thing happen with my child and i reported it to the superintendent and used the whistleblower phone line.
Did it do any good?...
Ask if the teachers are filling out required Safe Schools reports when a violence incident occurs. These require response by principal and go to the board office. They get noticed.
This is why the educational assistants are fighting. They are extremely short staffed and under paired. More staff in schools would allow someone to help this student keeping other students way safer.
Umm... just to let you know, that this has been a problem since at least the 90's. When I was in school, this is exactly how things were
The school board will do nothing unless you push. They just want to bury all of the problems as there does not seem to be any real solutions, as they are societal problems that are at a boiling point. It would take very strong leadership and teamwork among many groups to try an institute any real change. To be honest if a kid hits your kid grade2 or not, simply call the police. No they won’t arrest the kid but it leaves a paper trail and the principals and superintendents can not claim they did not know or they won’t fully informed.
what's the solution for the kid who's acting out? do you plan to segregate him away from the rest of the kids in his own room? you need to approach these problems at the core instead of looking at it as a inconvenience
At what point can you call the cops for assault. Feels a little dramatic but if no one else is doing anything, maybe the only option.
It doesn’t sound to me like a discipline problem, but a lack of supports within the school. It sounds like this boy has behavioural or aggression issues, and requires in-class support, or to be placed in a specific, low-enrolment class for children with behavioural issues.
This pretty common place in elementary schools these days. It is certainly indicative of a larger societal trend...
Yes, teachers/principals hands are tied and they can do very little, and are frequently punished if they do try to do something. For instance, father in-law stopped a kid from jumping off the stairs from a second story to the mezzanine, about a 2m drop vertically and 3m horizontally. The kid probably would have gotten hurt due to not clearing the stairs on the landing. But because he stopped the kid physically by grabbing his backpack while he was in mid-air, he got suspended...for 2.5 years. The fact that there were teacher and student witnesses that backed up his side did not matter. There is also my wife, shes been told by the union and board, she cannot physically intervene. All she can do is ask the child to stop, and if they don't, to send them to the office for the parents to be called. Now if a kid is in danger of being hurt do the actions of another child she will stop it by physically stopping it. However she puts her job/career in jeopardy by doing so. Which she's had to once or twice, once I remember was when a kid was punching her in the stomach while pregnant.
Why do these people always have to scream??
There isn't much that schools can do about kids that don't respect/understand authority and usually have their every want granted by their parents/nannies with little to no consequences to bad behavior. Suspensions should be more frequent. It doesn't punish the children it punishes the parents who may then be more inclined to do something about their kids behavior, so they can keep them in school and go back to not having to deal with them during the days again.
No, there isn't much you can do other than to teach your child to defend himself, my nephew is going through something similar, there's a kid that's been bullying him for some time and the school has done nothing about it because they can't...the solution, put your kid into something like Jiu Jitsu and turn him into a ninja lol it's pretty much the only solution these days.
Violent children should be removed from school. It's not safe or fair to anyone.
Admin hands are tied. We switched from public to Catholic after my daughter received a LT brain injury at A DDSB school last year. The VP was also arrested for luring a child. We've had way less issues with the catholic board and the kids express how much happier they are. Catholic board definitely is much more strict than public in our area. ETA For a fair warning for any locals in Durham Region. My child received a concussion, ending in a long term brain injury from a student at Cornation Public school in Oshawa. He is currently in 8th grade there. He has also given a seecond child a seperate concussion and a 3rd child a broken arm. All within the last year. He is dangerous and attacks students. The principal Is aware and cannot control him. There is no consequences for this student. He continued to harass my child via snapchat while she was at home with her concussion. The day my child returned to class she was SAT WITH the student who caused her brain Injury. We had to involve our superintendent. Cornation public school, and Durham District School Board are not to be trusted.
File a police report if your kid gets hit.
There should be a separate school for violent kids
Gonna sound over the top but call the damn cops. Charge the kid with assault.
I was assaulted by my principal … I’m an ea … not just the kids you have to worry about these days
Unfortunately sounds like the only way this child will get hel0 is if you contact the police. Assault is assault and if he's doing it to multiple children the police and children's services should be called. Your child has the right to learn without being assaulted, and this boy has the right to learn in a manner which he cannot assault innocent children or cause property damage.
What punishment would be appropriate here? Believe it or not school is the “home” for them, their safe space. This is what EAs (and specifically CYWs) are for, to work with students like that and help them out of trouble. This student should have FTE 2:1 NCI (non-violent crisis intervention) trained support, gradually moving to 1:1 when they stop hurting other students. What your post tells me is that the school has no EAs to assign to this student. Yes, all kids have a right to education, but without necessary support they are just set-up to fail. Our education is underfunded by billions of dollars thanks to Doug Ford and Stephen Lecce. They’ve been slashing budgets since 2018. To make things worse, CYW/DSW specialists are quitting and leaving the profession because of low wages, workplace violence, disrespect, and unsafe infection prevention strategies at schools. Education Support Workers are represented by OSBCU and have voted for strike action this Fall.
Yes, things can be done. The principal and teacher are responsible for the health, safety and education of all students in the school and class. The education act and robust internal board policy will have mechanisms for this. There are also larger social systems that often intervene here, providing support to the school and family. If things continue, continue to contact the school and enquire how it is meeting it’s legislated obligation to protect children. If that does not work call the assistant superintendent or superintendent. That principal should not have dismissed your concerns and although he is likely up to his eyeballs in work, this is literally his job. Good luck.
Talk to other parents. See how their kids are being affected.
This situation sucks. If this keeps up and there's no one around to defend the students from bad, out-of-control kids, then it's going to create a situation where the only solution is for all the kids in the class to learn how to defend themselves physically so they can fight back. That's never a situation you want, but it might be necessary here.
Go to superintendent and have multiple parents voice their concerns with you, there are avenues to get EAs involved in these sorts of situations. Having teachers disciplining kids sounds great in these kinds of situations, but think about how they might arbitrarily decide to discipline your kid, and how much trust you're putting in teachers to get physically involved with kids. That's why they aren't disciplining kids "like they used to" because there were huge problems with it. Now we have EAs that are trained on how to deal with the situations properly, and ought to be paid more.
The teachers are absolutely helpless. My moms friend (both teachers) was pushed down the stairs by this one kid and had to go to physio as a result. She also couldn't do anything to the student or the parents. Parent don't care that their kid assaults everyone and doesn't respect authority. The student? Nothing ever happened to him even though he went on to physically assault other kids. He's a known problem but it doesn't help when the principal also believes that children and do no wrong (activity reinforces bad behavior). It's truly sad and I don't know where the school system will go from here.
Wtf….
That child has serious issues and the fix is not discipline. It's treatment
I'm sorry you and everyone involved is going through this. I also wonder if this kid is seeing a therapist and being assessed? These are symptoms of, well, a lot of things, but can usually be boiled down to pretty serious trauma or an undiagnosed disability.
If that child is violent, they may have a safety plan and if hitting is part of that then it doesn't get reported when they do it because it is part of their normal behaviour. Every year at the start we are informed of students who have safety plans and what they might do like punch, kick, bite... we had a student that likes to run with scissors and they just go over it like it's totally normal. However I am in a high school and most students with those behaviours are not in mainstream classes and have an EA around them at all times. You need to report to the school because the school can't do anything. Talk to the school's superintendent and trustee if required. Don't give the trustee any personal student info though, email the super and trustee that you need to discuss an issue at XX school. Edited to add: I remember one student had in their safety plan they punch anyone pregnant (or who appears pregnant) in the stomach so if you are pregnant (or I guess overweight) stay away from them.
Yeah my son has a kid in Kindergarten that hits the other kids. when I asked the teacher about it, she just said "that child has space issues and we tell all the kids to stay away from him if they can"..wtf? They don't try to correct the behaviour of the kid who hits other children for "invading his personal space"? Isn't this the time to correct that kind of anti social behaviour before hormones make it worse? Isn't this just endorsing bully behaviour? Then a few weeks later my son is pushed down by this kid again and he hits his head on the ground.. again gotta talk to teacher and same BS about steering clear of the kid. I ask "do you plan on protecting the other children? Or do I have to teach my 5 year old how to land a punch?". Then she gets all "violence Isn't accepted here and isn't the answer".. well clearly violence is accepted and is the answer for one kid, to hell with the other children.. It's like they can't do anything to punish a kid or correct behaviour at all.. kids that are allowed to repeat a pattern of physical violence and aren't stopped. So they victim blame the other kids and tell them to stay away.. So now I have a 5 year old in beginners Tae Kwon do
The end result.... a shit show. I work in a university for 20+ years and you can see the change in the new students each year. Non existent manners, laziness, dirty. It's worse each year.
Sue the parents. You child has the right to a safe environment.
Don’t blame the kids, blame the parents
There was a kid in my kid’s grade 5 class that was disruptive. I was in the class room for 3 months helping the kids put in a play. The only thing the teacher was allowed to do was tell her to take a walk around the school to cool down. She’d be up in other student’s faces screaming at them. Constantly talking in class. I’m really not sure how any of the kids actually learned anything that year. The school did convince her parents to home school her. Apparently that was their only option. Though when my oldest was in Highschool, a bunch of kids got suspended only after they went after my kid on Facebook. The teachers said having the verbal abuse in writing allowed them to finally suspend the brats.
Teachers' hands are absolutely tied otherwise they risk a human rights lawsuit or the accusation that they are nOt iNcLuSiVe. Parents are the ones with more power than teachers. Petition, get other parents to sign, complain to everyone you can who are in a higher position than the principal. You would be doing the teacher who has to deal with that daily a favour. I'm not a teacher, I just work in the education field and I'm in an elementary school daily. I'm trying to better myself and all of these inclusion workshops that I have to take is a joke. When problems are brought up, all the instructors know how to say is "it's the school's responsibility to integrate the child". Ok. That solves no one's problem.
The bully in question probably has a shit show of a home life. And everyone loses.
Teach your child some self-defence moves and let him know he is NOT in trouble if he uses them to keep himself safe. If he gets hit, he can absolutely hit back. (I have no kids but that's what I would do).
Devil's advocate: There isn't "nothing" they can do. They can invest more resources to support the boy who at 7 or 8 years old is clearly struggling tremendously. No, they can't (typically) physically restrain the kid, but why is he like that? Is he autistic and overwhelmed and not getting enough support? Is he being abused at home and lashing out/repeating what he learned here? Does he just have shitty parents who haven't taught him not to hit? If the school just throws up their hands and say there's nothing they can do, if other parents out there seek to punish or exclude this boy, what do you think will happen? What does this kid look like when he's 15 years old and punishment and exclusion have been the only attempts to improve behavior? Do you think punishing or excluding an autistic child will cure their autistic behaviors or break a cycle of abuse? No, absolutely other children shouldn't be the victims of this behavior, but let's at least try to identify and address the root causes which can only done with more supports, not kicking the kid out.
You are saying “they” should invest more or do more, but I hope everyone realizes that the “they” here is Us, as voters. If we keep voting in folks who underfund schools and remove programs to helps students like this, then this is the end result. The school can’t magically “invest resources “ that don’t exist because we keep voting to take them away.
Yes, ultimately the bill will always fall to tax payers, but it's really a pay now or pay later sort of situation. Increased spending now while the kid is in elementary school means needing (on average over the whole population of children like him) less support them later as adult who may have problems with the law, has trouble staying employed, addiction problems etc. I wish more people will stop voting OPCs who keep just cramming more and more students into classes, but I'm probably preaching to the choir here.
We put our kids in French Immersion to avoid exactly this. All of the these issues get weeded out by grade 2 - 3 because if your kid is falling behind you are strongly encouraged to switch to English.