Disruptive Students Discriminated Against

Great Debates
1

Disruptive students have rights. There is confusion as to how to fairly and legally deal with students that disrupt the learning process of other students.

The confusion is compounded when the disrupting student has a federally-recognized disability that ‘prevents’ the student from complying with classroom rules. An example is ADHD, inability to control impulses. Student hits other students when irritated. It is difficult to remove him(her) from classroom (or even punish him) because that would deprive him from public education.

The pendulum is swinging around to serve the individual disabled disruptive student at the expense of the group.

Class doesn’t get to go on educational field trip because disabled student would destroy host facility.

In the world of work, a company was forced to pay a woman full salary who spent 2 to 4 hours in the restroom at work because she had federally recognized disorder that compelled her to wash her hands and face several times each hour.

There is some probability that the solution to all this confusion could be presented by one of the enlightened posters of this forum. If a guaranteed solution is presented, several million dollars awaits the presenter.

2

You’re going to need to provide some cites, my friend.

3

As the parent of a disruptive student, let me point out a few things:

  • There is confusion as to how to handle some of these kids. That, however, is simply a function of how recently we even tried to help these kids. In the old days, the extremely disruptive kids were simply locked up in institutions “for their own good” where they could grow up and rot away, out of our sight, with no chance to develop as humans. The less extremely disruptive kids were simply labeled “bad” and sent to juvenile detention until they “grew out of it” (as some do) or until they became habitual criminals.
    We’ve only been attempting to do something productive with these kids for around 25 years, and the science that is trying to help is too recent to have a lot of answers. We’ve gone from excessive segregation to excessive inclusion without understanding the ramifications of either.

  • No “federally recognized disability” allows a child to strike others with impunity. Different schools will respond to a disruptive child in different ways because the teachers and administrators have little experience with or education in the handling of disruptive children. Responses, therefore, are liable to range from the overly lenient to the harshly punitive to a demand that the child be exiled. While I wish that more school staff had better training both in understanding and in dealing with disruptive students, the reality is that in an area of study that is fewer than 25 years old, a lot of teachers and administrators are going to have received their principle education years before any information was broadly disseminated on the subject.
    As for punishment, that is stupid. If one would not punish a toddler for wetting his or her pants, why would one punish a child for acting out in an uncontrollable manner? Discipline is necessary, including showing the child that there are consequences for one’s actions, but giving a child a few whacks on the butt when they have literally lost control only teaches them that punishment will come regardless of whether they have chosen their actions. Such random (to their understanding) violence does nothing to reinforce the need for responsibility.

  • The pendulum is not (generally) swinging to serve the disabled at the expense of the abled. There are individual school districts where the administration is not sufficiently educated on the subject to make good decisions, but the current trend is actually to move away from or reduce excessive “mainstreaming.” (Various states are also behind the times in setting standards for this sort of program, but the movement across the nation is to find a balance that assures all the students a decent education. Of course, with the primitive understanding we currently have on such issues, mistakes are still being made in both directions.)

  • While there may be a class or two somewhere who has had their field trips cancelled because of the presence of a disruptive student, that is not a national norm. I have never heard of it happening anywhere, and I have a lot of experience with multiple school districts.

  • Regarding the complaint against the Americans with Disabilities Act and the woman suffering OCD, that has nothing to do with children in class.

  • Unfortunately, I will not be the poster who will collect the millions of dollars (which I could use) for solving this issue. I am as puzzled by some aspects as anyone else. I do note that the OP is overly pessimistic and appears to be working with information that is outdated or is in contact with a school district that is behind the times.

4

I don’t know the answer, but I agree it’s a problem. When my kids were in school it seemed to my wife and me that one disruptive student in a class made it hard to teach; two made it impossible.

And, yet, these disruptive kids do have rights…

5

You know what I think? I think the OP sounds like A03 has been reading a columnist and has come in here to ask us what we think. A03, please tell us which columnist it was so we can go look it up.

Otherwise, we’re gonna need some cites from you to back up the following statements, to show that any of them really happened, or that they are true:
[ul]
[li]There was an incident where a disruptive student could not be removed from a classroom because that would have deprived him of a public education.[/li][li]The pendulum is swinging around to serve the individual disabled disruptive student at the expense of the group.[/li][li]A class didn’t get to go on an educational field trip because a disabled student would have destroyed the host facility.[/li][/ul]

6

I’ve often wondered about this. If a school finds itself with some kids who are consistantly, constantly disruptive, why don’t they just pull them out of regular classes and have a separate class for them?

Presumably, there would not be enough disruptive kids to form one class per grade made up entirely of them. So, combine several grades in one classroom. Keep class size small, and have more then one teacher per class. In addition to academics, work with the kids on learning to control their behavior. Some (perhaps many) might eventually be able to return to regular classes.

I’d use the same approch with kids who are years behind their grade level. Pull them out of regular classes. Put them in special classes (again, small class size and more then one teacher per class). Group them according to actual grade level, regardless of age, and regardless of what grade they’ve been pulled out of. Work with them on the basics. For each kid, figure out and work toward a reasonable goal re his/her return to regular classes (that is, into what grade do you plan to insert the kid, after what number of years in the special class).

7

In several states, that is the policy. Often, several school districts will join in a regional effort, sending all the kids in one age range to one school (since it is rare that a single small district will have enough kids to justify a full-time teacher plus aides). My son, a sixth grader, has not been to class in our district since the third month of second grade. He has had “specials” classmates with less severe problems who have worked their way back to the normal classrooms.

There are a number of barriers to addressing this. School administrators are no more likely than the general public to recognize that these kids actually need special support. Educators have better access to behavioral information, but they are just as capable of dismissing it as “PC” or as bunk as anyone else. A lot of times, principals and school boards will decide that it is too much work and money to deal with the child (especially if there is only one child in a two or three year age group in the district) and will try to simply “encourage” the parents to get the child medicated and then provide no further support for the child or the teacher. Since there is a social stigma associated with “mental” problems, many parents are also in denial that their kids have problems, and will resist any intervention. If one encounters a situation where both the school district and the parents are in denial, the result is generally chaos.

8

Site, please? I myself have ADHD and I was NOT like that. Yes, I had trouble controlling my impulses as a child-I would roll on the floor when I was in first grade, or pace back and forth, etc etc. HOWEVER, once I was diagnosed, I was put on medication, and behavior modification techniques were used-and I got along just fine.

9

Looks like we got a hit and run poster…

10

I don’t usually ask for sites, but I will this time. What evidence do you have that there is a movement away from mainstreaming? My education classes in 98’ & 99’ stressed heavily that the national movement towards mainstreaming all students was growing and was expected to continue to do so. Right now there are worries about how some of our students (special ed pre-k and k)are going to adjust to regular classrooms because all of the schools in the district are practicing full inclusion, and I know this isn’t atypical for the state- NH- we live in, at least.

11

I generally don’t post to just “me, too” on this board, but this is one subject my older son had to deal with in school, here in Washington State, which resulted in my moving him to another classroom midyear.

He was in third grade, just having turned 8. He’s a shy, quiet, polite child, well behaved, and tall for his age. Always a head taller than the oldest kids in his class, and always treated like a miniature adult, which he clearly wasn’t. Two weeks into the schoolyear, a new student was introduced into his classroom. This child was small, sickly(had many coughing episodes and frequent school absences), and suffered from what the Principal euphemistically called “emotional problems.” Due to his privacy, other parents were not allowed further information with which to help our kids deal with and handle the resulting class disruptions. And do I mean disruptions. My son’s birthday in September meant I brought treats for the class to share the last week of the month. In the hour I was in the class, just after the last recess of the day, this child threw his treat across the room, screeched almost endlessly, climbed onto his desk and then under it, flailed at the teacher, and generally was incapable of calming himself or allowing the teacher and her aide to calm him. By the time I was picking up and cleaning the mess, preparing to go home, I was shaking from the stress of the episode. I looked around the classroom and noticed the effect on the kids: no one looked at one another, all were subdued, more than one looked close to tears, and my son wouldn’t stray from my side.

Later that night I talked to my son about this boy and his behavior in class. It seems that wasn’t at all unusual behavior for him, and that if he made it through the day without one of these ‘episodes’, it was a very good day. I tried talking to the teacher, then the school counselor, and finally the Principal, all to no avail. I wasn’t allowed any personal information about this child, I was simply to ‘trust’ the school that the situation was under control and all the children were safe in the classroom. Needless to say, I gave it until the Thanksgiving break, or nearly 6 weeks, and when my son continued to come home regularly distressed, and dreaded school in the morning(this from the kid who absolutely adored his teacher, no less), then I insisted he be moved to another classroom.

I don’t to this day know what problems that little boy had to deal with. I do know without adequate involvement and support from the other parents, the onus was improperly placed on 8 year olds to learn to deal with a situation the grownups around them had substantial difficulty dealing with. Wrong.

I’m pleased to say that this was the only situation of this kind I ever had to deal with. Other children with physical and/or mental difficulties were mainstreamed in a much smoother process with ease and care shown for all the kids involved.

12

I don’t have any numbers. I do have the experience of going through numerous workshops and scrolling a lot of web sites on the issues. The overwhelming number of pieces of literature I have seen (and the smaller number of professionals I’ve encountered) are very much pushing ‘to move away from or reduce excessive “mainstreaming.”’ Note my indication of excessive. The movement toward mainstreaming, in general, is a serious one. However, from the late 80s until the late 90s, it was tried to an excessive degree and I see the pendulum swinging back toward a more reasoned approach. It is entirely possible that the amount of literature I have seen has misled me to think that the movement is stronger than it has appeared to me.

I do not oppose mainstreaming. I think the general trend to allow kids with problems to have as much *normal[/] interaction as possible with their peers is a good thing. What happened in too many cases, however, were stories such as those that NaSultainne has related. That is an excessive, not a valid, approach to mainstreaming and my perception is that enough of such stories have cycled back to the schools and the advocacy groups that they have begun to rethink the all-mainstream-all-the-time mentality of a few years ago.

Perhaps I have just been exposed to groups who are more enlightened (or more burned by experience). In my first post, I tried to convey the chaotic state of the field throughout the country, today. There are individual school administrations and school districts (and whole states) where they are only now beginning to address the problem of total exclusion and they are repeating the mistakes of the 1980s by going for a total mainstream environment. (There are a few school districts where they are stuck in the 60s and simply demand that the child seek alternate education.) Others have gone through the experience of excessive mainstreaming and are now rethinking that policy. This is where I believe the pendulum has begun to swing back, but I do not claim that a majority of educators have actually begun to follow the trend.

NaSultainne, I would agree with the school that you do not have a right to know what the disruptive child’s problems are. I would absolutely disagree with them in their general response that they knew the situation and the other children were “safe.” Safety is the sina qua non. That is the base below the absolute minimum. They are seriously harming both the child and the other students by not seeking a remedy that keeps the child from disrupting the class.

My son was not allowed to remain in the classroom when he became disruptive and I would not have had it any other way. (Unfortunately, there are parents who simply believe that it is the “school’s job” to handle the child and they will go so far as to threaten lawsuits against schools who attempt any interventions.) I have no idea whether the adminstration is simply ignorant or whether they are in fear of lawsuits, but you have described an unacceptable situation.

We are lucky enough to live in a large metropolitan area where a special school was able to get my son turned around (after he was expelled from the Severe Behavior Handicap program for exhibiting *really[/] Severe Behavior). I have no idea what options are available to someone who lives in an area with fewer people where there such schools are more rare.

13

You were lucky you got medication and responded well to it.

Some parents will not take kid to MD for diagnosis. MD must diagnose ADHD. Some parents deny kid has problem or disability. Some parents refuse medication. Some kids refuse to take or forget to take medication or sell it for spending money. Some medication does not work for all ADHD kids the first time it is tried. Not all ADHD kids are created with identical neurology.

Some parents are intimidated by the term ‘behavior modification’. Some parents are hostile/aggressive themselves and encourage their kids to not take anything without a fight.

With or without the disability diagnosis, kid gets punished for hitting other kid. Without consequences kid gets trained that it’s ok to act out impulses in hostile aggressive behavior.

What sort of nurturing treatment (consequences) would you administer to kid who stabs other kid with pencil? The kid might respond immediately to your nurturing treatment and never act aggressively again. Your nurturing treatment might be so effective it would counter all neurological, family, environmental, historical pattern behavior and create new candidate for student council president. It would take only your loving smile and a few seconds of understanding, compassionate commentary to the aggressive kid. You only have a few seconds to spare from your lesson plan since you are responsible to teach the other reverent kids the content matter and are crowded for time to do that since there are kids in your class with different learning speeds.

It takes special training to avoid resorting to punishment and yet provide nurturing consequenses for hostile aggressive kid. Not all teachers eagerly give up their weekends or evenings to take available training. Not all schools have funds sitting around to bring in trainers. Some teachers burn out because they can’t figure out how to effectively manage ADHD kids. Teaching is not a lucrative field.

Fed mandates that schools serve the kids with disabilities but does not always provide funds. Unfunded mandates.

How do you propose to comply with federal mandates without the funds to pay for the adjustments for disabilities?

14

I think $$$ is sometimes a factor. If a school district classifies every problem child honestly, they wind up having to spend a lot of money sending numerous children to special programs in other schools. There is always a temptation to classify a given child as being okay in regular classes (even if he isn’t), or as needing whatever special program will cost the least (even if it isn’t right for him).

And consider the case of a child with several problems. Pick any one of his problems. Try to place him in a program designed for such children. Nothing doing. His other problems result in his being rejected. And the school district is well aware that they can save money by focusing solely on whichever problem has the cheapest solution.

15

If this occurs, it is the sign of a stupid school district. In no school system with which I have experience is the child allowed to bring their medicine to school. I, as the parent, must bring it directly to the school nurse (with all the appropriate forms signed by the doctor and myself) who then dispenses the medicine. I am forbidden to send the medicine to school with my child.

16

When a presription is sent in, you have to have it in the bottle the pharmacy put the meds in. No loose pills in unmarked baggies, and you were not allowed to send in over- the-counter medicine either,

17

Being allowed and doing something are not always the same. Kids who sell their medicine for spending money learn not to disclose those activities to teachers. Metal detectors don’t screen ritalin and other meds. Personal screening is invasive to kids who don’t do those things.

Many kids have no responsible parents to see this through like the above parent who is educated and responsible . Where are their rights? Who is their advocate? Where does the money come from to hire advocate. Where does the money come from to identify the incidents of punishment, rather than nurturing, compassionate, corrective consequences? Who on this forum wants to volunteer their time to help get this fixed? Who has time to find and engage attorney to make suggestions to teachers and administration? Parents of disruptive kids frequently don’t know laws of IDEA nor have time for it. Some parents of disruptive kids are busy serving time being incarcerated, thus no tactful conversations to principal, teacher, or kid.

Under such conditions, are disruptive kids discriminated against? Who is going to be punished for the discrimination? Fire the principals and teachers. Millions more standing in line waiting to take their places. No shortage.

Fed says enforce. That is popular legislation. Take care of all sub-populations. More votes. Politician won’t legislate money to fund the enforcement mandate, though, because too much money out of taxpayers’ pockets will cost him next election. Let the other party legislate the funding.

18

Agreed. But then you are no longer talking about a “disruptive” kid. You are talking about a) a kid who is deliberately breaking the law by stealing from home (since the pills that are delivewred by parents to school should be controlled at the school) and b) parents who are too trusting or insufficiently concerned to know that their child is stealing the medicine from home for sale instead of taking the required dosage.

Once you get into the arena of theft and sale of drugs, you are no longer talking about simply the “rights” of a disruptive child. (I also suspect that you are talking about a kid that is quite a bit older than the typical disruptive child. Kids who are old enough to steal and sell drugs are more likely to be simply cutting class than having tantrums and throwing books at other students.)

As for the rest of your last two posts, I fail to see a discussion or debate. You have simply provided a list of things that might go wrong in any similar situation. There are actions we (parents/schools/society) can take and actions we should not take. However, cataloging every possible bad turn that can happen does not provide any direction for those actions or provide a rejection of any current actions.