Student Discipline from a Teacher's Perspective
How many teachers have to leave before something is done about this?
At the April 2023 Conroe ISD Board Meeting, student discipline within the District was on the agenda. There was a presentation provided by Dr. Chris Hines, who is the CISD Deputy Superintendent, and he presented on the CISD Code of Conduct, Texas law, and the process for correcting bad behavior. You can watch it at the 1:56:00 mark in the link at the bottom of this page, and we recommend you give it a watch to understand the CISD policies and procedures around student behavior and discipline. We were happy to hear this discussion, as student behavior is one of the leading issues driving teachers out of the profession.
In many areas of organizations, there are different experiences between policy and application. Even when policy and procedures exist, how student behavior and discipline is applied at the local level can vary depending on local administration, availability or experience of counselors, and the hardiness of a seasoned teacher. This is why certain schools do well with difficult students, and others do not. For today, we will discuss the difficulties of this process from a teacher's perspective.
When schools are organizing classrooms at the beginning of the year, or when new students are added within the school year, it is up to the local administration (e.g., Principals, APs, etc.) to place those students in classrooms based on a variety of factors. This includes the number of students already within a classroom, the experience of the teacher, the number of special needs students already present, the availability of support for a classroom (e.g., paraprofessionals), or the strength of the team of teachers working together (i.e., learning community).
When a new student starts, teachers typically do not know anything about them unless they taught their siblings or are familiar with the family. Relating to behavior, some kids have a BIP (Behavior Intervention Plan), but that is not common. Regardless, teachers are professionals. They rely upon their knowledge and training, as well as the relationships that they build with students throughout the year. For experienced teachers, quickly understanding their kids nearly as well as their parents becomes something like a superpower.
When issues arise, they can use all this information, as well as their own emotional intelligence, to help guide a student back to focus and away from disruption. This is why teachers find it important to get to know their kids - not just because they care about children and learning, but because they know there will be moments where a relationship built on empathy and trust can be very effective in guiding behavior. This of course varies between teachers.
What happens when a teacher has exhausted all the tools in their toolbox and they're at wits end? The first and simplest solution is to send that student to another teacher's classroom within the learning community. This can give both the student and a teacher a break. Throughout the day teachers can use this shuffling of kids to temporarily remove students so that they no longer disrupt the classroom and to give them time to cool down and complete their work. If continued disruption is occurring, a teacher may call their parent or guardian (if they answer), or eventually call to the front desk to request assistance. A counselor, AP, or the principal may come to the classroom, and it is in their purview to handle the situation. At times, this may mean removing the student temporarily (again), contacting their parents, and then through the rest of the process.
However, how this process is handled by administrators is where we usually see differences between schools. There are admins that will literally tell the teacher to "handle it", while a special needs child is in complete meltdown. There are others that will show up in a heartbeat ready to assist. At times, admin may receive an angry email from a parent and throw the teacher under the big yellow bus by giving the parent whatever they ask. Or you have administrators ready to take the blows. Like any other hierarchy of organizations, leadership styles can range from micro-managers to servant leaders, and this matters even more so in public education.
This brings us to parents. It has become quite clear over the last decade that there are an increasing number of parents placing the responsibility of disciplining their children on the school system. These parents may also be the same ones making life difficult for everyone by taking extreme positions, causing administrators to be hesitant on making that call and send a disruptive child home. This cycle of giving angry parents what they want, and shifting the discipline responsibility to teachers, is making matters increasingly worse. To add onto this, we now have parents who adamantly oppose things like history, books, or complaining about the latest culture war at play in the country.
To hear a more blunt explanation, give this a watch: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRTu6jfq/
We need a change in how educators and their administrators are expected to engage with parents. We need more tempered, firm responses to the bad behavior we see in the classrooms, and for these disruptive students to be removed. If there is nowhere to send them because the remedial schools are full, then those students and parents should have to manage on their own at home with whichever program the District sees fit. For parent's questions around curriculum, a teacher's response of, "it meets TEKS requirements" with a link to the TEKS website should be all that is needed.
Perhaps we need a change in policy or procedures for bad behavior and discipline. Similar to committees that are now built around book reviews, maybe a more empowered committee could be used to direct what happens to these students, with different levels all the way to the Board itself.
Teachers are leaving the classrooms for numerous reasons, but the daily grind of dealing with an increasing number of bad students and their angry parents is a primary contributor pushing educators out of the profession today. Add in extremely poor compensation, modern work hazards (e.g., getting shot), and an increasingly hostile atmosphere around public education, it becomes quite clear why educators find it an easy choice to move to the cushy work life that can be found in the private sector.
Conroe ISD Dr. Hines Presentation:
https://www.youtube.com/live/FOwRUXRWQWk?feature=share&t=6977
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