SOUNDING OFF:Chronically disruptive kids are the problem

I would like to respond in support of the March 4 Sounding Off (“TeWinkle is hurting its students’ futures”) about the failure of TeWinkle Middle School from the vantage point of a middle school teacher who has taught in a middle school for the last 14 years that has a very similar student demographic as TeWinkle Middle School. My middle school, like TeWinkle, is also in program improvement from the state due to low test scores.

I have had a successful career, been a mentor teacher, demonstration teacher, etc. I have a master’s degree and have taught classes on classroom management. Yet, poor student behavior is the reason I am leaving the classroom.

The lack of consequences for poor behavior is not just a problem at TeWinkle school, but is a systemic problem. Because we offer and mandate a free public education in the United States, all students are served in public schools regardless of their poor behavior.

While I approve of this in theory, the reality is that when teachers are faced with chronically disruptive students, they have no recourse but to deal with them the best they can. Only when students are violent or break laws do the schools transfer them to another school or expel them from the district. Far from being a solution, this just sends these problem students to another teacher’s classroom. It is a cycle without a solution.

In my classes, I had an average of 33 students, five of which were chronic disruptors who did not respond to consequences such as detentions, behavior letters or phone calls home. They each disrupted class an average of 10 times per hour. This robbed the other students of their ability to learn and my ability to teach. The scary thing is that this is the experience of most public middle-school teachers with similar school populations.

Solutions do exist. For example, schools within schools and continuation schools where students can earn their way in or out based on behavior are some possibilities.

Unfortunately, these are costly, which is why they are not implemented.

Until parents, educators, administrators, and school districts work together and speak honestly about this problem, test scores and graduation rates will not improve significantly, and many students — especially those with little parent support — will continue to suffer.