Teacher Peas - Help!!

Do you have an assistant administrator? A union rep?
I'd probably ask to have a meeting with the admin and a union rep present. Make sure that the admin knows that there will be a union rep there. Maybe even ask for a higher up in the district to be there as well.

I agree with document, document, document. Be very specific about your documentation including times, triggers, etc.

. I had a kid that had very several behaviors. We couldn’t get any district level admins to listen to us. Thankfully we did have supportive principals though. What finally got action, was parents and kids started documenting the behaviors. We actually had a kid that took it upon himself to write down the behaviors that were happening in the room and ask why it wasn’t being taken care of. Between that and parent phone calls, admin finally did something.

Also, keep praising all the kids that are acting the way they are supposed to. Go to the Dollar Store and buy the packs of cheap stickers. Give them out to the good kids. And give out lots of them. They will continue to know that they are acting appropriately. And you will feel better too, knowing that you are recognizing good behavior.

If all the documenting is taking too much of your time, this is what I used to do. I would walk around with a clip board. Had the date at the top. I would just make my notes for all the kids on the one page. At the end of the day, I would put the page in a binder. At conference time, I could scan the sheets and talk about the kid that I needed to. It was quick and easy.

If the autistic child has a full time aide, then where is the aide when this child is hurting other children? If the aide cannot affect her charges's behavior, then perhaps the child needs a different aide. Presumably this part of the reason the child has a full time aide.

Look at the behavior plan and see what needs to be changed. You may not be responsible for the behavior plan, but you should be consulted in creating one and amending it when needed. If the child is in your class, you have responsibility for following that plan. Mainly because, as the teacher, you have the certificate and the position as being the one in control and having the final say. It is your certificate that is at risk so you need to be sure that others in the room are doing their job. Talk to the aide's boss and find out just what the aide was told to do in your room. (I use to teach middle school alternative kids and the aide I had was not really under my authority - but I made sure I had input to how that aide did her job. Thankfully she was awesome, but there were a few incidents. But because I was the teacher in charge, it was all on me no matter what was the aide's fault.)

Frankly, it sounds like the behavior plan needs modifications like right now.

As to Mr."J", he needs counseling. Many young children who display disturbing sexual behavior have been molested or sexually abused. (Not all, but many.) At the very least, he is seeing that kind of behavior somewhere and is copying it. Again, in my experience, it was the first sign that a young, mentally challenged, girl was being raped by her brothers. It was so sad. If he has not been abused then the counseling should focus on why what he is doing is not appropriate for the classroom and what that kind of behavior is indicating.

It is so hard to teach when the behaviors of few disrupt the class constantly. I am sorry you are having to deal with this. I used to pretend that I did not have an admin and then figured out how I would handle it if I WAS the admin. The frustration of not having backup then was taken out of the equation and I could move forward. I did after school detention, daily parental calls to the same parent if needed, required the parent to come in for a parent/teacher consultation as often as I could, made the student sit in the hall with aide, sent notes home that had to be signed, made students get signatures on any failing papers and so on. But, the main thing, I kept the students busy, busy, busy. From the minute they hit my door they had work to do that was never done. I also, worked hard to make sure my instruction times were attention grabbers and kept the students involved. They also got rewards for what they did. Yes, some of the "busy, busy, busy" was busy work like puzzles, making lists, writing the key sentence of every paragraph in a range of pages. But I made sure they had to use their brains for it and I considered it part of my classroom management and teaching the children how to sit and work quietly.

Another thing I did was keep the physical classroom a pleasant place to be. To offset the fluorescent lights I had lamps in several places in the room. I had a area rug at the front of the classroom. All tables and furniture were clean and neat, no stacks of papers anywhere to be seen. I keep vases of cut flowers in the room and I would play soft zen music that was not the invigorating kind. I could see the students visibly relax when they came in the door and that helped. "Inside voices" were encouraged and I never raised my voice above a quiet speaking tone. So they had to be still to hear. Lots of smiles from me and encouragement made it easier on those behaving.

Oops sorry did not mean to write a book. LOL

First of all, Dexter I am so incredibly sorry. It is very defeating to you and your students to have so much going on.

I have had only 1 year in the 22 years of teaching without 5 or more extreme behaviors or medical needs students (in a classes of 32 first graders). This is the year and I can tell you it's a completely different job than what my previous years have been. I thought I'm a professional and I should be able to handle these students. Yes, but what it takes away from the rest of the students is not OK.

Every student deserves to learn and when someone is taking away their right to learn, I become the squeaky wheel. I used to be the furthest thing from a squeaky wheel, but I learned I had to become an advocate for my students and myself if anything was going to improve. Of course, I documented everything - which never got me anywhere! Well, I got a lot of platitudes from the people in charge, but no viable solutions. E-mailing every person associated with that student daily did get me somewhere. I got even more support doing the emails that also went to the union president and the head of the special ed/district nurse/behavior specialist/etc. than anything else I did. Now, some of the support was not really support (poorly trained aides who were more work for me), but I was able to get the people in charge to realize this child was not in the 'least restrictive environment for student success'.

Good luck, take time to step away from thinking about school, and know YOU are an amazing teacher!

I agree that it may come down to encouraging parents to be vocal about their kids' environments. I had one class from hell a few years ago. I tried everything. When I tried to physically separate the "good" kids from the "bad" kids in my classroom, in order to protect the "good" ones somewhat, I had two administrators tell me to mix them all back up because the "bad" kids were mostly one race. Everything I did that was moderately successful was met with resistance because it looked bad on the surface or because it may compromise a poorly worded IEP.

The only thing that helped somewhat was when I got a new student added to the class who had an IEP that contradicted some of the other IEPS. And that kid's mother was VERY involved. A few seemingly innocent phone calls to her mentioning how I couldn't keep him away from distracting behavior, how the only time that I could really teach the material was during lunch when the disruptive students weren't around, etc., and the mother made sure I had the support I needed.

I hear you! I left one school because of lack of admin support for discipline. I agree with those who have advised to get the other parents involved. Their complaints will carry a lot more weight with admin.