How to deal with troubled teachers

My son attends Dewey and any time I have been in contact with this teacher, she has been a quiet and classy lady. I don’t believe the story and when the facts come out, I’m sure she’ll be proven to be innocent. Unfortunately, it sounds like the damage has already been done. She taught 4th grade until the students returned from winter break. Who wants to bet this child’s parent simply didn’t like her???

I have taught for 10 years with 3 of those at Roosevelt H.S. I believe we are seeing the results of taking morals out of society. This will affect teachers and students. When the world allows anything and everything, and believes “anything goes , you will reap what you sow. As a teacher you do not have a punishment that is severe enough for a student to see the necessity to change the behavior. The worse they can receive is a suspension. Yippeee, no school for a few days. What kind of punishment is this? We are almost rewarding them. Then, our immoral students are becoming teachers. What a vicious cycle! At this point only God can help us!

Its not the teachers that are the problem, it is the lack of parenting in todays household. Parents are so quick to believe that their children are not the problem. When the children get in trouble, the parents are so quick to defend them instead of making the child responsible for their actions. Children these days have no respect for anyone or anything.

My daughter is a former (graduated) Dewey student and my son is a current Dewey student. The faculty and staff at this school are a wonderful bunch of people. I do not know this teacher personally, but I wonder what her side of the story is. I have met most of the faculty and have known them for many years now and have no complaints about their methods of teaching or discipline. I am following this story and am interested in finding out all the facts before condemning the teacher OR student in this matter.

I have worked as an educator in the public schools system for more than twenty years. I recently was move from a lower grade level to an intermediate grade level. I have always heard stories about students in the intermediate grades, but it wasn’t until I began teaching at this grade level that I witnessed and was exposed to the amount of disrespect, abuse, and lack of discipline committed by students. I have seen students hit teachers, curse and threat teachers, and physically and verbally abuse other students. Many of these students are often sent back to the classroom for “round two”. A few are often “spanked on the hands” only to return back to the “kitchen to steal another cookie”. This is the first year in my twenty plus years of teaching I do not look forward to going to class. I try hard not to think about it, but I tell myself that “today I might loss my job”. I truly feel for this educator. No one (media, school administration, state/federal government) has taken the time to find out what really and truly occurred prior to this incident. Our society is so quick to point the finger at the educator and ready to “discipline” her, but fail to “look at the student”. Will our parents/students ever be held accountable for their actions like educators are?

Although I do not have children, I chose not to be a teacher because SOME children have no discipline and it is a shame that instead of SOME parents finding out what is going on with their children in school they take the word of their unruly child. 9 times out of 10, if a child acts up at school they are surely acting up at home. Society has told children that it is not okay to be disciplined and that time out and talks are all that is needed. That is a lie. Sometimes a swat on the backside is needed to keep kids in check. I believe that if this teacher did DEFEND herself against this child it was probably warranted, because in the real world children no longer have respect for their elders or authority figures. If I was a teacher, I would be considered mean because I do not play with the respect boundaries, just ask my nieces and nephews.

I doubt this student was “returning to her seat after sharpening her pencil” and I would bet she didn’t say “excuse me”. I was so sorry to read about this happening. But my feelings turned to outrage last evening when I saw on the local news the response to this from Supt. Bourisaw and SAB President Rick Sullivan. They essentially crucified this teacher to the media. I would expect they would at least have the professional courtesy to either have no response at this time or to say that the matter was being investigated and they would respond at that time. Did they do that? Did they offer any kind of support to this accused teacher? NO! They chose to make comments like “..of 4,000 staff members in SLPS, more than 99% are fine….” blah blah blah. News to Bourisaw and SAB: Innocent until proven guilty. The newscast also mentioned how the SAB/Supt. praised the building principal “for acting swiftly to remove the teacher from the building”. Again, makes it sound bad on the teacher’s part, doesn’t it? Also, this is the same principal who is apparently stonewalling the teachers’ union investigation into this by refusing to give them any information.

My question is what will the Supt./SAB offer this teacher when she is vindicated? When this matter is investigated and it is shown that this teacher inherited this unruly classroom at the start of 2nd semester and has asked for help and received none, will a PUBLIC apology be forthcoming? Will the student be held accountable for attempting (and possible succeeding) to hit the teacher? Will the parents be made to take anger management classes to learn the art of listening to both sides before leaping into action? I am thinking that “No” is a safe answer to these questions. How I wish it were different.

I came across these comments by chance and I am so glad to see that people are thinking about both sides of the story. As a teacher, you often have to take on the parenting role as the students aren’t receiving it at home. However, there is only so much you can do and so much you can take. Really the teacher can only take time or special activities from the child and the child doesn’t learn the correct behavior. Instead, the parent shows little reaction to the incident and the child sees this as “getting away with it” and will likely repeat the behavior knowing that there will not really be any consequences. A swat on the bottom or losing privileges at home didn’t hurt the previous generations and sometimes actions do speak much louder than words. The teacher is at the school to TEACH and while there is a lot of contact and compassion within the job description I agree that the parents need to be held more accountable for their children’s actions.

The previous comments in the chain are disturbingly dangerous. I am the parent of a well behaving 6th grade student, attending SLPS for the very first time. I do agree that some children do misbehave (putting it mildly) and are disrespectful to adults. I also agree that some parents are violent and abusive. The notion that a teacher or any other adult in a school setting has the right to put their hands around a student’s neck is beyond unacceptable. I understand teachers are adults with regular stresses and frustrations compounded by THEIR CHOICE to select a career that involves working with children. What nobody wants to discuss is why the district allows a “few” bad eggs to ruin things for the entire student body. The disciplinary process is a total joke. The other issue nobody wants to discuss is that some of our teachers are borderline illiterate, immature and aggressive. My student has been subjected to profanity in the classroom BY TEACHERS, belittling with statements such as I DONT LIKE KIDS THAT’S WHY I DONT HAVE ANY, or their favorite discipline avenue, PUNISH EVERYONE ALL THE TIME! My student’s school will withhold the childrens’ lunch leaving them 15 minutes or less to eat, they will cancel events for everyone because a few are out of line. What is my child’s incentive to continue doing the right thing, when all she gets is yelling, screaming, profanity, forced to walk up and downstairs for 15 minutes or longer, denied field trip privilges, etc. Middle school is more like a corrections facility, than a place of education. I understand teachers deal with some extremely trying situations on a daily basis. If they don’t have the stamina to deal with the environment, then they should look at smaller, private schools. Of course, most of them wouldn’t be hired anywhere else due to total and utter ineptitude. And in case someone thinks of it, I have talked to the principal and teachers alike. Nothing changes, SLPS has demoralized my student to the point that she absolutely hates school.

Sandie - Your nastiness is simply amazing. While you may have had some valid points in your post, your demeaning comments negated them.