More than 50 teachers packed the Kent School Board meeting last week to implore the district to do more to provide a safe environment for students and staff.
During the public comment portion of the May 11 meeting, 15 educators and community members shared stories about violent encounters in the classroom.
“We feel we need more support from you, more support from people at the district level,” Kelli Martinez, a sixth-grade teacher at Neely-O’Brien Elementary, told the board before inviting board members to visit her classroom to see the problems first-hand. “In our classrooms, we have violence.
“Just this afternoon, I had a student pick up a chair and throw it across the room and hit the smart board just because he was upset,” Martinez said. “We have disrespect. We have defiance to staff, as well as constant disruption to the learning environment.”
Martinez said she has gone through training but it isn’t enough.
“I can’t teach in an environment like this,” she said. “I am seeking out, using my own time, to better myself so I can help these students. Our school lacks the support, as do many others. We have an outrageous number of students in crisis who need help, however, we do not have the sufficient resources to provide them help.”
Cindy Prescott, a fourth-grade teacher at Crestwood Elementary and former Kent Education Association president, said this is an ongoing issue that previously has been brought to the board’s attention.
“Some changes have happened in the past two years,” Prescott said.
The district added two classrooms for students with behavior challenges, and school principals had the choice to get a behavioral interventionist, social worker or counselor at their schools, Prescott said.
“The difficulties persist and persist at unacceptable levels as more students come to our buildings with significant challenges,” she said. “Our doors are opened to all, but to address these needs in a preventative manner – and not a reactive manner – we need more than a principal choice.”
All schools need a behavioral interventionist, who is trained specifically to help students eliminate or reduce negative or disruptive behaviors, Prescott said.
“We really cannot wait,” she told the board. “This is the time for action. The budget is being formed for next year. Please do not make your students and staff wait any longer for the support that they need.”
‘Violently attacked’
Penny Ackerson, a first-grade teacher in the district, recounted being “violently attacked” last year while trying to stop a student from hurting his classmates. Ackerson’s injuries included a sprained thumb and wrist.
“The student continued to be in my class every day, even though I was the injured party” she told the board.
Ackerson was on her way to healing when she was injured again by the same student.
“I started to work at a computer,” she said. “He came up behind me and pulled my arm behind me and ruined everything we had just spent months repairing.”
Ackerson is concerned about the affect classroom violence has on other students.
“I worry about the students that just love to go to school,” she said. “They just want to come to learn. This is why they are there, yet they have to worry about somebody running around with a pair of scissors or something like a chair and hit them over the head and be violent to them.”
Melissa Mann, who is in her second year teaching sixth grade at Pine Tree, said last year she was threatened, called names, pushed and shoved by students.
“You know what happened to the students?” she asked the board. “Nothing. I write them up. I call their parents. I talk to the principal about them and nothing was absolutely done. … These kids need to be held accountable for their behavior.”
Mann, who previously taught in North Carolina, said the problem is not unique to Kent.
“Nothing is being done across the board, no matter where you go,” she said.
In the Kent School District, behavior plans are developed and carried out by staff at each school, said Randy Heath, the district’s executive director or student services.
“There are many individuals at the building level that help develop, implement and monitor these plans including teachers, administrators, counseling and guidance staff and school psychologists,” Heath said in an email.
Following protocol, board members did not respond to the concerns during the meeting. However, Superintendent Calvin Watts addressed the matter during his report following the public comment period.
“We are not doing enough,” he said. “There are plans that have been put in place to support mental, social, emotional help. The goal was to have this in place by the end of this year. That has not happened.”
Watts said there will be more discussion and implementation of the plans at the beginning of next school year.
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