Reply To: 03/27/25 Meeting

[Antonia Moore]

Physical Safety in the Classroom – Student Dysregulation
Kristine Dion from Clark:

Students yelling at teachers and peers, climbing furniture, ;punching each other, threatening teachers and peers, stealing, swearing, going into teachers’ personal items

Staff do not feel safe. Some have been hit, some have been bruised. Students have been hit and slapped.

Lots of hold in places, several times a day. That is distracting to learning, and prevents students from accessing other parts of the building.

Disruptive and hard, taking away from teaching time.

Counselors, teacher leaders, and members of crisis team are spending hours deescalating students, and many of them provide Tier 2 and Tier 3 services, and SEL counseling that they cannot do

Many students are developing anxiety, and there is an increase of behavior from children as copycat behaviors

Educators are filling out forms, documenting behavior, having collaborative meetings, emailing parents, etc. on top of teaching responsibilities

Despite all of this, educators come to school with smiles on their faces and help and support each other, but it;s physically and emotionally draining. Many people are leaving or thinking of leaving. Amazing people keep leaving our district. People are leaving because of this.

John – Special Educator at Phelps

Experienced physical violence from students, placed in harm’s way, dealing with intense behavioral crises

Classroom destruction is common, and in extreme situations of bodily fluids weaponized against staff

It’s hard to accept these behaviors as part of our job – is this the standard we want to accept for Agawam Public Schools? Is this a therapeutic program? How can you support your dedicated staff to have a safe environment in the midst of such behaviors? How can you justify the burnout?

The emotional toll of managing youth mental health as a teacher while taking on other responsibilities as a teacher is really heavy.

The list goes on and on. So much time outside of contract hours reporting and documenting. We need to rework the expectations and find a balance between addressing student needs and keeping students and staff safe.

We need more training.

Tonya Shraplak:

Some of the challenges faced are headbutting, stabbing with scissors, throwing chairs, punching, hitting, strangling and biting

These present real risk to the safety and wellbeing of everyone involved
Students have torn up materials and destroyed property. Students have ripped off their own clothing or others, students have spit blood and saliva, attempts of suicide, picked their noses and tried to infect teachers with Covid 19, doors slammed onto teacher’s hands, and eloping.

Teachers and paras are feeling real fear: entire classrooms are evacuated, emotional toll is immeasurable

This is not just a student issue, and the biggest cause of this crisis is some staff are not being trained to handle these situations effectively. If we are trained, there is not enough staff to address all issues, calling for support with no one responding multiple times a day.

It is time to make a commitment to fully train out schools, and negative behaviors are addressed with compassion and clear structure. Every teacher should teach without fear.