[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.

[Antonia Moore]

Physical Safety in the Classroom
Matt Baker, PE teacher at Granger, also an ALICE trainer

A lot of challenges at Granger with the different style doors they have, and doors that open in different ways, fit or not fit, etc. “It would be nice to have a set of doors that is simple and safe and locked.”

Shared images of the exit doors by the bus loop, and gymnasium doors that can’t be locked…no key for those doors, so only way to secure them is by a fire hose. Students have had tried to exit from those doors…is a blind spot without a camera

Grades 2 and up ask him questions, “What do we do if we are in the bathroom or the hallway in an active shooter situation?”
Girls restroom picture was shared as well. Students are told to kick the door shut and use a door wedge. Girl’s bathroom on the second floor has a 6.5″ gap on the bottom of the door, and door can’t be wedged shut, and the door has no handle to secure it, either. It’s a door that simply cannot be secured.

Next set of pictures: Highlights a challenge in the building of doors that don’t lock – secured through a magnet. The way to turn the magnet on is a light switch. When light switch is up, connect magnet, if flipped down, is released.

Indecent in a drill: When privacy shade rolled down, door is automatically closing, magnet didn’t actually connect because a fraction of an inch of not being flush will make it malfunction. If doors were lockable, could have used key.

We do drills to see what needs to be fixed.

Attorney from District Table wants to know who this was reported to:
Matt answered: Principal
Agawam Police Department
District Safety Officer

[Antonia Moore]

Temperatures in the Classroom
Tricia Bushey from Phelps sharing images of temperatures and studies of children having serious health risks when there is no air conditioning, students are not attending to learning, asking for drinks constantly

“It’s so hot I can barely think.”

Doctors telling students not to come to school in order to not have asthma symptoms made worse – students missing out on education

They are not learning when the classroom is over 85 degrees, and want to put children first, not to be dysregulated, distressed, or ill because of it.

[Antonia Moore]

Temperatures in the Classroom
Tricia Bushey from Phelps sharing images of temperatures and studies of children having serious health risks when there is no air conditioning, students are not attending to learning, asking for drinks constantly

“It’s so hot I can barely think.”

Doctors telling students not to come to school in order to not have asthma symptoms made worse – students missing out on education

They are not learning when the classroom is over 85 degrees, and want to put children first, not to be dysregulated, distressed, or ill because of it.

[Antonia Moore]

Paid Family Medical Leave that would not count against accrued sick days

Carla Chase speaking on the Jan. 2021 Paid Family Medical Leave that does not require district to participate, and Agawam has not.

In 2010, off-and-on, Carla’s husband experienced a tickle in the back of his throat, and at the dentist, and it was Stage 4 head and throat cancer. He was the breadwinner of the family, and he had to receive less income than he already had

Carla sent an email to Supt. at the time (Mary), and explained what was going on. Mary approved Carla using all the sick time that she needed so she didn’t have to go without a paycheck.

In 2011, when he was done with his treatments, he went for a followup head scan, and were called in right away for results, and the cancer metastisized to his lungs, 5 more tumors, and he had a prognosis of no more than two years.

Bill Sapelli was then superintendent, Carla reached out to explain the situation, and Bill gave her the option for the same deal she had last time.

People shouldn’t have to worry about depleting their finances to care for a loved one.

Mark passed away in April of 2013, but the one thing Carla knew was that she had the support of the school district to be able to fight the illness. That can’t be done without the support of a district. The last thing someone needs to do when contending with something like this is to know where the money is coming from. Husband lost the health insurance plan the last 6 months of his illness.

It is imperative that the district re-look at the number of days we are allowed to take and be paid, and to look at the twelve weeks paid leave so no one else has to go through worrying about banking enough sick days.

[Antonia Moore]

Crystal Garner read two people’s stories regarding difficult maternity leaves. One example:
Informed would lose source of income, and would have to pay out of pocket for health insurance as well – $2000
Had to return to work without being mentally or physically ready, because of financial strain
If there was a paid leave policy, she would have returned ready, eager, and focused on role
When pregnant with next child, worked until the day she gave birth, currently on unpaid maternity leave, and has used all personal and sick time as well

[Antonia Moore]

Will do!

[Antonia Moore]

Joint Proposal Discussion:

Megan Lacroix speaking about Paid Parental Leave
ABA Classroom teacher, 8 years teaching, currently at Sapelli Elementary
Current policy lets women have 8 weeks (3 years of sick time collected) of sick time for a standard birth, 12 weeks (5 years of sick time collected) for a non-standard birth, and will have to eventually make a choice of coming in sick, each child will have less time with her and her husband
Wanting to share so people listening is if they wanted to make sure
Current language is parent from household, but within same district creates issues with paternity leave, can never take sick days to bring baby to appointments or stay with baby, have to extend to a year unpaid in order to see if it makes sense in the same district
Step raises being prevented wouldn’t make financial sense to work in this district, just barely not qualifying for food stamps: ridiculous 2 Master’s professionals unable to afford groceries
Provided examples of East Longmeadow, Springfield, etc. in the state, Somerville, Quincy, Canton
Cost of teacher turnover can be as much as $300,000 for district to train, attain, and recruit new teachers filling vacant positions
There is a national shortage of specialized, Special Ed-licensed educators, and it’s expensive for the district to pay for compensatory services to provide missed IEP service minutes, paying more experienced, retired teachers if they can’t fill the position
Paid Parental Leave would prevent attrition, and make Agawam a more desirable place to work

[Antonia Moore]

Are people able to hear those speaking at the table?

[Antonia Moore]

Checking to see if anyone is in, here, yet!

[Author]

Posts