Saturday, May 25, 2024

Columnist describes chaos in OKCPS classrooms

Interesting column by Annette Gorny this week in The Oklahoman. "So many OKCPS students are coming to school desperate to learn, truly wanting to be engaged with the material," she writes.

However, in my experience, the few who are swearing at their teachers with no consequences given by the school have poisoned the system. Will this be dealt with by our new superintendent? Will students who climb up on their desks and scream at substitutes until a substitute teacher walks out of that classroom and out of the school building finally face any consequence? What about the multiple other students in that classroom who will record the incident on their phones and put it on social media―will there finally be consequences for them, too?

Teachers are told they shouldn’t even dismiss these students from a classroom in the OKCPS schools. Some of their students draw truly graphic images in permanent ink on their desks, with just a little talk to them afterward by an administrator; no serious consequence. It requires high-tech scanners to even hope to keep out weapons and drugs in the OKC public schools. But those scanners don’t stop fists. And violent and emotionally compromised students still roam the halls and disrupt every class they are in, even after multiple incidents of disruption. ...

It has been truly alarming to see students back in classrooms who have committed assaults against their fellow students, and even teachers, in the public school system. If any student puts their hands on another student or teacher, you’d think they should be immediately dismissed from that public school for a certain period of time. These incidents are often visible on school cameras or testified to by multiple other students, but still a student who shoved a fellow student into a wall or down a stairwell will return to class the same day.

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