help with some special ed kids/behavior
Hi all.
This year I am a 7th grade resource (special ed teacher). Half the day, I have the same group of kids in my room for reading, language arts, and math. The other half of the day, I have co-op classes (I'm spread really thin throughout the whole grade level).
In my resource classes I have 8 or 9 kids depending on the period. For the most part it is the same group for those classes, so I see them all three times a day. One of the kids, Tim, is a repeater and should be in 8th grade. He is a bully and an instigator and he is constantly running his mouth. When he is not in class, we have really quiet lessons and get so much done. But when he's there, there's two other boys trying to impress him, and I literally spend half the time redirecting, moving seats, documenting these issues on writeup forms, etc. Also, it doesn't help that Tim does not have a working parent contact phone number. I have not been able to reach anyone at home for the entire month we've been back to school so far.
Last Friday (so a week ago) he finally reached step 4 with PBIS. So I was able to send that documentation plus a writeup form to the office. Nothing has been done but I guess he has a "hearing" today about it. I am not really feeling optimistic that he will even get ISS over it. So it's like...I don't even know what to do next if admins don't do anything. I talked to one of his other teachers, and she said she had also turned in a 4th step on him last Friday. So if I'm not the only one, I at least know it's not a classroom management problem. But I still think its ridiculous that it is taking a week (maybe more) for anything to be done.
I have already done the following:
-Verbal warning
-Moved his seat
-Had our discipline guy pull him from class and chew him out
-E-mailed other teachers about his behaviors
-Attempted to call home numerous times, but no working #'s
-Written down anything and everything he does that is disruptive
-Taken away privileges (like if the other kids get to work with partners and he isn't doing what he needs to, he has to do seatwork by himself)
-Tried positive reinforcement, which is my usual classroom system, I have cones with compliments on them which I put on desks if the students are working quietly and doing a good job, then at the end of the week they get stickers on a sticker chart toward a treat, sometimes if he's actually working and I give him one it makes a difference, but not often. The whole class also has a marble incentive, where if everyone has a great day of being on point, I put a marble in a fishbowl and 40 marbles nets a celebration. However, they only earn these a couple days a week, mostly because this kid makes other kids be horrific sometimes.
-Two of the boys that try to impress Tim are on the football team, so one day the coach came in and smoked them really bad for not doing what they are supposed to do. Yesterday I shot him an email because all day they were fooling around and they have missing assignments and IMO, do not show the character they should be in order to be on the team.
I just feel awful because I have kids in there that are trying to learn and trying to work their way back into regular classes, but they are suffering because I have to focus on this one kid so much. It doesn't seem fair to them. Also, now Tim is sitting there running his mouth, trying to point out anything other kids do because he feels like he's the only one getting written up. Which isn't the case but it's also none of his beeswax. He doesn't realize that by doing that he's just giving me more ammo to put in his documentation pile.
Finally, yesterday, we were doing a vocabulary activity, where they had to change words to adverbs by adding -ly to them. We talked about the exceptions where you would add -ally or just -y to them. There was 10 words they had to change and then use them in a sentence. These kids damned near had a riot, saying they didn't know how to do it. They said they had never seen those words before, ever (even though we just read a short story where they were used). I told them go back in the story and find them. They refused. I gave them example sentences with the words. They asked if they could copy those for their work. I said absolutely not, they need to come up with their own. Then they said the point of the small class is to get more help and I'm not doing my job. They just would NOT shut up. I am appalled that they seriously expect me to come up with sentence for them. They were not hard words, either. They were words like "nationally" and "chaotically." Although I didn't let it show, I was extremely hurt by all this. I feel like it's less helpful to give them answers than to ask them to figure it out on their own. They would learn nothing if I did everything for them.
So. I have 9 more months with these kids. What can I do to fix all this? This is my 7th year teaching and I consider classroom management one of my strengths, but man, oh man this is rough.
This year I am a 7th grade resource (special ed teacher). Half the day, I have the same group of kids in my room for reading, language arts, and math. The other half of the day, I have co-op classes (I'm spread really thin throughout the whole grade level).
In my resource classes I have 8 or 9 kids depending on the period. For the most part it is the same group for those classes, so I see them all three times a day. One of the kids, Tim, is a repeater and should be in 8th grade. He is a bully and an instigator and he is constantly running his mouth. When he is not in class, we have really quiet lessons and get so much done. But when he's there, there's two other boys trying to impress him, and I literally spend half the time redirecting, moving seats, documenting these issues on writeup forms, etc. Also, it doesn't help that Tim does not have a working parent contact phone number. I have not been able to reach anyone at home for the entire month we've been back to school so far.
Last Friday (so a week ago) he finally reached step 4 with PBIS. So I was able to send that documentation plus a writeup form to the office. Nothing has been done but I guess he has a "hearing" today about it. I am not really feeling optimistic that he will even get ISS over it. So it's like...I don't even know what to do next if admins don't do anything. I talked to one of his other teachers, and she said she had also turned in a 4th step on him last Friday. So if I'm not the only one, I at least know it's not a classroom management problem. But I still think its ridiculous that it is taking a week (maybe more) for anything to be done.
I have already done the following:
-Verbal warning
-Moved his seat
-Had our discipline guy pull him from class and chew him out
-E-mailed other teachers about his behaviors
-Attempted to call home numerous times, but no working #'s
-Written down anything and everything he does that is disruptive
-Taken away privileges (like if the other kids get to work with partners and he isn't doing what he needs to, he has to do seatwork by himself)
-Tried positive reinforcement, which is my usual classroom system, I have cones with compliments on them which I put on desks if the students are working quietly and doing a good job, then at the end of the week they get stickers on a sticker chart toward a treat, sometimes if he's actually working and I give him one it makes a difference, but not often. The whole class also has a marble incentive, where if everyone has a great day of being on point, I put a marble in a fishbowl and 40 marbles nets a celebration. However, they only earn these a couple days a week, mostly because this kid makes other kids be horrific sometimes.
-Two of the boys that try to impress Tim are on the football team, so one day the coach came in and smoked them really bad for not doing what they are supposed to do. Yesterday I shot him an email because all day they were fooling around and they have missing assignments and IMO, do not show the character they should be in order to be on the team.
I just feel awful because I have kids in there that are trying to learn and trying to work their way back into regular classes, but they are suffering because I have to focus on this one kid so much. It doesn't seem fair to them. Also, now Tim is sitting there running his mouth, trying to point out anything other kids do because he feels like he's the only one getting written up. Which isn't the case but it's also none of his beeswax. He doesn't realize that by doing that he's just giving me more ammo to put in his documentation pile.
Finally, yesterday, we were doing a vocabulary activity, where they had to change words to adverbs by adding -ly to them. We talked about the exceptions where you would add -ally or just -y to them. There was 10 words they had to change and then use them in a sentence. These kids damned near had a riot, saying they didn't know how to do it. They said they had never seen those words before, ever (even though we just read a short story where they were used). I told them go back in the story and find them. They refused. I gave them example sentences with the words. They asked if they could copy those for their work. I said absolutely not, they need to come up with their own. Then they said the point of the small class is to get more help and I'm not doing my job. They just would NOT shut up. I am appalled that they seriously expect me to come up with sentence for them. They were not hard words, either. They were words like "nationally" and "chaotically." Although I didn't let it show, I was extremely hurt by all this. I feel like it's less helpful to give them answers than to ask them to figure it out on their own. They would learn nothing if I did everything for them.
So. I have 9 more months with these kids. What can I do to fix all this? This is my 7th year teaching and I consider classroom management one of my strengths, but man, oh man this is rough.