Kansas schools are back to in-person classes after the pandemic, but students have come back rowdier and more prone to behavioral blow-ups.
In Wichita, the school year began with several large brawls and weapons arrests. In Shawnee Mission, high school principals have reported many ninth-grade students behaving more like seventh-graders. Across the state, school officials report more fights between students and more violent attacks on teachers.
“Pushing, shoving, hitting, slapping, throwing items,” said Jackie Tabor, a teacher at Harry Street Elementary in Wichita. “The amount of … physical violence has increased so much.”
Educators blame the rise in unruly behavior, in part, on the COVID pandemic. Long stretches of online learning meant limited socialization followed by adolescent students adjusting to life back in the classroom. A report by the National Center for Education Statistics showed that about 85% of public schools say students’ behavioral development has been negatively impacted by the pandemic.
David Smith, a spokesman for the Shawnee Mission school district in Johnson County, said school board members plan to address the issue during a workshop in May.
“There has been … an increase in disruptive behaviors and a change in the types of behaviors” since before the pandemic, Smith said.
But what to do about it? That’s tricky.
Teachers’ unions want consistency and a tougher approach to misbehaving students, including the right to remove unruly students from class.
“At one school, there may be a student who’s disruptive and it’s handled in a totally different way than another school,” said Katie Warren, president of United Teachers of Wichita. “What we’d like to see is a menu of options and accountability measures, where everyone knows how we’re going to handle certain behaviors.”
Union leaders also want more slots at alternative schools like Wichita’s Gateway program, which serves middle and high school students who have been suspended or expelled from their assigned school.
“If our students are not being successful in the general education setting, then we need to find somewhere else that can meet their needs,” Warren said. “Maybe they need a slower pace, or one-on-one attention, or more counselors.”
But that requires more staff and more security — which translates to more money.
School leaders say booting kids out of school only makes a bad problem worse. They try to limit out-of-school suspensions and expulsions, in part to reduce racial discrimination in schools. Research shows students of color are suspended and expelled more often than white students for similar offenses.
“Our mission … is not to remove or kick students out of school,” said Gil Alvarez, deputy superintendent for Wichita schools.
A new task force of teachers and district leaders is studying student behavior in Wichita and brainstorming ways to improve it. Before that group’s first meeting last fall, the teachers’ union collected more than 100 anonymous testimonials from school employees. Only three reported no concerns with behavior.
