Amazing that "immediately expel a student who stabbed another student" is somehow controversial

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There's a good quote: "She added: 'I think you’d all rather listen to our concerns than attend our funerals.' "

Time for a die-in in the faculty parking lot at the end of the school day.

I couldn't find that quote in the article. So, I'm unsure where it's quoted from.

Um, juvenile hall? That’s what should come next

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Stoping bullies is not on their job description

How many stabbings have they had?

A walk out during mid term exams? Not saying they had a good reason or not… but students finding a way to walk out two days before a winter break? I’m shocked!

>Anytime you take a person out of the learning environment.

They are taken out of “a” learning environment, not all learning environments.

One too many.

how many is too many?

And how much is this shithead preventing others from learning? I say take him out and let others who don't stab people learn more.

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If a bully is committing violence it is absolutely in the job description for adult staff to stop it.

As a teacher, this is one of my biggest gripes. We have students with behavioral problems (not this extreme) that require near constant levels of support. I get wanting a less restrictive environment, but the conversation is always about the student with the problems, never about the other students negatively effected.

So you would let a young Jeffery Dahmer type stay in class after he tries to eat a student? Would it be a call for concern for you if he’s not learning? Are you alright?

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I know someone who teaches at Medford high school. A couple times last year, students would interrupt her class/lesson to taunt someone out to fight.

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Totally, if you stab someone (intentionally), you should be in jail.

I’m sure more studies and committees will find it’s an equity issue

Ummmm, not how that works. If a student is creating a learning environment that is actively unsafe for others, they can and will be removed. The laws are very clear and what is allowed and not allowed and what services are required.

Source: I have had students no longer in my class after being excluded from school for violence (they were provided tutoring), tutored students who were excluded from schools, and attended meetings regarding the legality of students exclusion from schools.

Yeah america should double down on how it differs from every safe Western democracy. It’s clearly born out fantastic results.

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The students reference a pattern of violence but the article is sparse on details of what that means. Does anyone know what's going on at Medford schools?

I'm a teacher and what you said is a crock of shit. If you expel a student they're sent to a different school. In a situation like this they'll be sent to somewhere with more intensive behavioral systems. I've worked at schools that had admin that resisted consequences and schools that had admins that would set limits. The schools with no consequences are madhouses. You can't teach in that situation. Students can't learn in a situation like that.

“She said the city is working to get the ball rolling on a culture and climate study as one way to address the issue.” Yes i’m sure that’s what everyone wants to hear. Good god

I just don't understand what pattern of handling violence is that they are complaining about. Knowing how each of the various stabbings has been handled would provide more insight, but the article doesn't go into that.

Wrong. It is their responsibility to maintain a safe learning environmnet. The teachers are afraid of the children because the mindset is in fact that juveniles can do anything, and teachers do nothing. And the parents of these bullies should also be held responsible. What are they doing about it? Has there been a clear effort for behavior modification? Or are they simply encouraging these scourging children?

Controversy lies in so many places in society. For some the earth’s status as an oblate spheroid is controversial. When we lend the air of “controversy” to the arguments of those who hold little to no stake in something we are being disingenuous.

I could posit that all sorts of things about which I have little stake or expertise are controversial, but that would not make them so to those with experience in the matter.

Is the use of exclusion in school discipline controversial for a whole breadth and depth of reasons? Sure is. Is the immediate exclusion of a student if that “student’s continued presence in school would pose a specific, documentable concern about the infliction of serious bodily injury or other serious harm upon another person while in school.” controversial? Nope. In fact that quote is straight out of the latest update to MA’s regulations on school exclusion, one’s which lean heavily on non-exclusionary discipline. As an educator and someone who wants what is best for my students, they (and I!) should not be forced to try to learn (or teach!) in the presence of someone who poses a specific risk of violence.

My father (principal of nearly 15 years) said his crowning achievement was separating the shithead kids from the good kids and raising test scores by some insane amount.

Had to be done slowly and in a way that raised no eyebrows. But he did it and the good/decent/on the border kids made out huge and set all sorts of records for SATs/ACTs as well as college attendance and the shitty kids are doing whatever now. They got the same classes but they chose to do nothing and are now dealing with those repercussions of their choices

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Not in 2022! Now you just get asked nicely not to. And if you do it again? We will ask you sternly. A third time? We’re gonna tell your parents!!!

We had a 17 year old steal nearly 85 cars and do a couple car jackings. He did another carjacking a week after turning 18 and he’s doing a 5 year bid.

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Is this common in those areas? Are they shanking the shit out of each other over there in those homogeneous relatively tiny nations with almost zero similarities to the United States?

There have probably been dozens of fights over past year leading up this involving the same group. This stabbing doesn’t happen in a vacuum and probably isn’t a surprise to anyone involved.

I got suspended for a week for stopping a fight by hugging the kid that was stomping on a near unconscious kid, so that was the end of my teaching career.

Sweet Jesus did you read the first two paragraphs!? You would be standing there at the trial of Galileo going, “dude we get it, but those guys keep yammering on about geocentrism, the controversy is real!”

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Your pedantry is astounding. Your ability to contextualize less so.

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It seems that the student who was stabbed, thankfully, suffered only a "minor chest injury" and the student who did the stabbing was immediately taken into custody and the police won't remark on the charges which, I'd guess, is due to laws protecting children from having their criminal records exposed publicly? Maybe a lawyer could confirm.

It seems everyone in this thread is assuming that the stabber was just allowed to go back to class and the police weren't involved, but like, when someone gets stabbed, the police get involved. I don't see anything about the stabber getting released from custody and/or returning to class in this article or any of the ones linked from it.

No, there was no profiling involved. They made their decisions and chose their paths. He always felt for them but he still never stopped trying to show them the right way despite what their parents had taught them. He once gave a kid his own leather belt when he told the kid he’d be suspended for having sagging pants and the kid began to cry. He asked why he cried and he said he had been asking his parents for a belt for a long time but they couldn’t afford one. So my dad gave him his.

Lo and behold this kid suddenly found a role model in my father and used to show up 2 hours prior to school (when my dad showed for work) and would stay an hour late just to be a gopher and learn life lessons.

By senior year he was earning grades that were going to get him in to college. Walked across the stage wearing the same belt he was gifted 3 years prior.

Yet another point on the board for controversy.

> I get wanting a less restrictive environment, but the conversation is always about the student with the problems, never about the other students negatively effected

It's $$$. School systems could send the children who exhibit violence - the ones who stab, the ones who throw chairs, the ones who grab others by the throat - to alternative schools with supportive staff who are experts in this field. But it costs more so they roll the dice that there won't be too many Colleen Ritzers or student victims.

We want amazing, incredible schools, yet we want low, low taxes. We want amazing public transportation and infrastructure for private transportation, yet we want low, low taxes. We want Mass and Cass to be safe and homeless free, yet we want low, low taxes. Etc, etc, etc...

We want an incredible society that runs smoothly, yet we half-ass everything.

It doesn’t say anything remotely close to that in this article?? What are you talking about

Well, we used to have newspaper staffs that would fight to get more of that story, yet now we have "The Patch."

There's no "job description" for teaching. It's just whatever the new thing is you are supposed to do plus all the old things. Whose got a new acronym? We'll be doing it in a month if Newton or Lexington tries it first. Doesn't even have to work, just has to be something admin can check off as "done/did/tried" on the 5-year plan.

However, anti-bullying regulations have been a law in MA and faculty do have to deal with it.

> a culture and climate study

Administrations love a good "study" as a way to push off what needs to be done as long as possible. Got to get all the stakeholders points of view, right?

Not sure you want their job right now dude, but they need all the help they can get. You may want to send them an open letter.

Dude, they could cut class any day. When they cut class together it’s poetic if not self-serving. But after stealing, cutting class is the coolest crime.

Not just the mindset, it’s policies and enforced rules. Kid punches teacher = temporary consequences. Teacher safely restrains or even touches the wrong violent kid = career over.

Requiring a hands-off approach protects the district from paying out workman’s comp claims for staff injuries and protects from lawsuits when a kid with involved parents is handled roughly. Besides, shit kids are plentiful while licensed educators are scarce. Best not take unnecessary risks and leave 180 students suddenly without a science teacher, over a fight that would have ended one way or another. That’s the thinking.

school administrators are so desperately out of touch with how schools work that they do dumb shit like this survey. a girl did blackface when i was in high school and went viral and they showed us an “motivational video” during an assembly in response. i’m not surprised teachers are quitting, dumb shit like this wouldn’t make me want to work anywhere.

As a former resident, my friend's daughter goes to Medford High School. She was terrified for her and her daughter. She saw the video and multiple other kids recordin it on their phones. IMHO stabbing someone in the chest should always be attempted murder, but justice and punishment should be applied based on age and other conditions.

I think the primary issue at hand is that someone got stabbed at school.

I would guess that that's the primary issue that the students and parents are talking about, yes.

However the top comment chain here on reddit is about what outrageous it is to not punish the kid and "this is what happens when you defund police", which is completely unfounded outrage based on OP's link because the kid was, in fact, taken into custody by the police.

If you read the links in the article, this kid was taken into custody but police are not commenting on what they plan to charge them with. I imagine, partly due to laws preventing the criminal record of minors being made public information. Just guessing at that last part though.

Why do parents and students always blame the school instead of themselves? It's the students causing an unsafe learning environment not the school/teachers.

Do admin love studies? I'm not sure you can really claim that. You need to do a study before you can say that.

There was a big to-do about some people complaining to the school committee about expelling the student, and the school committee said they couldn't comment on any specific actions. Expulsion isn't controversial, but people want to know it happened. The law prevents anyone for the state saying that. People will talk, obviously, and they're allowed to, but this may be in relation to that.

A study… Jesus.

I'd imagine the same thing that's going on at most high schools... constant fighting in the hallways. At the school I work at on the south shore, we have fights almost every day. It's exhausting, like the whole school is in a pressure cooker waiting for something to trigger an even bigger explosion.

I’m just curious - who is causing the fights every day where you work?

• Is it random kids who are otherwise great students with no behavior issues?

• or is it a small subset of problem kids who are difficult to manage?

Yes this does cost money.

And yes, lots of folks are misers and losers who aren’t willing to find schools properly to deal with the problem kids.

But - Mass did just vote for a 9% surtax on incomes over $1m to raise a few billion for more education funding.

I’m gonna have to agree with you.

Stabbing/shooting someone is a line that everyone knows you don’t cross.

It’s not a push, a shove, or even a punch.

You stab someone, or you pull a gun in school…that ought to always be your last day in any public school setting.

Little of both at my school. We definitely have a core group of kids that are constantly wandering in the hallway, cutting class, and meeting up to fight, but there's also been a lot of random kids who are normally fine that get involved. It used to be that fights would be over big issues that bubble over in a planned way ("meet me at the flagpole/bleachers/parking lot" type fights) but it seems like now, these fights are breaking out are over basically nothing and are instant reaction kind of fights - like fighting is first response, plan A when someone feels disrespected even in a small way instead of "resolving" an ongoing feud (does that make any sense lol)

Interesting.

Do you think the pandemic and isolation/home-schooling made kids less able to navigate social conflict?

Strip away teachers’ capacity to affect discipline for lower level offenses and kids - being kids - will keep pushing the boundaries until someone gets stabbed.

Given your history of shit takes on just about every topic, we can all be glad you're not teaching. :)

I mean, context is key.

And in today's "zero-tolerance" culture, context is often overlooked.

Medford High is a magnet school.

Wont somebody please think of the bureacrats?

If its anything like my experience going to school in dorchester, its a neighborhood thing. Kids from Neighborhood A fight kids from Neighborhood B, fight kids from Neighborhood C, etc.

You have a kid with no father nor male father figure...a mother who works 2-3 jobs and is never home...he gets in trouble at school, what does he have to fear?

He gets arrested? Immediately adds to his clout. Who is going to discipline him? Who does he have to fear?

If the legislature holds current budget levels and ADDS that money in, we can attack some of these therapeutic and socioeconomic needs. I'm still cautious that it becomes new money in to maintain budget levels.

Zero-tolerance policies often tie the hands of teachers/adults from even touching students on the shoulder to pull them away from a fight.

Even more reason why we should hire armed teachers who are trained police officers and thus exempt from these zero-tolerance policies.

Yeah teaching to the test sucked and I felt like I was doing the youth a disservice… and my feelings were apparently correct!

Plus I couldn’t fathom demanding to teach through a screen and pretending I was on the right side of history.

Then we can do a deep data dive and realize our method had flaws, so a second, more comprehensive study is needed next year.

I think that's definitely partly to blame- kids in high school now missed out on in person middle school, which is one of the most important ages with social development, especially around mature conflict resolution. That combined with how limited schools are with what we're allowed to do to discipline misbehavior has a LOT of kids feeling like they can do whatever they want and not have any real consequences (and for the most part, they're right).

Mayor: isolated incident (I'm just gonna lie as long as I can to keep my job)

Teachers cannot do this. They are not the instrument deemed appropriate to legally deal with crime. Police are needed. Arrest and expel the violent kids. Put them in jail or reform school or whatever. It's fair, and it will really improve the school in every way.

Personally, my number is 3

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This was a tough read. But it seems very much in-line with what folks who work in schools are saying.

I agree that the school systems need help. What do you think would make a positive impact? What is needed to change things for the better at this point?

Medford is in shambles on the gov level. It's unreal what has happened in that city

Tell me you’ve never been a teacher without telling me you’ve never been a teacher.

Remember kids, when violence threatens, you do not call Shanti Sena, you become Shanti Sena

Schools have rightfully been concerned about contributing to the prison to school pipeline but they have veered completely to the other end of the spectrum where there is no accountability whatsoever for students. It’s an anything goes environment. Kids are not dumb, they know there are no consequences.

As a former teacher in two urban school districts (quit my job earlier this year), students who were real hazards to others were constantly let off the hook. One student would constantly sexually harass other female students; he would touch them and corner them if he ever found them in a hallway or room alone. The most that was ever done was a couple days of in-school suspension and then he is back to the classroom afterwards.

We have created a perverse system of incentives for schools. The feds look at suspension data, especially based on race and IEO status. Principals have gotten around this by deciding not to suspend anyone at all. Everything falls on the teacher’s shoulders to handle.

Similarly, my experience has been that we have over-interpreted “least restrictive environment” for students to mean that every student should be placed in a general education without really addressing the issues at hand. “Oh hey Mr. History Teacher, here is this student who we are transferring to your class because he was physical with a student in his previous class. Anytime he needs a break, call the counselor and social worker. Just make sure you don’t call too much or it’s going to be marked as needs improvement on your evaluation.”

And I am not saying that everyone needs to be suspended. To be honest, I’m not sure that solves much of anything. But I do think, if we are going to try this, we need to fully fund schools so they can get appropriate levels of staffing for counselors and crisis responders. I do think there is a happy medium where we are not excluding kids (although there are some who I think will benefit from a separate placement) from their peers, but also making sure that students with severe behavioral needs are getting the support they need.

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This has been an ongoing problem. School administrators are in a tough spot yes of course but this is literally what they are there for. To administrate the school system in a way that allows for safe learning conditions. Safety is an absolute fundamental and should be one of the first focuses. If we can’t keep them safe, how can we expect children to actually retain any information? But no, they’d prefer to let things slide and just tough it out until the problem kids and their victims graduate and then the cycle begins anew

Right on. Well thought through response.

This usually just results in more cops in schools and kids being treated like prisoners. Enjoy the metal detectors and random searches kiddos

Did you forget about the million+ people that died? Little Johnny can go to therapy for his anger issues. But you can’t bring back the dead

There are plenty of kids from well off families that do stupid, violent shit too. Enough with the fuckin stereotypes

No one takes accountability for shit anymore

Well off families don't send their kids to Medford High.

I don't know why you want to see more kids shot to death in school.

There would be less kids shot in schools, with increased police presence.

I think they lack the nuance needed to implement their vision of the organization in a pragmatic, effective way. I think there is a divide between the teachers and administration. Fearing the parents’ rage in PTA meetings, administrators push impractical, weak reprimands for violence, and teachers, fearing for their physical safety from the students allow things to occur so as to not fall victim to the unhinged students

And yet the real estate is crazy there because it’s a “safe” town 😉

The demographics of Medford are changing pretty rapidly toward higher income people

Despite all the evidence to the contrary?

Or what? You’ll stab him?