"Anger Management" Times at Moultrie Middle

The P & C's article about the knife-wielding thirteen-year-old at Moultrie Middle [Teacher Avoids Knifing] provides crumbs for thought but hardly the big picture of teacher Jennifer Robinovitz's classroom or even of her previous problems with this particular student.

Whatever the reason the boy brought the knife to school, these facts are clear. The teacher provoked the attack by "insisting" he take a test. In other words, she was doing her job.

Why do I think that this was not the first time that the student's behavior disrupted learning in her classroom? The reporter neglected to get any background on his previous behavior, but it is not much of a stretch of the imagination to assume that his "attending anger management classes" was not voluntary. That fact alone suggests a long history of outbursts in the classroom.

One only has to read the comments posted by CCSD teachers in the recent discipline survey to understand that this incident was most likely an escalation in an ongoing war between a disturbed student and a teacher trying her best to meet his needs while educating an entire class. Otherwise, why would one incident in which no one was harmed have produced charges of "assault with intent to kill, disturbing school and a weapons law violation."

There's a larger story here. I wrote about some of it in my post of March 28th. Consider some of the following from CCSD's teachers:

• The abuse of IEP and 504 documents has created a Teflon shield for the students who often drain each school of multiple resources. Many times these students receive little discipline and are readmitted when other offenders without 504 or IEP documentation would have received instant suspension and/or expulsion. At a given point, accountability and responsibility have to occur.
• The majority of the students at my school are wonderful. We have a few that have been bullying other kids for several years, and other kids are terrified of them. It is only a handful, but nothing seems to be done to these bullies no matter how often the teachers write referrals. It seems that the zero-tolerance for bullies has gone by the way side in an order to not rock the boat, and this is extremely sad for the kids that are terrified to come to school each day.
• There are too many students who are getting too many chances. Sure these students should have rights, but what about everybody who suffers because of them.
• There are several students in each classroom that can disrupt the entire class. If the students were put into another setting to address their behavior issues, the rest of the class would be free to learn. Usually at our school it will be 2 or 3 per class that stop instruction constantly lessening the material that can be covered and reiterated for the students who want to learn.
• Some students seem to be persistent offenders but we have not tracked offenses properly in order to document the intervention steps that create behavioral changes or eventual removal. Several behaviorally disordered mainstreamed students enjoy protections that encourage continuous non compliance w/ rules. What ever happened to earning one's way out of a self-contained setting or returning to that setting as the best least restrictive environment aimed at promoting educational goals and gains. Why do we continue to rationalize that the federal protections that certain students have are rights that override other student’s right to learn. Put them in the setting that protects theirs and others needs.
• I feel that there are many children that have serious anger, mental, emotional and behavioral issues that are not addressed and are left for the regular classroom teacher to deal with. These issues often take up a lot of the teacher’s time and takes away from instructional time for the students that come to school to learn. PBIS is a great program but it often does not work for the major behavior problems.

Kudos to Jennifer Robinovitz for her fast thinking. Anyone who teaches in middle school is racking up brownie points in heaven! Here's what she reports about herself.

Masters in Special Education
Trenton State, College of NJ
Bachelors in Education
University of Delaware

This is my first year at Moultrie Middle School! I recently moved here with my family from Rumson, New Jersey. I have taught in the public school system of NJ for 14 years before moving to Mount Pleasant in 2007. I have worked with students of varying ages, grades, and disabilities. I currently work on the 7th grade team at here at Moultrie.

A Jersey girl. I might have known.