Office-Managed vs. Classroom-Managed Behaviors
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder explains the critical distinction between behaviors teachers should handle in the classroom and behaviors that require administrative intervention.
Key Takeaways
- Clear categories protect everyone - When teachers and administrators agree on which behaviors go where, the system works efficiently
- Low-level behaviors stay in the classroom - Talking out of turn, minor noncompliance, and similar issues are teacher territory
- Serious behaviors go to the office - Violence, threats, possession of weapons, and persistent defiance require admin response
Transcript
Should you have to call parents before sending a student to the office?
Well, I think there are two major categories of behaviors that all schools need to be very clear about, and administrators and teachers need to be on the same page about what is a classroom-managed behavior and what is an office-managed behavior.
Because if there is a low-level issue or maybe an academic issue that can be handled between the teacher and the parents, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to send a kid to the office for something like that.
Like, if a student is...
you know, not really doing their work or if there's some sort of problem with homework or maybe kind of a low-level behavior that's not really stopping class, then of course it makes sense to talk to the parent directly.
As a classroom teacher, to pick up the phone after school or at a convenient time and talk to the parent and kind of get a plan together.
The administrator can't really do much in that situation if the teacher and parent haven't connected because the administrator knows the least about the whole situation.
But I think it's absolutely essential to have clear office managed behaviors where there's no expectation that you will call the parent first, right?
Like if there's a fight, if there is a huge disruption to your class and something just really major happens, you don't need to call the parent first.
You need to call the office and have that student dealt with in the office by administration.
And I'm seeing some confusion about this.
I'm hearing a lot of people say, well, my administrators require me to always call the parents first.
When anything occurs before sending a student to the office, it's like often this is just a huge disruption to learning and the parent and teacher can't do anything apart from administrators on handling something extreme at that level.
And I think we've just got to be clear about that.
So if you don't have a list of classroom managed versus office managed behaviors, I would strongly encourage you to create one.
It's not super difficult, and it can be pretty much just a list of the more extreme behaviors that need to be the office-managed behaviors.
But let me know if you're hearing this expectation that you always need to contact the parent first.
It's time-consuming, right?
It takes a lot of time out of class to stop what you're doing and give students something to keep them occupied and then go and pick up the phone and call the parent during class.
And then what is the student supposed to do after that?
You called the parent.
Did they get to just stay in class after throwing something or getting into a fight or whatever serious behavior it was?
Like part of the point of sending a student to the office is that the student is no longer in the classroom.
So I think we've got to push back against this idea that you always need to contact the parent before sending a student to the office because some stuff is just extreme and we need to be able to skip over those, you know, those intermediate steps that we might put in place for more low level behaviors.
Let me know what you think.