We Need to Stop Letting Students Destroy Classrooms

Let's talk about students destroying classrooms and classrooms being evacuated while a student destroys the classroom.

There was another one of these that made the rounds on social media this past week, but this has been happening a lot in recent years getting a lot of media attention when a classroom is just completely destroyed right like all the stuff is dumped out of the bins furniture's overturned stuff is ripped off the walls and presumably this is done not because no one could stop it but because there's some sort of i don't know behavior plan or safety plan or de-escalation plan like there's some idea circulating out there that this is a good thing to do that adults should let students tear up the classroom just remove all the other students and let the student tear up the classroom I think for a couple of reasons, this is something that we need to stop doing.

We need to stop letting this happen, and when it starts to happen, we need to put a stop to it immediately.

So first we'll talk about why, and then we'll talk about how.

First of all, if we let this kind of thing happen, if we let classrooms get destroyed, it creates a huge legitimacy problem.

People just do not take us seriously as a school or as a school system when we say it is our policy to let this kind of thing happen.

It just makes us look bad.

It is a policy that makes us look bad and makes parents not want to trust us with their kids.

Like, would you trust your kids to someone who let that much destruction happen on purpose?

I think we've really got to think about that.

Second, it is very traumatizing for the teacher and the other students to have to come back to that.

Hugely time consuming for people to have to clean up.

And the kids just get scared when they come back in.

Even if there was no actual violence, even if nobody actually got hurt, kids are scared when they see their classroom get destroyed that way.

And that is their place.

It is their classroom that is getting destroyed.

And I think we owe it to them to protect that learning environment, protect their work, their contributions to that classroom that they have made.

It is just too damaging to the teacher and to the students to let that kind of thing happen.

Third, I think it's a safety issue.

It is a huge safety issue for the student who is having a fit, who is throwing a tantrum, who is dysregulated, whatever we want to call it.

If a student is tearing up a classroom, tipping over furniture, they are in physical danger from themselves.

And I looked up the statistics on this.

About 45 kids a year die in furniture tip over accidents.

And about 11,000 kids a year are injured in furniture tip over accidents.

And that includes things like, you know, climbing a bookshelf and having it fall on you at home.

But sooner or later, if this has not already happened, if we are letting classrooms get destroyed by students as part of some sort of policy or plan, it is going to be the case that a serious injury or a death happens at school while a student is doing this.

And we are on the books as saying that this is our policy.

This is no good.

This is not a position we want to be in where we've created a procedure, a protocol for a student to hurt themselves with furniture.

This is just untenable from a safety perspective.

So what can we do about this?

I mean, we've got to change the policy.

And if we're concerned that the alternative is some sort of restraint or some sort of like using force against the student.

I don't think it's that complicated.

I think all we have to do to stop one of these classroom destructions is take the student by the hand and take them to the office, right?

Like it's what we've always done.

We've done this for a hundred years.

And I think probably every kindergarten teacher has done that and taken the student to the office.

And now for some reason, we're told we can't do that.

You might need one other adult to help you if the student is very dysregulated or very strong, but it works.

Take the kid to the office and tell them you can't do that.

You can't flip the furniture over.

You can't hurt yourself like this.

You can't destroy our classroom.

There is no behavior plan in which that should be acceptable.

So let me know what you think.