When a student with one or more disorders has a collapse, teachers are limited in how they can respond. They must interrupt everyone else`s education and evacuate the classroom while a disturbed student gets out of control. In a letter to Fusco, Runcie promised that every incident of violence would be investigated. He said the school district “will not tolerate any violent behavior in any form in our schools.” School after school, students rush into violence. They stab or beat teachers. They throw away furniture. They persecute and attack classmates, turning classrooms into dangerous areas where the rights of violent students with disabilities outweigh all others. Jamison Jessup, a behavioral analysis professional at Orange City, said that if schools had highly trained staff dealing with misconduct with scientifically proven techniques, students with behavioral disorders could enter general classrooms. Some people oppose such modern approaches, based on ideas from decades ago, he said.

While most students with disabilities are not a danger, classroom violence has reached a new high, according to Anna Fusco, president of the Broward Teachers Union. Even students who beat the teacher, walk out of the classroom or torment their classmates aren`t always disciplined, the Sun Sentinel found. State and federal laws guarantee these students a place in regular classrooms until they seriously injure or maim others. Even the threat of shooting classmates is not a legitimate reason to expel the child. Even in the days of school shootings, violent and disabled students can be immediately reprimanded in special schools. Florida has gone even further, requiring parental or judge approval before a child with a disability is transferred to a special school with more therapeutic services and smaller classes. He was obsessed with a girl in the class, looked at her, demanded her attention, and tormented her when she held her back. One day, out of the classroom, the boy kept crying and shouting the girl`s name and repeatedly throwing himself against the classroom door, the teacher recalls. It is no longer clear who should stay in the general classroom – and who should not.

Teachers with years of experience say they have never seen the kind of “breakdowns” they see now. No one knows what`s behind it: food additives, environmental toxins, violent video games, trauma? “Our children shouldn`t have to be in the same class,” he said. “You can`t prioritize the rights of this violent individual at the expense of anyone else around them.” In classrooms, teachers said they were stabbed to death with pencils or scissors. They were beaten with desks, chairs, fruit and water bottles. Students spit in the face or mouth or in their coffee. This changed with the adoption of IDEA. The law does not require every student to be integrated into a regular classroom, but this must be the first consideration. Florida`s goal is for 85% of students with disabilities to spend most of their school day with non-disabled peers.

When asked how the district could improve conditions for potentially violent students and their classmates, she replied, “Our approach is case management for a holistic understanding of what is needed for the student and the community. What we urgently need most is better funding and alignment of resources so that more staff can provide intervention and support services to students and families, both inside and outside the school day. A west broward High teacher had to get an injunction against a student who had attacked her — and only then, she said, was he removed from her classroom. Not all children can succeed in general education classes; Educators know this, but the student can stay there for months while the documentation for the withdrawal is created. “I had to leave my classroom several times because I and the other students in the room had dangerous situations,” one teacher wrote. “I spent my year trying to prevent students from hurting and discipline others so I couldn`t get through a lesson. I spent my days writing daily notes, keeping data, and writing nearly 40 [disciplinary] recommendations. . The students had to endure the abuse of other children. No child should come to school and have to deal with it. It makes me terribly sad.

“She just said, `Mom, I can`t study in class when kids throw things and say terrible things to a teacher and no one does anything about it,`” Valko said. In a middle school, a child “screams, screams, curses teachers over and over again.” “She turns the offices over. She took her long nails and scratched a teacher`s face as she pushed him into the door,” the investigation said. He wrote a report and presented it to the police and the administration. She was suspended for three days and returned to his classroom when he asked to remove her permanently. “Students with violent tendencies have more rights than students who put them at risk. The Sun Sentinel also sent an email to teachers in the public school system in Broward, the nation`s sixth-largest school district, asking them to speak privately about what`s going on in their classrooms if necessary. Many have done so. “If anyone thinks it prevents schools from expelling violent and disruptive children, then it should definitely be looked at,” he said.

Other parents flee public schools and send their children to private or charter schools where violent students are not welcome, according to the data. Theresa Bennett, who has been a teacher for 44 years, began a crusade to eliminate violent students before that even happened in Parkland. The shooting, she believes, should take a fresh look at the law of the 1970s — much like the 9/11 terrorist attacks sparked a new look at air travel. “In addition, a student whose withdrawal from a general education classroom would have been involved in a multi-level support system that uses data-driven planning and problem-solving tailored to the students` learning needs. The review of the interventions performed, the accuracy checks performed and the data obtained when using this support should also be taken into account in the potential planning of lessons and placements. The downside today is that the law treats a student with a serious behavioral disorder in the same way as a harmless student with Down syndrome and orders that it be taught in regular classrooms unless it proves impossible. Florida lawmakers didn`t think about violent students when they unanimously passed the 2013 law. The federal law had a noble purpose when it came into effect more than four decades ago, long before the ranks of violent students swelled. He ensured that students with disabilities received an education in the same classrooms as their peers, a practice known as integration. “The collapses are going to be extreme,” she said. “Now it`s the total destruction of a classroom.” “You can`t take the child out of the classroom,” said former teacher Patrick Jovanov. “You can take him out of the classroom for a day, two or three, but the child comes back.” Children with behavioral and emotional difficulties have been used in general education for decades, Fusco noted.

But it is only in recent years that violence has prevailed. Most of the time, but not always, she said, the abusive student has “some kind of etiquette” under special education. Months can pass as teachers fill out forms and collect data to justify a transfer to a special therapeutic school: has the student today threatened to kill someone? Did the student disturb the class by shouting profanity? Knock over furniture? Escape from the classroom without permission? Tearing up a classmate`s homework? Pushing someone down the hallway? The utopian classroom would feed students of all abilities, under the vision of the law. A child with emotional outbursts would attract help at a young age, and therapies would address the cause. Her daughter was not violent, but she behaved inappropriately and felt uncomfortable at school. Betsy “Miss B” Budrewicz, a teacher at Broward, said the pendulum had swung too far, so the rights of a few violent people could outweigh others. Lisa Maxwell, executive director of the Broward Principals` and Assistants` Association, said in an interview that violent students need a full-time assistant, psychologist or psychiatrist with them all day. Special education is a “critical shortage” for teachers in Florida, according to the Florida Department of Education. Only 11 percent of teachers in Florida are certified in special education, according to the agency`s latest statistics. Still, most Florida teachers have special education students in their classrooms. .

A child with special needs who threatens to shoot at a school, for example, does not commit serious bodily harm in the eyes of the law, said Weatherly, the lawyer. “I tried to wave a flag,” she said. If something happens in the end, “I`ll feel a little guilty.” A “living student” pushed an educator`s neck into a windowsill. A student`s behavior plan, included in a 2016 Sun Sentinel court order, asked teachers to clean the room “quickly and quietly so as not to pay attention [to the student].” Teachers were advised to protect valuables and “not try to convince [the student] to follow the rules.” Educators now believe that childhood trauma can trigger intense anxiety or “toxic stress” in children, which can lead to mental illness. .