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Health & Fitness

One Parent's View: 'Scream Rooms' At Farm Hill School

Serious concerns are being raised about the disciplinary strategies at Farm Hill Elementary School.

 

On Monday, January 9th, The Middletown Eye published two letters. One was from the former Farm Hill Elementary School PTO President Apryl Dudley to Mayor Drew. The second is a blanket email sent out by Superintendent Michael Frechette as a response to the accusations of assault, abuse, destruction of property and misappropriation of discipline. 

Not addressed in Frechette’s response is Dudley’s allegation that “scream rooms” are being used as a means to restrain out of control students.  You can read the full article here.

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Curiously, in Dudley’s letter, she seems less outraged that teachers are in such a desperate position that the need for such extremes is even necessary and more concerned about the fact that so called “good students” are being disrupted.

She says: “There is something unsettling, knowing that a child is hitting their head against walls and urinating everywhere, then only to be let out and put back in classrooms with our children.”  Right.  Because the problem is not that a child was just put in solitary where they inflicted bodily harm.  The problem here is we don’t want these wild animals unleashed into our classrooms with the “good kids”.

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Dudley doesn’t clearly specify who the not-so-good students are although one gets the feeling that she’s lumping everyone together, from hoodlum to a child affected with any range of special needs.  Perhaps Ms. Dudley doesn’t mean to do this but it’s clear to the reader that any child that causes any sort of disruption in school is considered bad by her standards because it affects the growth of all the "good kids".

Mr. Frechette addresses this concern by assuring Ms. Dudley that the problem is not really the special needs population.  It’s the general population that’s the problem.  This means it’s less often about an autistic boy or girl who need to stim and more about a child who’s parents haven’t managed to teach him or her the value of self-control.

Where everyone (including me, not that I have a dog in this fight) agrees is that something is wrong here.  There is something wrong if the police have to be called to your school every day. There is something wrong if there are stretchers lined up in hallways.  There is something wrong if teachers are in fear of their students. No parents (good or bad) want to send their child to a school where they aren't learning and are in danger!

School should be a place where everyone feels safe, where there is a system in place that protects everyone’s rights.  While seriously misguided, Ms. Dudley has a point about the importance of safety in schools.  If a child is so disruptive that he has to be locked in a concrete cell or strapped to a gurney, some intervention is clearly needed and that help should be offered regardless if it’s a special needs or general population child.

I say this in the name of fairness.  We’re talking about a PUBLIC school here.  And public means that it’s open to everyone.  And guess what? In our own ways, we all have special needs. That’s the inherent challenge of running a public school.  It’s a tough job to be able to manage the needs of a wide range of students.  Period.  There’s no room for black or white extremes in a public school setting.  A school that wants only “good kids” or only smart kids or only tall kids or only talented kids or only quiet kids or only autistic kids is not a public school simply because such exclusivity would not be an accurate representation of our society.

Ms. Dudley goes on to say in her letter that the school is in danger of losing many of their “good families” because it can’t seem to get a handle on these problems.  There is again an obvious line drawn in sand here between the “good families” and while not formally called so by Ms. Dudley, the “bad families.”  But she didn’t say that. I read between the condescending dripped lines.  She and I clearly have differing views on what makes a person “good.”  I personally do not define judgmental intolerance as “good.”

If you choose to send your child to public school or have no means for other options, you have to accept that your child will be in a melting pot of personalities and that we all have a responsibility to help the school make sure that everyone’s need is at least heard and hopefully met. We all have to practice tolerance and compassion.

How about we start with learning those values ourselves and setting an example of working together and being patience and accepting of all people.  And if that’s not good enough for you, you can take your thousands of dollars a year you pay in tuition and move that to another school of your choosing.  What is that you say? You don’t pay thousands of dollars of years for public school and you can’t afford it?  Well you see, that’s called reality honey. It’s hard and requires us to put up with things that we don’t always like.  Welcome to the jungle.

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