Reflections of an Author
Submitted by Frank Murphy, Oct. 19, 2010
In yesterday’s installment of Confessions of an Urban Principal, I described one parent’s concern that another child was bullying her son in his class. The bully in this case was a special education student who had been identified as suffering from serious emotional problems. He was a new student who had recently been admitted to the school. In schools like Meade, where there are many transient students, it is not an uncommon event to have the climate of the school seriously disrupted by the sudden arrival of a deeply troubled child.
This situation described above is illustrative of the complexities of dealing with these disruptive students. The aggressive behavior exhibited by the special education student towards the other child was a manifestation of his disability. Therefore our student support team needed to develop a positive behavior plan for him. The purpose of this plan was to help this child to redirect his actions in a more socially appropriate manner. Of course this is not what the parent of the child who is being bullied wanted to hear. She wanted her son to feel safe and the bully to be punished.
Dealing with bullies and the fall out from their actions is difficult. In the weeks and months ahead, other examples of how bullies wreck havoc on a school community will be described in the regularly posted installments of Confessions of an Urban Principal. Some of these bullies are students, others are parents, and regrettably, a handful of these people are school district employees.