Brittany Krzak said she was at her wit's end by the time she showed up to a Lorain City School District board of education meeting in March.
Her daughter's kindergarten classroom at Toni Morrison Elementary was a chaotic mess, largely driven by misbehavior by two students: Shoes being thrown, vulgar language hurled at the teacher and a scary incident involving a student chasing her daughter with a pair of scissors.
"There was a substitute there, and she's trying to shield the kids as he's chasing them around with these scissors," Krzak told Ideastream Public Media. "She pressed the panic button. Nothing's done, parents aren't informed, you know. And to me, if you have to press the panic button, everybody should be informed... But nothing happened, and this child still remains in the classroom."
These stories echo others parents and teachers told at several board meetings in February and March. Students interrupting class time with outbursts, "destroying" classrooms, and even harming teachers. And much of it is happening at the elementary level at Lorain.
More broadly, in surveys across the country, teachers have reported a significant increase in student misbehavior and mental health challenges over the past three years since their return to in-person classes.
Superintendent Jeff Graham acknowledged the district's issues in an April interview but declined to comment specifically on the incident involving Krzak's daughter. He said the district has made investments in staffing that have led to a lot of progress in halting problematic behaviors at the high school level over the last three years. But now, the lower grades are the district's biggest challenge.
What's happening at Lorain's elementary schools?
During the March 10 board meeting, Karen Rossi, the regular teacher for Krzak’s daughter, who’s been with Lorain for 34 years, said she was hit in the back hard by a student, warranting a trip to the doctor.
"Our little babies are getting traumatized. They're coming to school seeing their teacher hit," Rossi said. "Coming to school, seeing kids hit, kids chased with scissors. And I try everything. I'm old school. I believe in positive, but I believe there has to be consequences."
Julie Garcia, president of the Lorain teachers union, in an April interview said Rossi isn't the only one.
"Teachers have been, I don't want to use the word assaulted, but I have a teacher whose wrist got broken. I have a teacher who had their foot stomped on where their toes were broken," Garcia said.
Ideastream Public Media spoke to six Lorain schools parents to get a better idea of the issues facing their children. One common takeaway from each interview was parents did not believe students were being given adequate consequences when disrupting classes, bullying other children or for other negative behavior.
Ashley Sherman said she watched her middle-school-aged daughter's grades, and desire to attend school, drop after she reached middle school and began to deal with unregulated classrooms, avoiding fights in the hallways and vape smoke in bathrooms.
"Her grades were going down because the class is so disruptive," she said. "The teachers don't single out the actual students who are causing the problem. They will punish the whole class. If someone doesn't be quiet, then everyone gets more work. She will almost be in tears because she couldn't catch up and she couldn't pay attention in class."
Deborah Otero, the mother of two Lorain students, said her 10-year-old son's behavior has gotten worse after watching other students act out. She said he was diagnosed with ADHD and autism at a young age, and was sequestered to a classroom specifically for students with serious behavioral problems.
"He was getting violent, punching and hitting, like watching the other kids trash the classroom. That's what he started doing because he didn't know any better," she said.
He's now at a specialty alternative school called PEP Willow Creek in Grafton, an alternative school inside a day treatment center run by the nonprofit Positive Education Program. Lorain contracts with that facility to send its students with the greatest special needs, but Otero said the environment there is chaotic as well.
"He thinks going to school is a battleground, like he can't even function in a normal school setting," she said.
Samantha Mata, the parent of four students at Frank Jacinto Elementary in Lorain, said her children have experienced serious issues with bullying that have largely gone unaddressed. Her first grade daughter has been shoved and spit on by a girl who regularly bullies her, while her third-grade son also was chased by an older student wielding scissors in the hallway. She said those students continue to act out despite her best efforts to seek help.
"My daughter, she loves to come to school. She's to the point now where she doesn't want to go to school, she's coming home and she's being angry at home because this is her safe place," Mata said. "I don't wanna see her end up going crazy and getting in trouble because nobody wants to fix the situation."
Andrew Wiley, an associate professor of special education at Kent State University, said behavioral issues have long been a problem in schools across the country. But the pandemic removing children from the structure of classrooms made things worse, especially at school districts serving high numbers of students from low-income households like Lorain.
"In places where there are stressors like poverty and then other things like that, there's long been research on a connection between poverty and also child mental health challenges," Wiley explained.
Wiley said a tailored plan is federally required for students with behavioral issues and mental health challenges. That's called an IEP, or Individualized Education Program.
Krzak said she struggled to get her son's attention-deficit disorder adequately recognized in the classroom. She said that means some children could be going undiagnosed and without support at school.
"What if they (misbehaving students) need an IEP or something? What if there's something that they're acting out because they don't understand? I've pushed for two years for my own child and have been shut down until I called for a meeting and had the superintendent and everybody there," she said.
What's being done about the issues?
Lorain Superintendent Jeff Graham says the district, like others, initially used pandemic relief funding from the federal government to increase support staff. He said their plan was to "overwhelm" schools with support.
"We brought in, and we hadn't had this before, we brought in assistant principals to all of our elementary schools, brought in guidance counselors to all our elementary school, we brought social workers, K-12, we brought behavior coaches," Graham said.
Ideally, Graham said those employees are meant to work with teachers and parents to come up with a plan to address problematic behaviors, with specific attention paid to students who are struggling the most. Graham acknowledged the district has had issues communicating how teachers can actually get the help they need, however.
"We talk to people and they say, 'well, I didn't know,'" he said.
Meanwhile, the district is implementing a new curriculum for the youngest grades.
"We changed our approach to teaching preschool. It's more activity and play-based learning and a lot of different activities involved," Graham explained. "And that's demonstrated tremendous growth academically as well as behaviorally. And we're doing that same thing for our kindergartens next year."
For the most extreme behaviors, Graham says the district does punish students. But Ohio law restricts schools from suspending or expelling students below grade three under most circumstances. He also says research doesn’t back up that those “exclusionary practices” work at any grade level.
"To continue to send a kid home who has struggles and needs supports in school and wraparound services, those issues just never improve," Graham said.
Research supports "positive behavior intervention" as a good model when trying to prevent misbehavior, Wiley said, which Lorain and most public schools use. That involves rewarding good behavior and providing escalating levels of help for students who demonstrate more serious issues, things like counseling and potentially sending them to specialized classrooms.
But that approach falls flat unless several conditions are met: That schools maintain a safe environment overall, that there are still consequences for bad behavior, and that parents are part of the solution.
"There should be an expectation of safety and orderliness, right?" Wiley said.
Garcia, Lorain's teachers union president, said parents have been a missing piece of the conversation at the school district. She said many families are dealing with a lot at home.
"We need some counseling, outside counseling, maybe some familial counseling," she said. "You know, some parents I'm thinking may be throwing their hands up too. Like, 'I don't know what to do with it when he melts down this way.'"
Funding challenges
Brittany Krzak said she’s seen progress after speaking out. Her daughter’s classroom now has more help with two teacher aides, and things have calmed down. She said she wishes more classrooms would get that help.
"We've got to get more people in there to help these teachers, to help the kids," she said.
Garcia said there's just one behavioral coach for elementary-grade schools and one for the high schools, who are meant to work with teachers on an individual basis to address students acting out.
"Yes we have a behavior specialist, but we have one for 10 elementary buildings," Garcia said. "And she's phenomenal. And the poor girl is just running herself ragged. It would be nice if we could get another one, but again, back to funding, you know?"
Graham said Lorain has managed to keep its expanded staffing after pandemic relief funding ended. But the district’s last levy attempt in November failed.
And that’s not the end of Lorain City School District's money worries. Ohio schools are facing the prospect of reduced state funding under Ohio House Republicans' proposal for the next biennial budget. That proposal does not continue the Fair School Funding Plan, which provides expanded state funding for schools based on costs of educating low-income and students with disabilities.
Lorain schools would be deprived of an additional $28.6 million in funding over the next two years under that proposal, according to one analysis. Graham said the district has already cut about $10 million from its budget, which included a severance package to encourage teachers to retire.
Finally, the federal government cut nearly $1 billion meant for mental health support in the classroom in April. Fears also continue to persist among advocates about further federal cuts to programs that fund students with disabilities, and provide extra money for districts with large numbers of low-income students.
