ADDISON COUNTY — Beeman Elementary School parent Morgen Doane had a clear message for the Mount Abraham Unified School District Board at its March 26 meeting: She and other parents are worried students and educators aren’t getting the support they need.

Instead, they get emails from the school about “clear the classroom” events almost daily, they said.

Doane told the Independent that classroom evacuations take place across grade levels at Beeman, though largely in the first-grade class. Room evacuations are sometimes used when a student is exhibiting disruptive or dangerous behavior. 

“We have heard stories of teachers asking for help with students and not getting it,” she told the board, reading from a letter co-authored by around 30 fellow parents and community members. “We’ve heard stories of students having (special education plans) ignored. We’ve heard stories of parents trying desperately to get their kids help and nothing is done. We’ve heard stories of students ending up in extreme, emergency situations directly related to overwhelmed teachers.”

Schools across the country are grappling with an uptick in student misbehavior exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Addison County’s learning communities are no exception. 

Other local school boards have heard similar accounts in recent weeks. The Independent last week reported on a rise in student behavioral problems in Middlebury-area schools, and educators’ request for help.  

“I’m sure we’re not the only school having problems with dysregulation in students since COVID,” Doane said at the Mount Abe board meeting. “But since our school is what we know and what we see, this is the one that we can speak to.”

CONCERNS AT BEEMAN

Doane, the mother of a kindergartner, told the board her concerns stemmed from a rumor that the school’s first- and second-grade classes would be reorganized into two combined first- and second-grade classrooms in the upcoming school year. 

She said she and other kindergarten parents are content with the class’s current makeup, and asked school and district administrators not to change it. 

“We all wrote a letter and asked our principal and superintendent to please keep our class together to continue to grow without the constant ‘clear the classroom’ interruptions that we get emailed about almost daily,” Doane told the board. “We received a very anti-climactic response that made it clear that we would not be part of the discussion for the class layout, and neither would the teachers.” 

She told the MAUSD board that the situation has prompted Beeman parents to share more of their concerns with one another.  

“We’ve heard stories of students in urgent counseling because they don’t understand the explosive mental stress their peers are going through,” Doane said. “We’ve heard stories of parents who have had to make the tough decisions to pull their kids out Beeman because no one will listen to concerns and no one will help. The more we talk to people, the more disturbing it becomes.” 

Several Beeman parents reached out to the Independent to express their concerns of a lack of support for students and teachers at the New Haven school. 

Sarah Louer has a six-year-old son in first grade at Beeman. 

She said her son has had a difficult year and only struggles when he’s at school. 

“We don’t see this at home,” Louer told the Independent. “This is a kid that has chores, and helps people around the house, and takes care of the animals, and gets on the bus, and the minute he walks into the classroom it all goes out the window.”   

Louer feels her son’s behavior in school is a result of the surrounding environment. 

“The (first grade) room is very chaotic, and he easily melts down and then he flees. His behavior has been identified as ‘escape,’ so he gets stressed out and he escapes,” she explained. “He doesn’t have a developmental disability. He doesn’t even have a learning disability. It’s all related to his environment.” 

LACK OF SUPPORT 

She noted her son has trauma related to past food insecurity and neglect, and as a result, feels nervous about his environment. 

“This class has several children like my son who have some trauma in their history, and the school is well aware of it,” Louer said. “They know the needs of the kids in the classroom, and, in my opinion, the district leadership continues to not allow, financially or otherwise, the supports that are needed in that classroom.” 

Louer said her son would benefit from a one-on-one aide or support from additional adults in the classroom.  

“They’ve identified that he does better when he has an adult in the room that he can access for extra support, but they can’t put an adult in the room because he doesn’t qualify for a one-on-one,” Louer said. 

She feels her son and other students are suffering from a lack of additional support in the classroom. 

“They’ve set people up for failure, and the people that they’ve set up for failure are our children,” Louer said. 

Louer said she’s reached out to district officials for guidance on how to better meet her son’s needs in school.  

“I just want someone to tell me what to do for my son,” Louer said. “Does this mean alternative education? Does this mean going to the school board? Somebody help me figure out what I need for this kiddo.” 

She said the process for navigating special education services and options for additional support is arduous and confusing. 

“If you’ve got a kid that goes right through the world, you’re fine, but if you’ve got any little issue, it’s exhausting as a parent,” Louer said. “I have put hours and hours into this with no results.” 

Louer said a behavioral support plan was created for her son but thus far has not been fully implemented, in part due to staff being stretched thin. 

She said she feels Beeman staff are doing all they can, and acknowledges that MAUSD, like many other districts, has wrestled with staffing shortages. 

“I don’t expect them to pull staff out of the sky, or come up with $3 million more, but why not look at what you have and how we can make that work best for all kids, or most kids,” she said. 

Staffing challenges are one of several area administrators face in working to meet student needs and respond to misbehavior (see related story).    

Another Beeman parent told the Independent she has also struggled to get needed support for her first-grader. 

She said her son has previously misbehaved, which resumed this past fall after a positive summer break. 

“Around October he started to have some behavioral issues again,” the parent explained. “There was no rhyme or reason to it, and no one could figure it out.” 

She said her son’s behavioral issues coincided with emerging health problems. Her son would become irritable at school and, without a fulltime nurse at Beeman, she said it became increasingly difficult to keep her son in school. 

The parent said she ultimately pulled her child from Beeman in January and began home-schooling him. A month later he was diagnosed with diabetes. 

“I don’t think it was Beeman’s fault,” she said of the situation. “I feel bad that I didn’t catch it sooner either.”  

The parent said her child returned to Beeman earlier this month and that it’s been a challenge to ensure her son has the support he needs in school, such as a fulltime nurse. 

“In terms of his education in a public school setting, Beeman has a really hard time getting the support it needs for students across the board,” she said. 

PARENTS HOPE TO HELP  

The parent noted her son is one of several who’ve struggled in the first-grade class. 

“It’s been kind of a really tough class though we all think the kids are superb,” she said. “We love them. They’re all a bunch of tiny humans that want to have fun all of the time.” 

She joined other parents in noting that Beeman teachers are doing what they can with the resources available, and that administrators at the school are stretched thin, balancing responding to student misbehavior with other responsibilities. 

She said she and other parents want to be a part of finding a solution for students who need more support. 

“Parents want to help in these communities and in these small community schools,” she said. “There’s a real divide of, ‘If this class is so hard and we can’t get support, what can we do?’ Those solutions are often not presented or if parents present them, it’s really challenging to implement those.” 

The parent said she’d like to see an increase in communication and transparency from district officials, as well as a more community-focused approach to addressing students’ needs. 

“Beeman seems like it’s surviving and not thriving. We’re hoping next year is better. We always hope next year is better,” she said. “There’s hope, but it just seems it’s going to be a long experience there if we don’t feel everyone is thriving in the community.” 

The request for more communication between district officials and parents was one echoed by Louer and Doane in her message to the MAUSD board. 

“We are a group of determined parents who are asking how we can help, how we can support, and what we can do to fix these problems, and the beginning of the solution is communication,” Doane told the board.