Parsons USD 503’s proactive model in dealing with students’ disruptive behaviors at the elementary and middle school levels is drawing the attention of other schools in Kansas as the positive results are shared.
Eighty-seven percent of public schools (nationally) reported that the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted student socio-emotional development during the 2021–22 school year, according to data released today by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). NCES is the statistical office of the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES).
“Similarly, 84% of public schools agreed or strongly agreed that students’ behavioral development has also been negatively impacted. Specifically, respondents attributed increased incidents of classroom disruptions from student misconduct (56%), rowdiness outside of the classroom (48%), acts of disrespect towards teachers and staff (48 %), … to the COVID-19 pandemic and its lingering effects.
“When you take a year or year and a half out of learning social norms and being in classrooms, and home environments were different, that was a big adjustment for a lot of kids,” Garfield principal Barney Pontious said.
Secondary and primary administrators from other districts visited Parsons schools last semester to see how Parsons’ operates recovery rooms created within every elementary school and the middle school following COVID.
“I think the district did a wonderful job with the timing of that because it really ended up being a positively timed intervention,” Pontious said. “Recovery rooms are not as unique as some might think, but it is a practice that is utilized differently in some places.”
Prior to every school having its own recovery room, students were sent to an area in the classroom, the counselor’s office, or the principal's office. Ongoing disruptive behaviors could result in students going through the SIT (Student Intervention Team) process, being assigned to the transition room located at Guthridge.
“If their behavior was impeding the learning of others, teachers would try classroom management, but if it had gotten to where their behavior was too much of a distraction, they would send them to the transition room,” ETR teacher Kelly Bedore said.
“The goal was still to get them back to the regular classroom, but it was more of a formal placement” Pontious said. “Time wise, it wasn’t so easy to bump in and out.”
One of teachers’ number one goals is protecting the structural environment, so the recovery rooms now allow them to provide that at times without going through a formal SIT process that might take weeks. They may not need all the formality of a team referral, disciplinary measures or consequences.
Commitment to trauma informed and trauma responsive practices has led the schools to understand the way they were using the elementary transition rooms versus the way they now use the recovery rooms.
“Now, it is basically the same goal, but we have recovery rooms in each building, which has allowed us that proactive access to it, which is much more successful on an individual student basis, as we are on a daily basis taking care of those problems as they arise. Maybe a student just needs it for 30 minutes, not a placement,” Pontious said. “So really a problem behavior in a classroom is a skill deficit. Students don’t know how to cope with whatever feelings they are having. They are struggling with their math assignment and they don’t know how to ask for help. They’re just social practices they haven’t learned yet, things like that. Our staff are working with them and teaching them those strategies, teaching them different responses to target behavior.
“If students are not regulated, it is like talking to a brick wall. We can’t talk at them. We are not helping them learn a new strategy to cope. It’s then just an area where we are trying to punish the behavior out of a student and that does not often work. Once they know better, they typically do better.”
At the elementary level, recovery rooms are essentially a classroom in and of themselves. They are staffed all the time with a recovery room teacher or recovery room aides. For the most part, they are an area where the expectation is essentially non-academic. It is primarily behavioral.
“When behavior becomes disruptive in the learning environment we can utilize the recovery room. It is a safe space where the student can go to get themselves regulated and ready to learn,” Pontious said. “ If we don’t have regulated students or regulated staff, teaching and learning is impossible.
“It is still important to have a safe space in a classroom, still important to have that calm down corner/area in the classroom,” he said. “The types of disruptions we can address in a recovery room are different. It’s like a Tier II intervention.”
Recovery rooms work in a lot of different ways. At the elementary level Pontious said, in addition to the positive culture and environment in the building, “We use it to prevent disruptive behaviors first and foremost. We’re proactive.”
For example, he said, they can use the room for what they call a soft start. If a student has trouble in unstructured environments at the beginning of the day, like eating breakfast in a cafeteria full of other students, they can eat their breakfast in the recovery room or start their bell work there and then move back to the classroom.
“That is not a punishment thing. It is not punitive in any way. It just gives them a place to start in a different location away from people in case they are having trouble,” Pontious said. “We have very few soft starts, but have a handful. They just need a place to regulate and be ready to learn.”
The rooms are also used for positive time - proactive times throughout the day where they schedule a student break from the classroom. Students may go in there and work for 15 minutes on a lego project, finish a coloring sheet, just talk to the recovery room personnel, or they may finish their math or reading depending on the student and what they need for their own personal learning.
Pontious said the third thing the rooms are used for is unscheduled breaks for students struggling to regulate or do their work.
“We try to make those positive. Those are kind of ‘if then’ breaks. ‘If you can regulate then you can come back to class. If you can finish your reading assignment then you can have some positive time in the recovery room and then come back,’” Pontious said. “If we see a student who is consistently having to take a break from the classroom to calm down or who needs regulation time, it’s perfectly fine. It’s a tool for that. That’s what we want to use it for and sometimes those are directed by the teacher.
“We also have a lot of students who use it as a tool if they feel they need to let off some steam or feel they aren’t ready to handle something for the next few minutes. They can have a signal with their teacher. They can have a code word and a behavior plan. That is proactive and we can prevent the disruption from happening,” Pontious said.
The fourth way the room is used is to place general education students in the room as a full-day or part-day placement if their behaviors are a detriment to their learning. They rarely assign students to the recovery room on this basis, but sometimes they do. It's temporary, typically 10 days. Students work to begin earning back points and once they earn above 90 points on their day they start transitioning back into their classroom.
It’s just kind of a break from that environment for a while to get them back on the beam and headed in the direction they need to be,” Pontious said. “We don’t have to do that often, but on occasion we have to. Some students do really flourish in that environment. It’s just a lower pressure way for them to show they can be successful in the classroom.
“It really has done its job as far as what we see here at Garfield,” he said. “Students are fairly successful with their reintegration. We want to protect our structured environment as much as possible, while trying to use those positive and proactive things in the recovery room and those restorative things where we can talk about what is going on.”
Pontious said teachers are highly receptive to the recovery rooms and the ability to use them in a variety of ways now. He said teachers really enjoy the ability to give the student a break because sometimes, especially with 7, 8, 9 year olds, that’s all you need is a little break.
“That’s the beauty of the recovery room,” Pontious said. “ It may just be that a student needs a moment to get themselves together and they will be fine the rest of the day. Everybody is human and sometimes we just need a break. That goes for students and teachers. If you miss 15 minutes of instructional time but when you come back you are ready to access the rest of the instructional time through the day, the tool worked and it worked well. We’ve seen a lot of good results with it. The ultimate goal is they want children in the class learning and the recovery room allows them the process to do that.”
Students face different challenges and traumas at different developmental levels in their lives that school staff need to be able to address. This year the district moved Bedore to Parsons Middle School, where the primary goals remain the same, though there are some differences in the recovery room process.
“You are not going to get any academics out of them until you can get to the behaviors,” Bedore said. “These kids would be the ones that would end up in OSS (out of school suspension) or long term suspended or end up dropping out. The goal is to get them building those relationships and get them the tools they need to cope with the behaviors. We teach coping strategies and tools to help them stop and think.
Bedore said she uses various restorative practices and how she works with each student
looks different, as students cope in different ways.
One difference at the middle school is they have students fill out a form, a questionnaire they answer, with questions like: What could I have done differently? Why do I think I’m here? Why am I here? (because sometimes what they think and what they actually did are two different things.)
“They fill out a trigger sheet. What are the things that push my buttons and what can I do to fix them?” Bedore said. “We do a lot with zones of regulation, so we can determine what zone they are in and what they need to do to get out of that zone, so there is a lot of opportunity for them to stop and reflect about what they have done, instead of them just coming down there, being mad and then going back. We won’t send them back until I feel like they are regulated. So we are trying to get them to recognize what upset them in the first place so they can learn their own strategies,
“I’ve seen a lot of success,” she said, of the recovery rooms, and the rarity of students needing long term interventions. “It’s such a good outlet to give kids another opportunity before they end up suspended, to help them learn those coping skills and strategies while still being in school every day, instead of just being suspended and missing out on that educational time which is so valuable.
“Staff is learning how to better accommodate kids and learning strategies, as well to help these kids cope, to keep kids in the classroom. I’m so glad the district puts so much focus on trauma informed practices to teach us so we can teach the kids.”
Bedore said it is especially rewarding to see the changes in the students as they progress from grade to grade. She said she sees students who were struggling at the elementary school level who are now thriving in middle school.
“It is so rewarding to see we made a difference,” she said. “Of course it wouldn’t work without our wonderful aides.”