A recent article published in The Bend Bulletin revealed shocking descriptions of disruptive student behavior. The accounts were provided by teachers, counselors and other staff working in the Bend-La Pine School District, the fifth-largest school district in Oregon. Their experiences were chronicled in a survey the Bend Education Association sent to its union members to hear their concerns about disrupted learning and the impact it has on their ability to teach. The district, which is currently under contract negotiations with the union, has created a task force of teachers, counselors and administrators to address this problem. It has also invested $12 million to reduce class size and expand mental health programs for students. Noemi Arellano-Summer with The Bend Bulletin joins us to talk about her reporting on this issue, and what’s being done to address it.
Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Teachers and staff in the Bend-La Pine School District say they are in the middle of a full blown crisis. Some students are out of control, throwing chairs, overturning desks, climbing shelves. Others are just checked out. It’s like teaching in a war zone. One teacher noted that is all according to a survey done by the Bend Education Association which got responses from almost 90% of certified teachers, counselors and other staff. The union shared the results of the survey with a district back in February. Noemi Arellano-Summer of the Bend Bulletin reported on it recently. She joins us now to talk about what she has learned. Noemi, welcome.
Noemi Arellano-Summer: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.
Miller: I want to start with the results of the survey. One elementary school staff member said, “These rooms being destroyed are common. A second grader climbed the bookshelves of the library as if they were ladders, threw books off the shelves, upended tables and chairs and cleared off entire displays. Destruction of the library became so common that we have to keep the doors locked.”
What else did you learn from the survey?
Arellano-Summer: Overall, I’d say teachers have had a really difficult past couple of years and they need more help from the administration. Even with some of the supports that are already in place, teachers don’t feel like that’s enough. They’re working really hard, they wear a lot of hats. But disruptive learning environments are still a really big challenge right now.
Miller: How did the experiences of elementary and secondary school teachers, meaning in middle school or high school teachers, differ?
Arellano-Summer: Elementary teachers, more so, noted that their students are physically disruptive. There were a lot of survey responses that talked about shoving and hitting, furniture being turned over, things in that vein. Elementary students who weren’t causing the disruptions were also noted to be more anxious and sometimes afraid to go to school, worried about what might happen.
Secondary teachers, more so, noted that their students are either unmotivated to learn or also highly absent. There’s a high degree of absenteeism, especially in high school right now.
Miller: A secondary school teacher responded to the survey with this comment: “I fear that the systems we’ve put in place to help students navigate the disruption caused by the pandemic have only led to decreased accountability, increased anxiety and ultimately a diploma that doesn’t mean anything anymore.”
What did you hear from teachers about the main causes driving these disruptions?
Arellano-Summer: One high school teacher who, unfortunately, didn’t make it into the story told me that he feels students have spent the past two years really not being engaged at all. So the pandemic has definitely exacerbated a lot of these issues.
At the same time though, this isn’t a new problem. The Oregon Education Association took several years to write a study that they released in 2019, essentially that this is still a really big problem and has been for many years. Elementary teachers also referenced that they feel their students have undergone a lot of trauma, whether that’s personal, something from the family or from the pandemic in the past couple of years.
Miller: You also talked to a high school student. What did you hear from him?
Arellano-Summer: He was definitely aware that absenteeism was a problem. He told me that he thought this was the lowest attendance year he could remember. His big concern, though, was vandalism in the bathrooms. He was very upset that the day I spoke to him, the previous week, one of the bathrooms that he used most frequently had been closed because of all the frequently furled toilet paper everywhere, towel dispensers being knocked around and turned upside down.
Miller: I want to go back to this survey. When did you first hear about it?
Arellano-Summer: So I attended the February board meeting and the union President, Sarah Barclay, came up and spoke, as did one of the elementary school teachers. And they both referenced the problems that they’re having in classrooms. The elementary school teacher specifically referenced that her classroom was right next to a private road. And several students had basically escaped out the back door and ended up in the road. And the extremity of that incident definitely made me sit up and think “this is something I need to look into?” And when I learned that same night that there was a survey with all of these stories about disrupted learning, I knew I needed to dig into it more.
Miller: How did you get a hold of it?
Arellano-Summer: I filed a public records request with the districts and acquired it through them.
Miller: When they released the results of the survey to the board in February, the Board President Sarah Barclay said this: “We are asking you to take any immediate action available to you as a board. Based on this information, we cannot continue in this direction. It’s not sustainable or ethical. Please help your certified employees by providing any immediate relief you can deploy and join us in rolling up our sleeves to find effective midterm and long term solutions that allow us to get back on track to the important work of educating our students.”
An elementary school teacher who responded to the union’s survey said this: “I believe that all students have the capacity to learn, to grow and to become an integral part of our community. We need to meet students where they are and provide them with the support needed to learn. Children are not currently getting these supports.”
What supports are available right now?
Arellano-Summer: I would say that the district definitely is aware of these problems. In the past couple of years, they’ve expanded their Student Success Program into every school in the district, which is a big improvement from the past couple of years. One notable increase is they had a program in three elementary schools and now they have a program in all 19. They’ve also recently partnered with an organization called Care Solace, which helps to find mental health providers for students, family members and staff.
Miller: How has the district used an increase in state money from the Student Success Act?
Arellano-Summer: So they first went to the community to ask how we, with all this funding, should use it. And the overwhelming response was for more mental health support. So it was a mix between using about half the funding to set up the Student Success Program, which meant hiring over 60 staff positions. And then the other half was used to hire more teachers in order to reduce class sizes.
Miller: One of the support systems that you reported on is known as the Bridge Room. This is at Pilot Butte Middle School. Can you give us a sense for what they’re doing there?
Arellano-Summer: Sure. The Bridge Room is particularly meant to help students who need a lot of support in both calming down after an incident has occurred and also just in getting excited to learn. So the student success coordinator, Megan Noster, usually starts the day with some kind of community activity. Students are in and out of her room all day. They check in by sharing where they are emotionally by using a scale and she works with them on different types of skills. It could be something like breathing techniques or helping them get organized. This is her second year and she said she’s really proud of what she’s accomplished so far.
Miller: I want to read another comment from the survey. An elementary school staff member said this: “Schedules have been worked and reworked. We’ve tried everything. We do not need more training. We do not need more tools in our kits. We need people.”
The union and the district right now are in contract negotiations. Do you have a sense for the role that these disrupted classrooms are playing in these negotiations?
Arellano-Summer: I can say that a lot of the survey responses indicated that teachers really felt they needed more time. There were a lot of references to teachers not having time to eat lunch or having to get up early in the morning to do work or bring work home. So in their initial proposal, the union asked for more days: more prep days, more days for leave, an extra day at the end of the year for just wrapping up classrooms or wrapping up report cards.
Miller: We reached out to the district and got a statement from Superintendent Stephen Cook. I’m going to read it in full.
He said this: “Our staff members have been clear in expressing their concerns about disruptive student behavior. We are listening and working with them to resolve this. Generally, we see robust instruction and engaged learners in our schools and classrooms every day. We also know that many teachers here and in school districts across the country are struggling with how to respond when some students upset the learning environment including unsafe outbursts. We are committed to safe environments in our classrooms for both students and educators. At the same time, all students who enter our doors have a right to a free and appropriate education. Balancing these needs is truly a challenge and we have taken on this challenge with our task force of three dozen staff members and administrators from Bend-La Pine schools. This team will continue to work on these issues for as long as it takes. We are determined to make a difference for our teachers, our students and families and everyone who serves our kids.”
Can you give us a sense for what this task force is doing?
Arellano-Summer: Sure. I would say the task force, honestly, has just gotten started.
Their first meeting was in May and their second meeting is actually today. So the first meeting was very much focused on trying to figure out what is the current situation in the district right now. Today’s meeting will focus on trying to find initial solutions and places where they can put them into practice.
Miller: Meanwhile, the broader context in districts around the state right now is that they’re dealing with declining budgets and which could mean some pretty painful budgeting decisions. Is that the case in Bend-La Pine as well?
Arellano-Summer: Yes. The executive director of Student Services did tell me that they don’t have all the money they would like to have. So he does think there will be cuts.
Miller: What are you interested in reporting on next at the district?
Arellano-Summer: Well, graduation’s coming up and the Spanish Dual Immersion Program has graduates this year who have gone through the entire program from kindergarten to 12th grade. So I’m definitely really excited about talking to those students and learning more about that program. I’m also interested in looking at the high absentees and rates in secondary schools.
Miller: Noemi, thanks very much.
Arellano-Summer: Thank you.
Miller: Noemi Arellano-Summer is the school’s Youth and Families reporter at the Bend Bulletin.
Contact “Think Out Loud®”
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show, or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983. The call-in phone number during the noon hour is 888-665-5865.