South Dakota Republican House Majority Leader Scott Odenbach has posted his update for the first week of the legislative session with a message critical of South Dakota’s education system, going after the people that lobby in Pierre for schools as well as declaring that catering “to the bottom portion of the behavioral spectrum” has gone on long enough:
SCHOOL DISCIPLINE AND PUBLIC SCHOOL LOBBYING
Finally, a word on public school discipline and lobbying. This week we began to also hear bills in committees. The education committee heard testimony and voted on HB1017, a much-needed bill brought by our Department of Education meant to address the behavior crisis faced by too many of our classroom teachers and students. I attended, and testified in favor as a proponent. After hearing much opposing testimony, the committee ended up voting to defer the matter to another day for more discussion.
The essence of the bill states: “A school board may assign a student to receive instruction in an alternative setting for aggressive or violent behaviors that disrupt the school or that affects the health or safety factor of the school or its program.” Simple common sense, right? Well not so fast.
As a former school board member, concerned taxpayer, state representative and someone who cares about applying common sense to enhance the welfare of our teachers and students, I was shocked listening to the opposing testimony by the public school lobbyists purporting to represent school administrators and large schools.
Their testimony was basically that we cannot address the crisis in classroom behavior until we first spend untold millions of additional dollars on everything from new student treatment centers to cater to the troublemakers, to new programs that provide “training to parents.” Their vision for the size and scope of the “education” system puts them totally outside their lane, essentially wanting lawmakers to spend taxpayers into oblivion on side-projects before addressing an issue that is having immediate and ongoing negative impacts on the classroom experience of so many of our kids who do want to learn, and on the overworked teachers tasked with making it happen.
What message does it send to young people in the classroom when we go to superhuman lengths to cater to the bottom portion of the behavioral spectrum while ignoring the unique needs of all others in the process? This has gone on long enough.
Informed citizens and taxpayers need to wake up and be aware of what kinds of things are being said in Pierre by those claiming to speak on your behalf. The positions taken on most issues by the public school lobbyists leads one to conclude they think the “system” would do a better job raising your kids then you would – if only we’d fully fund it. Their efforts too often frustrate the ability of policy makers to address major problems – such as HB1017, which sought to finally address violent school behaviors that are literally putting kids and teachers in danger.
Read the entire facebook post here.
It seems like we’ve gone from the goals of the federal “No Child Left Behind” act in 2001, which increased focus on achievement gaps, especially for minority and low-income students, to asking ourselves “which kids is it ok to skip because they’re a tough kid?” As the parent of a child who from very early on has been a participant in special education services in my school district, I’m not sure I care much for a conversation that seems to say that more challenging kids, most definitely including those who have a disability, are somehow are less deserving of receiving an education.
For those legislators who have taken an oath of office to follow the constitution, let me point out a passage from the South Dakota State Constitution:
ARTICLE VIII
§ 1. Uniform system of free public schools. The stability of a republican form of government depending on the morality and intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature to establish and maintain a general and uniform system of public schools wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all; and to adopt all suitable means to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education.
Equally open to all. I’d place particular emphasis on one specific word here – ALL. The easy kids are those who can learn in any environment, whether you have in-class instruction, or try to do it over the computer in a classroom remotely, or as we suffered through during COVID, force them to learn remotely at home.
It would be great if all kids were easy. I wish all my kids were easy. But they’re not. Life intervenes. Some kids have behavioral issues, Some kids suffer from physical or mental illness. Some have disabilities. And you have some who lost badly in the lottery of life, and they have parents with their own problems including just plain old poverty, criminal behavior, mental illness, drug addiction, etcetera. And parent’s issues sometimes get dumped on the kid who might go to school in unclean clothes, or as happens all too often, they go to school hungry, and any food they get at school might be the only meal they get that day.
That’s the reality schools are forced to deal with. They get to be teachers paid on average at some of the lowest rates in the entirety of the United States. They also get to be disciplinarians, social workers, and mental health advocates, and any number of other professions just in an attempt to deliver an education as required under the constitution to the easy kids, the kids who might have challenges and even those who have behavioral issues. If the legislature has a problem with the requests from the education lobby, and laments that the state is forced to go to “superhuman lengths to cater to the bottom portion of the behavioral spectrum,” then maybe the answer is to change the South Dakota Constitution and exchange the word “all” with “easy kids,” or another phrase to clarify which of our children are worthy of an education and which are not?
If they want to clarify which of our children it’s ok to leave behind, it would make it a lot easier for schools to tailor their requests to the legislature for needs and funding. Until then, whether legislators like it or not, schools are going to send their representatives to Pierre in January seeking assistance, clarification, and a way to pay for all is being demanded of them on how to best deal with the societal challenges they are forced to face just by virtue of doing their jobs.
Very thoughtful response, Pat.
Scott is in the bottom 10% of the legislature, so by his own standards SD taxpayers should be taking him out back for a whopping.
This problem has existed for decades and is just getting worse.
35 years ago I was living in Georgia and a coworker had a daughter in middle school, who was attacked by a group of other girls who wanted to find out if girls with her skin color could fight, so they beat her up in a locker room. Already in middle school, they knew where to carry out an attack to avoid surveillance
The school principal told her parents that the only thing he could do was suspend the offenders for two weeks, “and then they’ll be back, and their behavior will be worse.”
To protect their child, they enrolled her in a private school which agreed to take her as an emergency admission.,
It’s pretty sad when the victims of such behavior are the ones who have to change schools.
Given that the worst-behaved kids will likely be serving prison terms by the time they are 18 anyway, worrying about the finer points of their educational opportunities seems to be a waste of time.
Well-behaved kids should not have to be terrified of their classmates.
When you kick those kids out, the school still has to make sure they are educated.
Unless they homeschool
There are no regulations or accountability with home schoolers. Home schooling needs to be regulated to protect kids from being abused.
There are no regulations or accountability with public school students. When 30-40% of SD public school “graduates” require remedial math or English courses in SD Colleges, there is obviously no accountability for what the public school system is producing. One can look at the pathetic NAEP grade-level proficiencies in SD, with no plan to improve, and know that there is no accountability in SD public schools.
Sorry, but the REAL abuse is when SD public schools push the typical student out the door at graduation, leaving them and their parents believing that the graduate has achieved something meaningful. THAT’S THE SCAM! THAT’S ABUSE.
And home schoolers lag on math relative to their public school counterparts. What solution do you propose?
All 3 of my kids graduated from public schools in South Dakota. All “B” students. None required remedial math or English in college. One of my “B” students actually tutored 2 homeschool kids and a private school transfer student who were all behind when they came to our public school. I have accountability every time I vote for my local school board and voice my opinions to them.
I think you may be misinterpreting his words. I know of a kid who is violent and is only 7 yrs old. He stays in his classroom or In the counselor’s office all day and isn’t learning a thing. Clearly, he has issues and it’s heartbreaking that this is his reality at only 7. I think situations reach a point like that where there’s no solution to where a kid will choose to be a productive member of his class and learn, regardless of how much attention he receives, and eventually the teachers have to make a choice to move on so the rest of the kids can accomplish something.
But from my perspective, I don’t see how the broken public school system will make it better by throwing more money at it. We already throw more money at them and I haven’t seen much change.
I think this also brings up parental rights and this seeming belief by the public school system that it’s their job to be the parent to the point that they’ll need programs to train parents?
Yes, there’s really crappy parents out there, but I don’t think that the public school system spending more of our tax dollars is going to fix that and I think that seriously oversteps their bounds when all they’re supposed to do is teach our kids to read and write.
Maybe if the parents were given full responsibility without the government always trying to “rescue” them from being adults then maybe they’d step up and be parents. But that won’t ever happen if a government institution uses our money to play parent and family in an ever increasing way.
I believe Odenbach is right. None of us want to see kids be left behind and teachers need more tools to help them and other students when they’re stuck in a situation like that, and hopefully it’ll include help for the troubled kids, too.
Where in law does it limit to reading and writing?
If a child is in the counselor’s office all day due to violent tendencies, obviously, that isn’t normal. That’s why schools have or contract for the services of a school psychologist. They probably need to evaluate the kid. And no matter what they do, the school is still responsible for the costs of educating him, whether it’s in a school setting or not.
They can claim they’re not. And then the school can spend the money on losing a very expensive lawsuit.
Makes perfect sense. Just bring back the asylums and fill them up with all the unwanted/too difficult kids. Hell, they’d probably grow up to be liberals anyway.
Things would be different if Odenbach had a child or grandchild in that situation. Dumb shit.
Great, Pat. Very thoughtful. Thank you for advocating for children who may be less fortunate or struggle behaviorally due to no fault of their own.
It’s always fun to see someone stumble and lurch toward a one-size-fits-thousands solution to a problem that involves a comparative small handful of kids. It’s scarecrow-ism designed to build a new wave of outrage someone can use to play “crack the whip” at a budget hearing.
If your child is out of control why is it the teachers’ problem to fix it?
Dr Temple Grandin has said she was fortunate to grow up in an era when being autistic wasn’t an excuse for bad behavior.
It has always amazed me although it should not anymore just how incredibly stupid and vile some legislators are. Relating anecdotal stories about schools and students then believing this is reflective of all schools and students is complete ignorance. Public schools teach all students some of whom have great needs and others having fewer issues or problems. Too many legislators go to Pierre with pre-conceived biases against public educators then work to make their jobs even more of a challenge.
I thought it was telling that Secretary Graves didn’t bother to line up any other proponents to testify in committee for his unserious attempt to address the problem he said he wanted to fix. Evidently he didn’t bother to include schools in coming up with his fix. Leader Odenbach only came forward as a proponent saying “…well, if no one else will testify, I will…” Diana Miller’s testimony was that schools have been asking for help in dealing with behavioral issues for years, but that the bill as proposed would solve nothing.
Oh, and be sure you haven’t lived until you’re sitting in front of cameras trying to keep a straight face as a certain committee member asks Secretary Graves if he knows how many of the behavior issues are being caused by vaccine damaged children…and Graves treats it as a serious question.
Graves is a Noem puppet
Wasnt Graves on the payroll for 6 figures during the gear-up scandal and it wasn’t even his primary job?
Oh, and since I haven’t seen it yet here, someone needs to say that Leader Odenbach is just making sure that we can fill those unnecessary beds at the new prison. Why spend money on educating troublesome kids for a few years when we have a nice new prison to send them to for decades when they fail at life?
Spend a few bucks educating or spend 40k a year to house in prison. Republicans are always looking at short term results over long term investments.
Trying to relate this to the new prison is like saying there is ice in the freezer because it’s winter outside. Sure, but no. The prison was (and is), in ever literal sense, falling apart. There are a significant number of common sense republicans that realize early childhood development/education is one of the leading factors in lifelong success. Unfortunately, there are far too few of those republicans in Pierre right now.
Whether it is education, healthcare, food, or housing, the far right way is to only help those they deem worthy. They believe the disabled, those with behavioral issues, and the sick should not be invested in by society. They once again show their depravity.
Does Scott and the Hard Right really believe this never happens in private schools? It was a chronic problem at the Catholic School System we went to. It was very bad! Parents pleaded for help and complained about those disruptive kids. Many of those disruptive kids came from wealthy, prominent families and/or they had many kids who attended the school system. Administration and a number of the teachers just looked the other way. The Catholic School System needed their money! Having also attended the local public school system those disruptive kids especially the violent ones would have been dealt with.
maybe the Catholic school you went to allowed such behavior but not the private schools I went to. Those kids were kicked to the curb
The school system prioritized money over those kids who were considered expendable.
Fine, do nothing, let the violent and dangerous children continue to abuse and terrorize their classmates and teachers, until all the well-behaved children are enrolled in private schools where such behavior is not tolerated, and the teachers have all quit the public schools.
Over fifty years ago, a private school teacher told me the reason he worked in a private school, at lower pay than he could make in public school, was he wanted to teach, not deal with disciplinary problems. If a kid doesn’t behave in a private school, he’s expelled.
The parents and teachers are not going to tolerate the chaos, and eventually they will have the votes to get public money to pay private school tuition. Until then, wealthy families will continue to solve this problem on their own.
Maybe that was true 50 years ago, but that was 50 years ago. I know several people that currently (as in not 50 years ago) teach at private school and they have the exact same behavioral issues as public schools.
Here’s a wild idea. Survey the inmates who are parents – in both the women’s and men’s prisons. Even though most of them probably come from troubled homes and attempted to parent their own children in a troubled home – they might have a few good ideas regarding disrupters.
Disruptive children have emotional and mental problems. Just putting them aside in a separate place until they drop out and become adult problems is one solution. As adults we then do the same thing putting them in prison. Thes will never become productive members of society by doing the cheap thing. It becomes an extremely expensive thing spending over a hundred dollars a day to keep them off the streets for the rest of their lives.
The schools are supposed to educate the kids; it’s the parents’ job to socialize and discipline them so they can function in school. Two different jobs, actually. Helping a child regulate his emotions is not the same as teaching him to read, but he might learn to express himself better. Showing him that actions have consequences is not the same as teaching him mathematics, but both might induce logic.
The behavioral problems originate in the home, sort of like laundry and trash. If they aren’t dealt with, they accumulate. The parents of these kids want to dump their problems on the public schools. Why don’t they drop off the laundry and trash while they’re at it?
the law states the tuition should be free, and the “system” of public schools should be “open to all.” What is the “system?” The law doesn’t say the buildings are to be open to all, it says the system should be. I don’t see anything that requires the schools to admit everybody to a physical classroom. Remote learning should satisfy the legal requirement. If the parents don’t make the kid sit in front of a screen, that’s on them.
He’s mad because the people who actually have to handle that “bottom portion of the behavioral spectrum” want a system in place, an actual plan, before some words on paper say throw those kids to “an alternative setting?” What a crazy idea. Scotty needs to be beamed back down because he’s not living in reality.
I have a daughter who teaches 3rd grade. Last school year she had an autistic child in her classroom that did nothing but scream all day. She distracted all students all day long and made it almost impossible for anyone to learn anything. She was passed on to 4th this and is displaying the exact same behavior. I’m sorry and sad to say this child does not belong in a classroom with “normal “ or “easy” children. She will never be a productive member of society, never. I think those of you who agree with “all” should go spend an entire day in a classroom and observe what some teachers have to put up with. I don’t know what the answer is for children with this kind of disability, as I’m sure there is no easy answer, but it is a discussion that needs to happen.
This is an administrative problem. They already have the tools to deal with things like this but are choosing not to use them. I have multiple teachers in my family and all of them teach in public schools. None of them have had to keep a screaming special needs child in their classroom all day long.
I taught high school English for seven years in Oregon and Idaho. In South Dakota I also volunteered for 10 years teaching Junior Achievement courses in elementary and middle school. My 2 cents: Teachers spend 80 percent of their energy and time dealing with the 20 percent of students who won’t or can’t behave. Those kids keep others from learning, and they exhaust teachers and administrators. The state constitution can mandate pie-in-the-sky goals, and we can all say it’s a grand thing, but the reality is, some kids will be left behind while the rest of the class is given their chance to succeed. When was it ever different?
We come from a relatively small and high performing public school who is a net-importer of students from surrounding districts. We had heard at the start of the school year that 3 high school families had chosen to home school. When I heard the names of the kids it became evident why. They were probably not going to graduate. They come from upper middle class families. They were constantly disruptive in class, racist comments, not caring about test scores, parents were in the principals office weekly, etc. It was easier for the parents to pull them out then deal with the school and the discipline issues. Not only did teachers celebrate these knuckleheads choosing to homeschool, our kids noticed a huge difference that 3-4 knuckleheads missing from the school and how it affects the overall moral in a small district. The example of these 3 families who chose homeschooling will be used by AFP and Odenbach and the rest of the public school haters to try and prove that families are voting with their feet and leaving public schools. I would imagine are 3 brain scientist kids who left are not isolated cases and this is an unknown population of the homeschool crowd. Folks are expecting public schools to fix these kids, heck Travis Ismay even said during a Newell School Board meeting that Public Schools would do families a favor by teaching morality in schools? Then his buddy Katie Hoffman jumps on here and starts talking about parental rights etc and sticking to reading and writing? What a mess. These 3 kids in our district came from affluent families and they can’t even fix their own children.
And these 3 kids are who AFP, Freedom Caucus and the Hansen/Lems campaign want to toss $7k a year of your tax payer dollars to for “no-schooling” and zero accountability because public education is failing these rotten entitled kids. I guarantee these kids were also dragging test scores down too in their respective schools. And everyone knows the public school haters love to use test scores metrics except when it comes to home schoolers. WILD!
Don’t worry. The hard right led by Odenbach and cheered on by the dork Katie will have the education system ruined on no time. Ismay is a product of their education system.