Unruly kids are poisoning Oklahoma City Public Schools | Guest opinion

After hearing about the hiring of a superintendent for Oklahoma City Public Schools who has no experience as superintendent of any school district, I’ve been reflecting on this last year working in an OKCPS middle school in one of the state’s largest school districts, and I am saddened at what public education has become.

The schools in this district are bursting at the seams. Class sizes are outrageous. And there is a lack of reading, writing and arithmetic happening, due to the primary role of teachers now being responsible for behavior management of unruly students. Why are we hamstringing our educators with this ridiculousness? No wonder so many new teachers drop out of the profession and new college students can’t be recruited to teach.

And now, are we saying the whole endeavor isn’t even important enough to hire someone with experience running a school district to run one of the largest public school districts in the state of Oklahoma?

So many OKCPS students are coming to school desperate to learn, truly wanting to be engaged with the material. However, in my experience, the few who are swearing at their teachers with no consequences given by the school have poisoned the system. Will this be dealt with by our new superintendent? Will students who climb up on their desks and scream at substitutes until a substitute teacher walks out of that classroom and out of the school building finally face any consequence? What about the multiple other students in that classroom who will record the incident on their phones and put it on social media ― will there finally be consequences for them, too?

More: Oklahoma students are experiencing mental health challenges. The Legislature must do more to help.

Teachers are told they shouldn’t even dismiss these students from a classroom in the OKCPS schools. Some of their students draw truly graphic images in permanent ink on their desks, with just a little talk to them afterward by an administrator; no serious consequence. It requires high-tech scanners to even hope to keep out weapons and drugs in the OKC public schools. But those scanners don’t stop fists. And violent and emotionally compromised students still roam the halls and disrupt every class they are in, even after multiple incidents of disruption.

Surely it is time to fully reconsider the role of a public school: It has to be about more than mere babysitting of unruly students who take away so much opportunity from their classmates.

When our teachers are having to stay late regularly to call parents who won’t answer repeated phone calls about the behavior of their child (as they’ve heard it before and know what they will be told), this is incredibly above and beyond what we should be asking of our school teachers. If a parent says they "can’t control their child,” they should be believed and another place should be found for that student immediately ― perhaps at specialty schools.

It has been truly alarming to see students back in classrooms who have committed assaults against their fellow students, and even teachers, in the public school system. If any student puts their hands on another student or teacher, you’d think they should be immediately dismissed from that public school for a certain period of time. These incidents are often visible on school cameras or testified to by multiple other students, but still a student who shoved a fellow student into a wall or down a stairwell will return to class the same day.

When do we change our standards for public education in our state? Surely the Oklahoma Standard can stand for more than the post-bombing and post-tornado behavior of neighbors. Surely we can care more for our public school students and teachers than allowing for this decline?

Our teachers, who are truly the superheroes of the world in the hard work they put in for future generations deserve more. Why don’t we care more about them? Surely it is not just the children of the wealthy in Oklahoma who are home-schooling their children or have them in private schools that we care about. Even if you are in that privileged group, surely you can see that public school students will be your child’s neighbor and friend and co-worker and will impact their future, as well.

This is not just about better pay for public school teachers, though they certainly deserve six-figure salaries at the least; this is about the very future of our state. Let’s grow better, not just bigger, in OKC and beyond.

Let’s see legislation introduced and other actions taken that give back some authority to the teachers and consequences to the students who are doing more to disrupt learning than taking part in it. Let’s take into account the experience of those we hire in places of authority in our school systems. The majority of public school students want to learn; they just need the right environment for that to happen successfully.

Annette Gorny is a concerned citizen who has worked in both public and private schools the past few years.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Unruly kids in Oklahoma City Public Schools need to be addressed