The High Cost of Disruptive Students
How Behavior Issues Impact School Budgets
Disruptive behavior and classroom management have been a source of concern for school systems for many years. Indeed, the single most common request for assistance from teachers is related to behavior and classroom management (Rose & Gallup, 2005).” The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified this concern and brought to light a disturbing trend in our schools: an increase in disruptive behaviors among students. This is more than just a minor inconvenience; it is a crisis that demands immediate action.
Disruptive behaviors not only harm the emotional well-being of students and teachers, but they also detrimentally impact on academic performance and financial costs. It is time to address the gravity of this problem and invest more resources into solving and preventing it. The future of our children and our education system depends on it.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), more than 80 percent of US public schools have reported an uptick in negative behaviors and socio-emotional development since the pandemic began. This includes incidents of classroom disruptions, rowdiness outside the classroom, acts of disrespect towards teachers and staff, and prohibited use of electronic devices. As NCES Commissioner Peggy G. Carr states, "students thrive in an environment with effective social, emotional, and behavioral support." The rising trend of disruptive behavior in schools poses a serious challenge for education leaders to act quickly and implement tested approaches that work.
Schools are throwing money away by not helping teachers learn how to manage classrooms.
Costly Disruptions $
Disruptive behavior not only has far-reaching consequences for the achievement and well-being of teachers and students but also creates a significant financial burden on the school, which negatively impacts the overall budget of individual schools and the district.
According to the NCES 20-21 “Characteristics of 2020–21 Public and Private K–12 Schools in the United States: Results From the National Teacher and Principal Survey” teachers spend 25.2 hours of their week delivering instruction. When that time is spent diffusing escalating behaviors, dealing with defiance and disruptions, or any number of behavior problems, the teacher is forced to pause the lesson to deal with the situation.
A 2019 study found that teachers estimate nearly a quarter of their students exhibit severe disruptive behavior, including outbursts and unresponsiveness at least several times a week. Surveyed teachers estimate losing nearly 2.5 hours of learning each week due to behavioral disruptions. This reduces instructional time from 25.2 per week to 22.7. Over the course of an academic year, that is a loss of 100 instructional hours per teacher.
The average base salary of a teacher in the 20/21 school year was $61,600. If we break this down based on a 40 week school year and 38.5 hours of school time a week, the average district is paying $100 per week/per teacher to deal with behavior problems. That's $4,000 a year, times the number of teachers in your school and/or district. The average district in the US employs 187 teachers.
This means the average district spends $7,480,000.00 on teachers’ addressing discipline issues instead of delivering instruction. For a school with 35 teachers, that amounts to $140,000 a year.🤯
School districts are facing increased costs due to higher absenteeism among teachers. This leads to a greater need for substitute teachers, which in turn drives up the cost of substitute teacher pay. Additionally, the shortage of substitute teachers has made it more difficult for schools to find qualified substitutes, leading to an increase in the rate of pay for substitute teachers in order to attract and retain them.
The Gap
The gap between what teachers learn in their education and training and their actual ability to effectively manage a classroom can be significant. Reports show that classroom management strategies in teacher preparation programs are rarely evidence-based and taught only theoretically. To make matters worse, the average time teacher undergrad programs spend on classroom management is only 40% of a single course. Meanwhile, effective teaching and learning cannot take place in poorly managed classrooms (V. F. Jones & Jones, 2012; Marzano, Marzano, & Pickering, 2003; Van de Grift, Van der Wal, & Torenbeek, 2011).
Although educators may receive evidence-based classroom management professional development once they have a teaching position, it is often fragmented, with no cohesive method for synthesizing the many approaches that are top of mind for educators today. For example, PBIS, restorative practices, SEL, Trauma informed, conflict de-escalation, and literacy are popular, and necessary topics, but without cohesiveness, they become impossible to implement effectively and are overwhelming. Moreover, educators are seldom shown how to weave behavior and instructional strategies together.
Many districts address the mounting evidence of increased disrespect, defiance and even violence with outside the classroom solutions, such as increased counselors, behavior coaches, added security personnel, metal detectors etc. These measures may be necessary in today’s society, however, they do not provide in classroom support for the teacher and the students, and do not improve student outcomes.
The ability of teachers to organize their classrooms and manage the behavior of their students is critical to achieving positive educational outcomes (Oliver & Reschly, 2007).
Lastly, support is necessary, with opportunities to watch and practice, stretching and building a well-rounded repertoire of evidence-based strategies, catered to the teacher’s individual style, while activating all areas of the students’ brain networks. This approach to learning and classroom management will naturally reduce disruptions, extend attention, ensure engagement, and provide opportunities to develop social-emotional skills.
Neuropacing is an evidence-informed approach to teaching that extends attention, reduces disruptions, and addresses learning goals.
Neuropacing™
Neuropacing is an evidence-informed technique that begins with the educator in mind. It shifts the focus of management from reactive strategies to preventive strategies and from teacher personality to the environmental and strategic components of management; which highlights the influence of classroom activities as a source of important variations in student and teacher behavior.
Neuropacing improves teachers' decision-making abilities within the classroom environment and creates new methods for organizing and delivering instruction. It encourages flexibility with spontaneous decision-making based on student behaviors. It is the process of integrating knowledge of content, students, and the instructional context to monitor and respond to events in the classroom.
Neuropacing is a five-zone system that guides educators in the decision-making process of recognizing, understanding, and choosing strategies that will support the emotional and academic needs of students. Neuropacing connects the fields of brain science and educational research to practical classroom use through a systematic approach. This approach links our understanding of teaching, learning, and the brain to how it can be implemented in the classroom, giving educators a sense of control and optimism for the future.
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