Hampton Roads, Va. - Utter disbelief felt throughout the country after police said a teacher was shot in her classroom by a six-year-old student in Newport News.
The public has so many questions about how and why this could have happened.
While this is an extreme, rare case it horrified the nation and put the issue of classroom problems in the forefront.
The Virginia Beach Superintendent Aaron Spence told News 3 a few weeks ago that they've seen an increase in disruptive behavior throughout the district and an increase in threats, verbal threats, and more cases of extreme behavior in younger students.
“We’re seeing things like children lashing out in their classrooms, throwing a pretty high-level tantrum, screaming, yelling, maybe hitting or biting a teacher. We’ve seen a lot of those behaviors, maybe where they pick up a chair and throw it," he said. We’ve had to clear out classrooms on a fairly regular basis to make sure that we can get the child calm and not hurt himself or others and that’s not something we saw a lot of prior to the pandemic."
The News 3 Investigative Team requested more information from the district.
They said the chart below shows year over year threats made against a school, a teacher/staff and another student.
They said not all of these threats are substantiated and most are what they call “transient” meaning that there was no true intent to harm.
These numbers for 2023 only reflect until March 21, 2023.
Numbers dropped during the pandemic but this year the total number of threats is much higher than previous years and there are still a few months left of school.
Spence said given the climate today and what happened at Richneck Elementary School and across the country, they have to take threats seriously and differently than they did in the past.
He cited a national study done by consulting firm EAB which said 84 percent of teachers in their survey said that students are developmentally behind in self-regulation and relationship building compared to students prior to the pandemic.
The study also found that teachers say they are increasingly the targets of disruptive behavior and say incidents involving physical violence have more than doubled since the onset of the pandemic.
Licensed social worker Gary Rotfus is the Director at Fairfield Psychological Center in Virginia Beach. He said they have seen an increase in these kinds of issues.
He believes the students learning from home and having their education disrupted was harmful to many kids, especially at risk youth.
He think young people are spending way too much time on social media, on cell phones, and looking at screens.
He said, “Impulse control, socially appropriate socialization, listening to rules, structure those are developmental milestones and one way the kids learn those developmental milestones is by attending school and having rules and learning proper boundaries.”
He said when children forced to learn from home it had an impact on their development and so many parents are busy.
He said the stress of COVID was very difficult for many families.
Additionally, he said he believes parents have set less boundaries and do less parenting.
He said often times too many parents are using their devices too much around their children.
“It’s not just behavioral problems, it’s usually emotional problems that are underlying behaviors so if the teachers are seeing an increase in impulse control, and that’s a major factor here, poor self-control, difficulty in following rules, that’s going to lead to more aggressive behavior,” said Rotfus.
The Virginia Beach School District issued the following information about programs and ways they are looking to improve the schools:
With regards to armed security staff, we hire former law enforcement officers as Security Assistants. We then certify them in collaboration with the VBPD Firearms Training Unit. They receive DCJS Threat Assessment, Behavioral Threat Assessment, Civilian Response and Casualty Care, Active Shooter, Emergency Response and Emergency Evacuation training. Upon successful completion, they are transitioned into Armed School Security Officers. All officers will be recertified each year and receive annual in-service training. At this time, we have 17 officers spread across secondary schools, both full and part-time. VBCPS requires strict adherence to state code, DCJS mandates, and the policies and procedures our division provides as they relate to these armed positions. Our goal is to staff each secondary school with an Armed Security Officer as soon as possible.
The Task Force is in the process of being stood up and the goal is for it to be an ongoing effort to examine how we can collaborate with our City partners to constantly evaluate and improve our security and safety procedures.
“Here’s why we want to have this conversation. We simply cannot do this alone. As much as we’re doing, we know that our schools are a reflection of our community and we remain committed to creating the conditions that are necessary for our students and staff to learn and thrive and work in a safe, orderly environment,” said Spence.
