“This year has been hell on earth.  We’re just trying to make it to the end of the school year, and praying he isn’t in {child’s name}’s class again next year.”   ~A mother of a primary-grade student at Chicopee Hills, describing the distressing reality of regular emergency evacuations her son’s class endures. In one week alone, their class faced seven evacuations due to safety concerns arising from an emotionally dysregulated child within the classroom. 

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As parents of students at Chicopee Hills Public School, and as members of the school community, we are deeply concerned about the mental health and safety of the children and staff who attend Chicopee Hills Public School. We’ve become aware of a systematic problem within the school that has escalated to a crisis point: the management of emotional dysregulation within the classroom. Due to a lack of funding for adequate staffing, and a lack of specialized classrooms to support emotionally dysregulated students, many children are enduring trauma at school on a regular basis. We are petitioning members of the school board and key decision-makers within the Ministry of Education to allocate sufficient funding and effectively manage this problem within the education system. 

Currently, there are several children within Chicopee Hills whose behaviour is consistently highly dysregulated, yet there are not enough staff supports or specialized classrooms to appropriately manage the ensuing traumatic and violent behaviour. Following a traumatic episode in the classroom that requires an emergency evacuation to ensure the safety of the other children, the dysregulated child is returned to the classroom. And the predictable pattern of violence, trauma, and evacuation repeats, day after day. In classrooms with children with chronically dysregulated behaviour, frequent violence, verbal abuse, and high levels of stress and anxiety have become a normalized part of school life.  We understand this is not only a problem specific to Chicopee Hills Public School; it is a widespread problem within the WRDSB. Many classrooms in the WRDSB have become a place where children experience trauma on a regular basis.

Although staff members at Chicopee Hills are doing their absolute best to manage these episodes of emotional dysregulation, there are simply not enough staff to provide the focused support these often violent situations require.  

Below are examples of the challenges at Chicopee Hills Public School stemming from insufficient support for emotionally dysregulated children in the classroom: 

• Students experiencing emergency evacuations of their classrooms on a regular basis, sometimes multiple times per day (for example, some classrooms have needed to be evacuated three times in the same day)
• Students experiencing persistent, prolonged disruptions to their learning due to dysregulated behaviour and classroom evacuations
• Students with special needs not getting the specialized supports they need
• Students being punched, slapped, hit, bitten, and screamed at by a dysregulated child
• Staff being physically and verbally assaulted by a dysregulated child
• Teachers, ECEs, and educational assistants needing to wear protective Kevlar while teaching
• Staff needing to wear walkie talkies to call for emergency backup as the ‘plan’ for managing violent behaviour
• Teachers unable to adequately address curriculum due to managing unsafe behaviour
• Expensive school property being destroyed
• Students’ belongings being destroyed
• Staff experiencing serious mental health issues due to the stress and trauma of needing to manage a dysregulated child while also trying to teach a classroom of children
• Children experiencing chronic stress and anxiety due to frequent traumatic episodes in their classroom

It is distressing that a considerable number of students at Chicopee Hills are consistently exposed to such levels of trauma within the classroom, to the extent that it has become normalized.

The current system does not provide enough staff for a dysregulated student to be supported appropriately. Many of these emotionally dysregulated children require one-on-one support, yet often, a teacher is in the position of trying to manage a dysregulated child while also theoretically doing the job of teaching all the other children in the class. 

A more specialized learning environment to support children with these special behavioural needs seems a reasonable solution.  A congregated classroom with a small staff-to- student ratio seems like a more appropriate classroom environment for students who are unable to regulate their emotions to the extent that they jeopardize the learning and safety of all other students in a regular classroom. 

The WRDSB’s systematic approach to inclusivity in the classroom seems to be failing our children. This imbalanced view of a classroom's needs---prioritizing the concept of inclusivity while disregarding the safety, mental health needs, and learning needs of the vast majority of students---has ended up being a far cry from the ‘Education for All’ tenet our ministry of education upholds.  In reality, classrooms where such traumatic and disruptive behaviour is systematically permitted are veering towards ‘Harm for all   /  Education for none.’  

The system is badly broken. The Ministry of Education and the WRDSB are failing our children. We are asking for adequate funding for additional staff, and specialized classrooms to support children with serious emotional dysregulation challenges. Our children deserve a safe learning environment where they can thrive without fear or trauma.