Friday was supposed to be an amazing day. A day to kick back, catch up, and breathe a little. Murphy’s Law of Quiet Days told me not to get too comfortable, but I didn’t listen.

It was the last day of parent/teacher conferences, and we were in the home stretch. We’d met with families, and the meetings went well. My own kids’ conferences were good (thank God). George came up to take me and Jenny out to lunch. We had barbecue. It was awesome. Jenny and I were planning on going to Ikea to buy cubbies for the classroom.

Then we got back to school.

We’d missed a meeting with our team. It was almost over when the school psych came and found us. That was strike 1.

When we got there, everyone was upset about the student in question. We thought we were meeting about some general updates. Wrong. The team was meeting about an error in service minutes. Strike 2.

We felt pretty broadsided from being so late. The team had decided on a course of action neither Jenny nor I agreed with, but we were too flustered to actually do much to oppose it.

Now, it’s Wednesday, and we’ve had a plan in place for a student for three days now. It’s a hot mess. I think what bothers me most is that I’m not sure we’re doing the best thing for the kid. We had 10 adults in a room, and THIS was the best we could come up with? Why didn’t I do more to get this fixed? We have created a power struggle that sets the student up for failure and (at least in my opinion) is more about adults than about the student.

This is a scenario I think a lot of us “behavior people” can relate to. I think most of us work with large teams of people who don’t always see the world the way we do, disagree with us about what’s best, or flat-out don’t feel that our students deserve to be in classes with their peers. Even with all we know in the age of modern education about how to shape behavior and the nature of mental illness, there are those who feel that if we just “hold them accountable” they’ll “straighten up.”

Am I saying that deplorable behavior should be given a free pass because a kid is “sick”? Absolutely not. I believe in consequences, sometimes tough ones (like suspensions) when the situation warrants it (breaking school rules, threats, hurting others…you get the idea). However, the “consequence” cannot involve sending students who are unpleasant or problematic to a behavior support room to languish simply because teachers are annoyed…or don’t want to follow a BIP because it’s inconvenient.

I was a gen ed teacher for quite a long time, so I understand the feeling of being overwhelmed, stretched too thin, and buried in stacks of (now digital) grading. Honestly, I can give my gen ed colleagues a free pass; some of them just don’t get it. What kills me are the SPED teachers who are unwilling to work with kids who are behavior problems. These kids are rude, obnoxious, profane, arrogant, and defiant. They can make a class fall apart. Nevertheless, it is our job as teachers to do the very best we can to educate them…even when it isn’t pleasant. It would never be acceptable to for me, as a behavior teacher, to refuse to modify and accommodate academic work because “Hey! I’m only here to manage the behavior!” It should be equally unacceptable for co-teachers to fail to follow behavior plans for kids because “Hey! I’m only here to do academics!”

And THAT is why I’m crying into my wine. And it’s box wine, so it’s not even any good.