LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Kentucky and Indiana classrooms are seeing a trend experts warn must be addressed. Classroom disruptions are injuring staff, while students' needs are unmet.
Founder of the Indiana School Mental Health Initiative Cathy Pratt said, "Ten years ago we didn't have the opiate crisis. Ten years ago we didn't have all of the social networking and the stress. Ten years ago we didn't have all of the expectations that were placed on teachers."
Pratt said that list of expectations has continued to grow, as has teachers' stress.
"There's a lot of new things we have to implement throughout the day, a lot of things we have to get in, in a short period of time. So that can be really stressful to us as teachers but also our children," Lauren Hartmayer, who taught at the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation, said.
There's something else happening within the walls of our schools. Behavior experts call them “disruptions,” but in some cases, they are violent outbursts.
"I think it does demand a serious response. I think it demands us looking more comprehensively at what's going on in our schools," Pratt said.
School districts don’t always track outbursts, but they do track staff injuries.
In the North Harrison district students hurting staff accounted for 73 percent of staff injuries in elementary schools over the last five years, according to records.
In the Madison Consolidated School District, an elementary school teacher reported getting hurt after "a student got angry and hit her in the stomach." In the same district, another student stabbed a teacher with a pencil, according to an injury report.
"These destructive moments can just stop a classroom cold," Pratt said.
In New Albany Floyd County there have been 133 recorded incidents of students hurting staff in district elementary schools over the last five years, and more than half of those injuries required first aid.
In Nelson County elementary schools, half of the staff injuries over the last four years were the result of kids "punching," "biting" and "tripping" teachers.
Pratt said, "I think it hits bus drivers, school safety officers, cafeteria workers, I think it hits everyone."
Everyone is affected, so the changes have to start from within, Pratt said.
"We have to get away from the judgment, take data around the behavior. The other thing is that when these incidents happen we have to start taking data to find out what caused it, what was the result of it, and start seeing trends and behaviors," Pratt said.
Jefferson County Public Schools, Kentucky’s largest district, couldn't provide us with specific data. A JCPS spokesperson said they don’t have the numbers because they’re not required to have them, in accordance with Kentucky Department of Education policy.
JCPS staff did provide a list of the total number of injuries students caused to staff at each of the district’s 102 elementary schools for each of the past five years. But both intentional injuries and accidental were listed together.
Pratt said that's a problem. "I think that that would be very important to understand those acts that are intentional and those acts that aren't to really get a true picture of what's going on," she said.
"Because I think it’s really important to understand the intentionality behind a behavior. If I walk by somebody and I happen to bump them that's very different than if I go up and smack them," Pratt added.
JCPS spokespeople said they could not provide us with the circumstances behind the injuries reported.
But the WHAS11 Focus Team uncovered a trend in what JCPS staff did share--a sharp uptick in reporting of student-caused staff injuries over the last five years.
Many JCPS elementary schools reported zero injuries for the 2014-2015 school year.
Middletown Elementary was one of them, but last year the same school reported 102 student-caused staff injuries.
Byck Elementary disclosed 295 student-caused staff injuries last year--a massive 4,800 percent increase in just three years.
Last year, in eight JCPS elementary schools, there were more than 100 student-initiated staff injuries.
Pratt said, "Life has just become much more complicated and kids don’t, adults don't have the tools to deal with it."
When asked for solutions, Pratt said one southern Indiana district is doing it right.
One-hundred miles west of Louisville, the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation is doing things differently.
"We ask teachers to not only just teach but really think about the students and their emotional needs and where they are, and help them co-regulate through that," former teacher, and now coach, Lauren Hartmayer said.
The framework for their schools is called "GAIN," Growth in Academics through Innovation and Neuroeducation.
Director of Neuroeducation for the district, Susan Phelps developed it.
"We asked the question what do we do to ensure healthiness? Right? So if we're taking the student that is most healthy--why are they healthy and what ensures their health? We backward mapped health and looked at brain development, social/emotional development, cognitive development and that's where we built out from," Phelps said.
The idea is staff integrates academics with social and emotional learning throughout the entire day at school.
Staff focuses on students' emotional and mental well-being, encouraging them to "re-fuel" through the day to prepare for better learning.
Phelps also emphasized it’s not just what happens in the classroom, but instead a framework spanning a child's entire day at school.
Phelps said, "It takes all of us, obviously, the bus driver, the person in the cafeteria, the classroom teacher, the assistant, the principal, to have a really good understanding of what it looks like to ensure that kind of development happens for every student."
The team in Evansville said they’re still working on their model and looking for ways to improve so that it can be used for the greater good in all school districts.
Others told WHAS11 they are implementing changes like more mental health professionals inside every building.
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