Members of the South Williamsport Area School Board and concerned citizens spoke out at a recent meeting after hearing of reported behavioral issues in the district, and a response whereby the majority of students are removed from the classroom temporarily while support staff work to de-escalate the situation with the disruptive student.

“It’s been brought to my attention about continued classroom behaviors and the subsequent pulling of our students out of the classroom to learn in the hallway. This has been going on for quite some time, and has been one of my biggest frustrations,” said board president Todd Engel, who added that the district is not the only one to see this problem.

“One child’s disruption should never outweigh the right of 24 others to learn. Every classroom has a balance between support and structure, between patients and boundaries, between helping one child and protecting the learning of everyone else, and when that balance breaks, everyone feels it,” said Kellen Moore, reading from a prepared statement.

“When one student constantly disrupts, the cost is not isolated, it spreads. Time is lost. Focus is broken, momentum disappears. Standards drop, and suddenly the classroom stops being a place of learning,” she said.

“It is a system issue, because real support requires action, clear expectations, consistent consequences, proper interventions and when needed, alternative environments where students can get the help they actually need, because leaving one child to disrupt the classroom does not help them either,” Moore said.

Teacher Chelsea Eck urged the board to consider the role larger class sizes may be having on both the behavioral and academic performances of students in grades Kindergarten through third.

“Studies, including the well known Project STAR, shows smaller class sizes of 15 to 18 students compared to larger class sizes of 25 students or more leads to higher achievement, better behavior and long term academic benefit,” she stressed.

Board members Dr. Summer Bukeavich and Vice-President Steve Rupert both voiced support for smaller class sizes.

“I would love to see some historical information about why we landed at four classes per grade level and how our class sizes compare to other local districts,” Bukeavich said.

“Once you go to fourth and fifth grade levels, you can go with 25 kids in a classroom, but they’re moving around and doing other things, but, ideally, at least kindergarten should be kept between 18 and 20,” Rupert added.

“Several weeks out from retirement, I am here to advocate for the safety and protection of my colleagues in the form of adopting a new district policy,” Melissa Ogden said.

“My proposal requests that the district establish a zero tolerance policy for assault and battery. Students who physically attack others and/or destroy property must be managed with a uniform policy,” she said.

Ogden’s proposed policy would prevent disruptive students from returning to the classroom for the remainder of the day and set up a progressive beginning with a parental visit to the guidance counselors office within three days of a first infraction all the way to automatic placement at Mountie Academy and a psychological evaluation upon a fourth infraction.

“Some of the things I’m hearing from kindergarteners and first graders is mind-blowing to me,” said parent and after-school worker Rachael Karney, stressing the impact their school day experiences have on their home lives.

“We deal with anxiety, we deal with having to correct things that our kids are being exposed to at school, which, yes, there’s normal behaviors like hitting, being mean to one another, those are things we work on with our kids individually at home, but there’s behaviors that are beyond what their brains necessarily can conceptualize because they are just 5, 6, 7-year-olds,” Karney said, recounting an experience where she was forced to explain in real world terms, what “I’m going to kill you” means after another student used the phrase to her kindergarten son.

“I’ve had quite a few parents approach me with their dissatisfaction that we’re rewarding bad behaviors. We’re almost incentivizing bad behaviors,” board member Cathy Bachman said, adding that many of the issues plaguing the district did not exist 20 years ago.

“I do serve on another scholastic board, and it’s the same there, but it seems to be more and more here that the kids without behavioral issues are being punished for the kids that have them,” she said, highlighting an instance where one of the students returned with a perceived reward following a disruption.

“It seems to me that we’ve added so many layers of support in the district, yet, the behaviors have gotten progressively worse,” Engel added, questioning whether current systems in place are effective.

“If you get a kid who hits a teacher or staff member or another kid, and you don’t deal with it correctly, now at this age, if that kid was in junior, senior high school, the nine of us are going to be sitting here having an expulsion hearing for similar behavior,” he added.

In addressing concerns over the removal of the majority students during disruptions, Superintendent Dr. Eric Briggs stressed that it comes down to the safety of all involved.

“The last thing we want to do is place our hands on students. So if a child is extremely dysregulated in a classroom, the first thing we want to do is get the rest of the kids safe,” he said.

“I know the thought process is, ‘grab the kid, get him out of the classroom. In this day and age when you put your hands on children and you’re grabbing them harder than you think, the fear becomes we could leave marks or inadvertently harm a child, which could lead to further professional complications,” Briggs explained.

Briggs stressed that though it is a legitimate concern that students may be learning in hallways rather than classrooms, it is the exception, not the rule.

While intervention times can vary, it is the goal of support staff to get the remaining students back into the classroom as quickly as possible once the situation has been de-escalated or the offending student has been moved to another location, he said.

A multitude of issues ranging from hunger to learning impairments and mental health concerns can be contributing factors in poor student behavior, Briggs told the board.

“What none of us know is what’s going on in the child’s life,” he said, adding that at this point, out-of-school suspension is one of the few options available to the district, though there are initiatives in the works that will likely provide increased, effective options to the district, possibly as soon as the 2026-27 school year.

“In order for us to get supports in place, sometimes it takes time before we get the appropriate referrals and evaluations in place, and the other challenge is once you get them in place, we need to find somebody that can provide that support,” Briggs explained.

“The reality is, some of these children just haven’t been taught, in some instances, appropriate behavior, and it sometimes takes a lot of time to reach these students,” Briggs said.

Additionally, Briggs pledged to present to the board a draft Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) policy dealing with being trauma informed. Though he cautioned that the policy does not adopt a zero tolerance policy, instead setting up a multi-tiered system of supports.

Asked if there was an evidence of a contagion effect, where otherwise well-behaved students are being influenced to act out, Briggs said that he had no indication of such, but recounted an incident in which positive reinforcement from his peers led to a self-isolating kindergartener returning to his homeroom with the rest of his classmates.

Citing statistics showing an increase in mental health and trauma concerns and students going to school hungry, which has a strong correlation with performance, board member Dr. Kimberly Kohler suggested teachers may be in need of more training and resources to identify problem areas before they snowball.

Piggybacking off of the need for de-escalation, Briggs also stressed the intervention should not be looked at as a rewards system, but rather a reinforcement of positive behavior once a child is able to regulate his or herself.

Specifically, in terms of children receiving snacks, Briggs reiterated that hunger can play a major role in focus and disruptive behaviors.

Discussions on the matter will be ongoing, Briggs and the board pledged.