Support services essential to success of problem children
By Makebra M. Anderson
Of the NNPA
WASHINGTON – According to researchers at Yale University, African-American children in pre-kindergarten are twice as likely to be expelled as Hispanic and white children and more than five times as likely to be expelled as Asian children.
“These three- and four-year-olds are barely out of diapers. No one wants to think about children this young being kicked out of school, especially not their parents and teachers,” said Walter Gilliam, author of the Yale University study “Prekindergartners Left Behind.”
“All teachers in state-funded prekindergarten programs should have access to the support staff they need to effectively manage classroom behavior. When they do, expulsion rates are cut nearly in half.”
According to the study, state expulsion rates for pre-kindergartners exceed those in K-12 classes. Gilliam found that expulsion rates are lowest in classrooms located in public schools and Head Start and highest in faith-affiliated centers, for-profit childcare and other community-based settings. In classrooms where the teacher had no access to a psychologist or psychiatrist, students were expelled twice as often.
Nationally, 10.4 percent of teachers reported expelling at least one pre-kindergartener during the past year, for an expulsion rate of 6.7 per 1,000 compared to 2.1 per 1,000 for students in K-12.
The lowest rates of expulsion were reported by teachers who had an ongoing, regular relationship with a behavioral consultant. In classrooms where the teacher had no access to a behavioral consultant, students were expelled about twice as often.
“It’s a very complex situation. I think we have a combination of children with very challenging behaviors and we have teachers that aren’t trained to positively manage the challenging behaviors,” said Lynson Beaulieu, with the D.C. based National Black Child Development Institute.
“Challenging behaviors could mean being aggressive, hitting other children, striking out at teachers, biting, crying, and children who have other kinds of issues like disabilities, children who are impacted by alcohol and drugs. Most programs really don’t have the support services they need in order to know how to support children in those environments.”
Gilliam, who is also assistant professor of child psychiatry and psychology at the Yale University Child Study Center, believes that access to support programs would make the difference between whether a child is expelled or remains in the classroom.
“After decades of research in early education, we know that these programs can significantly improve children’s school readiness and help put them on a path toward continued educational and lifelong success,” he said.
One program that has helped young children make the adjustment to entering school is Head Start. Created in 1965, Head Start is the most successful, longest-running, national school-readiness program in the United States. It provides comprehensive education, health, nutrition and parent-involvement services to low-income children and their families. More than 21 million pre-school aged children have benefited from Head Start.
Beaulieu believes that in order to alleviate problems in the classroom, parents and teachers must work together.
“Parents play a big role. Sometimes we have some very young parents and parents who don’t have the support of extended family and strong support systems,” she said.
“Sometimes our parents are very poor, so they are without resources, they are often undereducated and may not have had good relationships with school themselves.”
Beaulieu says that teachers have a hard time engaging parents in conversations about improvement plans for the children and the children suffer because of it. “You can’t expect the school to work on the problem without the family also working on the problem as well.”