In that case, yeah, you’ve got an admin problem. I’m sorry - that really sucks. The entire system desperately needs an overhaul. The education system in Canada is a dumpster fire, and the US is even worse. Dealing with behavioral issues is one of many major problems…

You might have had bad teachers and bad admin, true - but more likely, the school can’t do anything.

I’m a teacher, and I cannot tell you how incredibly frustrated I am at how tied my hands are. The admin can’t do much, either.

My options: talk sternly to the student. Talk sternly to the parent/guardians. And… that’s it.

Send them to the office? Sure. The principal also has those two options, for the most part. Suspending students is something we only do in very rare circumstances, but they really, really try to avoid it, because so often, kids are acting out because of stuff at home, so suspending them only makes the behaviour worse.

We can’t do detentions after school or on weekends - we can’t force parents to bring their kids in then. Lunch hour detentions, we can’t afford dedicated staff to run them, especially since we’d also need them to chase the students down, because it’s not like they’ll go just because they were told to. We can’t fail students any more.

Our district has also even gotten rid of prizes for achievements - no more honor roll, no awards, nothing. Apparently this makes the low performers feel bad, and we couldn’t have that.

And talking to the parents? Most parents are honestly great, but also, I never talk to them, because the kids with the great parents, I never need to call home. The asshole kids? Their parents are almost always a nightmare. And it’s a waste of time to talk to them.

One kid last year, went after another kid’s field trip paperwork with a pair of scissors. Ripped into her like no one’s business. Sent an email home describing the situation. I was pretty sure, based on her history, she wasn’t really going to destroy his stuff, she was trying to get a rise out of him, so I said something like, “while I believe she was only intending to annoy him, not actually destroy property, it is critical for her to understand that this is absolutely unacceptable behaviour” or something like that.

So rather than telling her kid off, mom goes to the principal to try to get me in trouble for calling her kid annoying.

In application? Doesn’t matter what the teachers or even admin want to do. The district, province/state, and country have taken away practically every carrot and stick, when it comes to students with extreme behavior.

It’s a huge mess.