There was a bit more to it but basically the class sizes have increased this year, there are problem kids and there a lot of bullying issues.

They explained that there are some legit bullying issues but that many of the kids are reporting everything as bullying. They had to address this with the kids by talking about the differences between bullying and kids being kids.

The reason for the group consequences were the problem students but also the bullying issues.

While there are kids like Emmett, who aren’t a part of this problem, everyone was being held accountable. Truthfully, this isn’t fair.

Group reward, group consequence isn’t something that can be applied to every situation. When a policy like this begins hurting those who are innocent (for lack of a better word), that’s a problem.. If two kids are a problem, the two kids should be the ones paying the price.

If the whole class is constantly being punished for the actions of a few, it’s sorta like the kids causing the problems are not being held accountable for their actions.

Anyway, the teachers didn’t realize Emmett was feeling this way. They also said they realize that this needs to be adjusted and they’re doing that but they’ve been struggling to figure out the best approach. It’s not an easy situation and while Emmett was correct, it was more complicated than that.

It was clear that the teachers were not malicious or lazy or incompetent. To the contrary, they were trying to address the bullying issues and the kids with behavioral issues as best they could. They had no intention of upsetting the kids that did what they were supposed to do.