Addressing student misbehaviors: Educators need training to be proactive

by Lydia Lucien Collins, Guest Commentary, Arkansas Advocate
March 21, 2025

Jackson starts the day in my 2nd grade class sitting criss-cross applesauce during carpet time and solving  math story problems. He frequently ends the day by shoving chairs and screaming at his classmates.

It was while taking large balloon breaths to control his feelings that Jackson blurted out, “I’m angry!” He told me it was because his mom was in prison and he couldn’t see her. Until then, I hadn’t fully realized how much of Jackson’s outside life was finding its way into our classroom, affecting him and our entire learning community.

Student behavior problems are on the rise and are getting more serious. According to America’s Health Rankings, 52 percent of children in Arkansas have experienced one or more adverse childhood experiences (stressful or traumatic childhood events), higher than the national average of 39 percent. Jackson working through his mother’s incarceration is just one  example.

To support Jackson, I researched strategies to help him regulate his emotions. When he became angry, we practiced “throwing fireballs,” acting like we were tossing things into the air very quickly. We found ways to name his feelings, and he became more and more comfortable asking me for a break when he needed time to reset.

He is feeling and learning better, but growth isn’t a linear process. There are still days when  Jackson has emotional or behavioral outbursts, when I need to ask him, “What is another way you could’ve handled this?”

I’m not the only teacher in Arkansas who needs to help students manage their emotions and learn how to process their trauma in healthy ways. Educators in our state need training in trauma-informed care and practices.

If I had better preparation in topics such as deescalation of behaviors and self-regulation, I would have been able to help Jackson much sooner. If I had a toolkit of coping strategies for him to self-regulate and reset, I would’ve also been able to help him identify his emotional triggers.

Such training for educators should include student scenarios so that teachers can practice identifying root causes of behaviors like pushing furniture around the classroom. When I first saw this behavior in my classroom, I was unsure what led to it and how to handle it. I didn’t understand why Jackson was behaving the way he did; I was not proactively helping him to adjust to my classroom. It took me a while to understand that Jackson needed consistent expectations and clear boundaries, in addition to a calm, safe place to take a break.

The Arkansas LEARNS Act underscores  the “importance of prioritizing school safety by focusing on physical security, additional resource officers, and mental health and training to implement best practices.” Who better than teachers — often the first touchpoint for a student — to receive this training?

The next step is to allocate funding to make this vital professional learning possible. The Arkansas Department of Education, for example, could offer grants, encouraging schools to apply for staff trauma-informed training specific to the needs of their students. The application could take into account the school safety report, which provides more insight into the school’s demographics.

Eligible criteria to receive funding could be based on the demonstrated percentage of students in the school impacted by adverse childhood experiences. In my school, students would particularly benefit from having teachers who were better trained in coping strategies. Behavioral outbursts frequently occur when students get upset and have difficulty calming down.

Jackson ended the year taking deep breaths and calmly asking me: “Mrs. Collins, is it okay if I take a break? I’m frustrated.” Self-regulation and naming his emotions are the skills that will help him succeed beyond my classroom. Let’s make sure that educators have the tools they need to give Arkansas students like Jackson the support they need to deal with any and all experiences life might throw at them.

Note: The student’s name has been changed to protect their privacy.

This article has been updated to show the correct author.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

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SUMMARY: President Trump is set to sign an executive order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education, a long-term objective for conservatives. The move, which intends to return control of education to the states, faces significant opposition and requires Congressional approval. Supporters argue that over $3 trillion spent on federal education has yielded poor results, while critics express concern that eliminating the department could harm vulnerable students, as federal funding constitutes only 10-14% of K-12 budgets. The order will not affect federal student loans or Title I assistance for low-income students. Meanwhile, a judge has set a deadline for the administration regarding deportation flights.

An executive order being signed to dismantle the Department of Education is awaiting widespread opposition. Here are the latest details from the White House.

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Proposed maximum reading level for citizen-led ballot measures stumbles but passes Arkansas House

by Tess Vrbin, Arkansas Advocate
March 20, 2025

A proposal mandating citizen-led ballot measures be written at an 8th-grade or lower reading level cleared the Arkansas House of Representatives Wednesday after three attempts to pass its emergency clause.

House Bill 1713 passed the House on Tuesday with 60 votes; a separate vote on the emergency clause received 63 votes. Emergency clauses require a two-thirds vote in each chamber, meaning at least 67 House votes, and allow laws to go into effect immediately upon the governor’s signature. HB 1713’s emergency clause received 70 votes Wednesday and will next be heard in the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs.

HB 1713 narrowly passed the equivalent House committee on March 12 after lawmakers and members of the public raised concerns that proposed ballot measures are too complex by default to be written at or below an 8th-grade reading level.

Bill sponsor Rep. Ryan Rose, R-Van Buren, said the bill should help Arkansans “make informed decisions when asked to sign a petition, without confusion, without legalese, without any deceptive wording.”

Republican lawmakers this year have introduced a wide range of bills that would add regulations to Arkansas’ direct democracy process. The 2024 election cycle saw a wide range of proposed citizen-led ballot measures, only one of which qualified for the November ballot, and supporters of the direct democracy regulations have made allegations of deceptive practices by supporters of last year’s measures.

Many of the bills have had emergency clauses, and some have required multiple votes in either chamber before meeting the two-thirds threshold. Several of those bills have been signed into law, and most were sponsored by Sen. Kim Hammer, R-Benton.

Two bills to change citizen-led petition process pass Arkansas House, but without emergency clauses

Hammer will run next year for Secretary of State, the office that oversees elections. He is a co-sponsor of HB 1713.

Rep. Nicole Clowney, D-Fayetteville, voted against HB 1713 in committee and on the House floor. She said Wednesday that she supported “a readability standard of some sort” for ballot measures but did not believe HB 1713 was the right mechanism for creating one.

The bill mandates the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level readability test as the determinant of compliance with the policy.

“It’s just an algorithm that spits out a readability level based on sentence length and word length,” Clowney said. “If a word has five syllables, a word like ‘constitutional,’ you are automatically penalized by the parameters of this test.”

Committee chairman Rep. Jimmy Gazaway, R-Paragould, said the bill does not acknowledge that “it can be difficult to convey complex ideas or concepts with small words.” His vote to pass the bill out of the committee was the deciding vote, but he voted present on the bill and the emergency clause Tuesday. He voted for the emergency clause Wednesday.

HB 1713 would not apply the same readability standards to legislatively proposed constitutional amendments, which drew concerns from lawmakers and members of the public March 12. Voters approved an amendment last year that the Legislature placed on the ballot, allowing trade-school students to benefit from scholarship lottery funds.

Clowney pointed out Wednesday that this amendment had a college graduate-level reading level, according to the Flesch-Kincaid readability test.

Proposed amendments are required to begin with “an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution.” House Minority Leader Andrew Collins, D-Little Rock, told the committee last week that this phrase is also deemed college-graduate level by the reading test.

So is the title of HB 1713 itself, said Gail Choate, a political scientist and civics educator who spoke against the bill March 12.

“What I’m concerned [about] with this bill is that it does nothing to address civic education,” Choate said. “It does nothing to address the ability of people to understand even what a ballot initiative is or what it works… It dumbs down the process, it lowers the standard under which we’re presenting information under the guise that people aren’t able to understand.”

Jerry Cox, president of the conservative Family Council, spoke in favor of the bill before the committee, while attorney and direct democracy advocate J.P. Tribell spoke against it.

HB 1713 is likely to be considered by senators after the Legislature’s spring break next week.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

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