How to Keep Students Safe When They Leave the Classroom Without Permission

Dear Kid Whisperer,

I have two fourth-grade students who will leave the classroom multiple times per day to wander, hang out in the hallway, and sometimes disrupt other classrooms. My team teacher has come to one of your conferences, so I know not negotiate with them, bribe them, chase them, beg them to come back to class, or take time away from my other students. Instead, I walk with them around the school every hour, give them special jobs, give positive and negative Dojo points, and have special places, marked with tape, just for them in the hall when they want to take breaks. Nothing is working, and our administrator is tired of being called about this situation so she can give them a lecture, and we are tired of involving her. What do we do now? -Pamela, San Luis Obispo, CA

Pamela,

This answer will only be for how to not accidentally reinforce the elopement, and how to keep these kids safe. How to train them (at a later time) to no longer leave the classroom without permission has already been answered in this earlier post: How to Handle a Student Who Runs Out of the Classroom.

First, your question reminds me of a Behavioral Leadership rule of thumb:

If you are thinking and working harder on discipline than your students are, you are doing it wrong.

No judgment. You were never taught how to do this, so why should you know how to do this?

Good work on not doing what you are not doing. Now  you need to stop doing everything else you are doing. It’s bad, too. All of it is reinforcing the elopement behavior, and it sounds pretty exhausting. Just reading your question made me have to take a nap. I’m awake again, though, and ready to continue.

One more caveat: this will be the first time in the many years of writing this column that I believe I have ever given advice that involved a teacher getting assistance from an administrator.

Here’s how I would deal with the situation:

Kid #1: I am so sick and tired of being in this oppressive environment! I yearn to be free! I will now roam the hallways! Who is with me??!?!

Kid #2: As is my custom, I also am in!

Kids #1 and #2 leave the classroom in search of greener pastures.

Kid Whisperer: Oh, dear.

Kid Whisperer touches one button on his phone and continues teaching with enthusiasm and volume.

That’s it.

Done.

That push of a button was to notify a building administrator via text or alert app that there are 4th graders on the loose and that it is time for said administrator to use nonreactive monitoring. This involves her completely ignoring the students while making sure that they are safe. It requires her to see students in her peripheral vision while doing something else (checking a phone or talking to another staff member are both great options). The administrator (who must have been trained by an accredited agency to safely restrain students) must also be close enough to students that she can physically stop them from putting themselves or someone else in physical danger. This includes being able to stop students from leaving the building and putting themselves in harm’s way.

Students are not talked to about this by anyone until their teachers give them the learning opportunity described in the other blog post mentioned above.

Using this procedure allows the teacher to keep teaching without reinforcing the behavior of kids taking fourth grade as an elective.