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Oregon teachers tell Senate committee student mental-health gap and special-education strain are crippling classrooms
Summary
Teachers and special-education staff told the Senate Education Committee during a May 28 informational hearing that rising student trauma and chronic shortages of mental-health services and special-education staffing are producing more disruptive behavior, long paperwork burdens and daily crisis responses that reduce instructional time.
Chair Frederick and members of the Senate Education Committee heard repeated testimony May 28 from classroom teachers and special-education staff that shortages in mental-health services and special-education staffing are producing emergency-level behavioral incidents and swallowing staff time.
The witnesses said students arriving with unmet basic needs and untreated trauma are increasingly dysregulated in class, and that existing school counselors and mental-health providers are insufficient to meet demand.
"The extreme needs of the students paired with the lack of staff combined with the paperwork needs and the high needs parents in special education is really not a sustainable job at this time," Poppy Elshaug, a special-education teacher at Grant Watts Elementary School, told the committee. "Special education is gonna implode…
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