Hartford CourantBy Livi StanfordOctober 28, 2025In Connecticut classrooms, students are routinely insulting, threatening, cursing and physically assaulting teachers.The issue is the most pressing in education today, teachers and education advocates say.The tense climate has caused teachers to ask to move to other schools to teach and some have been out on workers compensation due to injuries at school, according to the Connecticut Education Association.The increased aggression from students is tied to numerous factors including the aftermath of COVID, the use of technology, and emotional dysregulation of students, according to mental health experts.
But there is a problem... data lag. These figures are from the 232/24 school year!
“It is certainly a significant stressor in the environment that is impacting teachers’ ability to do the instructional work. It is important to remember that these are not just physical confrontations. Sometimes these are students who will swear at their teacher and aggressively or verbally go after them, which ultimately stops instruction in the classroom.”The Connecticut State Department of Education states in its latest report on student discipline in schools for the 2023-24 school year that physical and verbal confrontations increased 44.1%, representing 21,582 incidents.Further, the report showed that personal threatening behavior increased 32% representing 8,956 incidents. There was also a 21% increase in property damage, which included 1,761 incidents.
These number are very disturbing but... is the trend continuing? USA Today reported that;
Over the course of this school year, I’ve noticed troubling behaviors in young students – not only in my own classroom in Southern California, but echoed in conversations with fellow educators. Children are using racial slurs, mocking peers for their differences and retaliating in targeted, often cruel ways – like defacing a classmate’s belongings after a playground dispute. At just 7 and 8 years old, this behavior is especially unsettling. These are the years when empathy, fairness, and emotional regulation should be taking root, not when children begin to mirror the blame, hostility, and division modeled by many adults.
Is this a reflection of their parent's behavior?
What’s even more troubling is how some parents respond. When I reached out to discuss one of these incidents, the reaction wasn’t concern or acknowledgment of harm – but an attempt to deflect: “What did the other child do first?”These aren’t isolated incidents – they’re symptoms of a broader cultural shift: one where cruelty is excused, empathy is mocked, dishonesty is normalized and accountability is increasingly rare. We are living with the compounded effects of years of toxic rhetoric, division and bullying – modeled, amplified and often condoned at the highest levels of government and media.
Is this a reflection of the hate coming out of the leaders Republican party!
To the Republicans we are the instigators of the violence. The Washington Blade writes,
The nation’s leading LGBTQ advocacy groups are sounding the alarm over reports that the FBI may soon classify transgender people as a threat group — a move advocates say would be unconstitutional, dangerous, and rooted in political retribution.[...]For more than an hour last Wednesday, LGBTQ leaders denounced the reported FBI proposal and warned of the consequences of targeting one of the country’s most vulnerable communities. They emphasized that such a move would represent a violation of basic human rights, further fuel misinformation, and give legitimacy to political attacks already directed at transgender people.
You have to wonder at the root cause of the increase in violence in our schools? Is the political unrest filtering down to our children?
This will have a lasting effect on the children of today... it is teaching them the conservative way... of bigotry, racism, transphobia, and homophobia.
The Fruit Still Falls
Donna Theresa
There’s a shadow on the courthouse lawn, hmm
a whisper where the rope’s long gone, hmm
they paved the dirt but the roots still calls
you can’t cut paint no you just move the wall
now the trees have streams instead of leaves
the crowd still gathers nobody grieves
another name another call
history plays on a body count wall
the fruit still falls just a different tree
still hanging Black and still hanging free
a hashtag prayer a mother’s plea
oh lord the fruit still falls for me
oh they said justice oh but I saw chains oh
same old story with a different name oh
uniform blue but the spirit’s gray
the road just learned a modern way
they don’t sell postcards no more
just clips that loop forevermore
fear for my life the same refrain
but the ghosts still marches in the pouring rain
you still fall
just a different tree
still family still hanging
a hashtag prayer a mother’s plea
oh lord the fruit still falls for me
don’t turn away don’t scroll too fast
the past ain’t past it just wears a mask
the soil remembers every call and still
the fruit still falls
falls, falls, falls, still falls
falls, falls, falls, still falls
