Troubled Kids

Lately I've been working in alot of SED classrooms when I substitute. SED=Severely Emotionally Disturbed. Some of these kids have learning disabilities, have gone through major struggles and have a bad home life, alot of them have behavioral problems and act out alot, and other kids have certain disorders or diseases. I've been in SED classes for kids in first grade all the way up to senior year of high school and some of the classrooms are just completely different. Sometimes I feel like I like SED more than I like Autism or Moderate to Severe (which are completely different and what I started out in a couple years ago). Right now, I am in a classroom. One of my favorites actually. The kids here are great and so are the teachers and assistants. I was a long term sub here for about a month and a half or two months before the position ended because they found a teacher. I like coming here and the assistants request me every time one of them is absent so I'm still here quite often. A few of the kids are mainstreaming right now and Cristian and Raymond are creating their comics on the computers for their free time. There is a "new" boy here that I just met today. He's been here for a while now, but he's been absent every time I subbed until today. And I'm pretty sure the only reason he's here today is because he had an IEP (Individual Education Program) meeting and his mom had to be here to meet with the teacher, principle, and psychologist to discuss new placement for the kid. I've seen a couple like this one and it makes me sad every time I'm around them. I don't really know why though because they do it to themselves. The teacher here thinks this kid might have what's called Conduct Disorder. Sometimes he just wails on people for no reason and is just very violent, which is a main reason they want to place him somewhere else. He's been 5150ed so many times, I think he likes it. He doesn't work in class and is actually a really scarey kid. At PE it seemed as if he were hunting for an unexpected victim to attack. There really needs to be something done about kids like this that are placed somewhere that doesn't have the tools necessary to help them. Of course, people think there are many places and I'm sure alot of kids are helped by group homes and residential schools and whatnot, but not kids like this. Military school MIGHT do this kid some good, but first he's got to go non-public, then residential, then maybe juvenial hall. None of these places will help. And I'm sure he wants to be in juvy because that's where all his friends are. It's such a sad situation and there are so many more out there like him. Like I said, I know he's done alot of it to himself and he has choices he can make to change things, but I think it's been the same for so long that it'd be too hard to just change. He needs some real motivation and fear put into him first.