Make A Difference / For Teachers
A Few Small Habits Find the Kids You'd Otherwise Miss.
What to do in the moment, when a student discloses, and how to recognize disability-based harassment.
Make A Difference / For Teachers
What to do in the moment, when a student discloses, and how to recognize disability-based harassment.
"The adults in my building were not unkind. They were busy, and I was good at hiding it. I am not writing this to blame teachers — I am writing it because a few small habits would have found me." — Brynn
Do not mediate the two students together. Peer mediation and conflict resolution assume roughly equal power between parties. Bullying is defined by a power imbalance, so putting both students in a room to "work it out" can re-victimize the target and signals that they are partly to blame. There is no evidence that mediation stops bullying. Use your district's reporting process instead. (StopBullying.gov)
This moment matters more than almost anything else you will do about it. They have likely been deciding whether to tell you for weeks.
Worth saying out loud
"Thank you for telling me. That took guts."
"I believe you."
"This is not your fault."
"Here is exactly what I'm going to do next, and here's when I'll check back with you."
Do not promise to keep it secret — you may have reporting obligations, and breaking that promise later costs you the student's trust entirely. Instead: "I can't promise to keep it just between us, because my job is to keep you safe. But I will tell you before I tell anyone else, and I'll tell you who."
It often does not look like classic bullying, so it gets missed. Watch for mocking a student's speech, gait, tics, stimming, or assistive devices; exclusion justified as "he wouldn't get it anyway"; classmates weaponizing a student's accommodations ("why does she get extra time"); or a student being befriended as a joke. Harassment tied to disability may carry civil rights obligations for your district, not only disciplinary ones — so it needs documenting and reporting, not just a quiet word.
Follow your district's process and report to your building school climate specialist. Write it down the same day, in specifics: what you observed or were told, when, where, who was present, and what you did. Your notes may become the record that establishes the school knew.
Prevention is mostly small, repeatable habits rather than one big lesson. A few worth building into your routine:
You are rarely the only adult who sees a student, and paraprofessionals, aides, and related-service providers often notice things first because they spend one-on-one time your schedule doesn't allow.
What if I'm not sure it "counts" as bullying and not just conflict?
When in doubt, document and report it anyway and let your school climate specialist make the call. Under-reporting is far more common and more costly than over-reporting a borderline case.
A student told me something in confidence. Do I have to report it?
In most cases, yes — and you should tell the student that up front rather than promising full secrecy you can't keep. See "When a student discloses to you" above for language that keeps trust while being honest about your obligations.
What do I do if a parent is upset that I didn't catch it sooner?
Acknowledge it without being defensive: "You're right that this went on longer than any of us would want. Here's what we're doing now, and here's how we'll check in going forward." Focusing on the plan forward de-escalates faster than explaining why it was missed.
How do I handle it when the two students are in my class every day?
Use seating and grouping to physically separate them without announcing why, keep documenting any further incidents, and loop in your school climate specialist about whether a schedule change is warranted — that decision is usually above a single teacher's authority.
What if the behavior is coming from a student who also has a disability, like impulse control challenges?
Document it the same way — the impact on the targeted student matters regardless of why the behavior is happening. Separately, work with that student's IEP or 504 team on whether their plan needs updated supports. Both things can be true and both need addressing; one does not cancel out the other.
How do I bring this up at a staff or grade-level meeting without singling out a specific incident?
Frame it around patterns and prevention rather than a specific student or event: "I'm noticing kids get left out during unstructured time — can we talk about strategies for transitions and lunch?" opens the conversation without turning it into a case discussion in a room that may include people who shouldn't have those details yet.
What if administration doesn't back me up when I report something?
Keep your own documentation regardless of the response you get — dated, specific, and saved somewhere outside a system administration controls if possible. If a pattern of non-response continues, that itself is worth raising with your school climate coordinator (the district-level role above the building specialist) or your union representative, since a building consistently failing to act may be a compliance issue, not just a frustrating one-off.
How do I talk to the class as a whole after something happens, without exposing the student involved?
Keep it general and forward-looking rather than referencing the specific incident: "I want to talk about how we treat each other in this room" opens a values conversation without confirming to the class who was involved or what happened. Never use a real incident as a teaching example, even anonymized — students usually know exactly who you mean.
What actually lands with students shifts a lot by age. A rough guide:
Across all ages, one-time assemblies have limited lasting effect on their own — the research consistently favors repeated, integrated moments (advisory periods, morning meetings, brief check-ins) over a single big presentation.
Carrying what students tell you, staying alert to patterns other adults miss, and repeatedly documenting hard things is real emotional labor, and it adds up over a school year. A few things worth protecting for yourself: talk to your school counselor or a trusted colleague when something you handled is sitting heavily with you — you don't have to carry it alone just because you're the adult in the room. Notice if you're starting to feel numb to reports rather than affected by them; that's usually a sign you need support, not a sign you've simply gotten better at the job. And remember that noticing and reporting is genuinely the job well done, even in situations where you can't control what happens after you hand it off to administration.
Mr. Osei's classroom: He noticed a student with a stutter was rarely picked for group work and often sat alone at transitions. Instead of waiting for a formal complaint, he started assigning groups himself and quietly checked in with the student privately once a week: "How are things really going?" Three weeks in, the student mentioned classmates mimicking his stutter in the hallway — something that had never come up in front of the whole class. Mr. Osei documented it the same day and reported it to the school climate specialist, framing it explicitly as possible disability-based harassment.
Ms. Patel's homeroom: A student who uses a wheelchair kept getting left off the invite list for informal things — who's walking to whose locker, who's sitting where at the assembly — none of it dramatic enough for anyone to report. Ms. Patel started naming it out loud in small ways: "let's make sure everyone's included in the walk to the gym," said to the whole class, not the excluded student. She also flagged the pattern to the school counselor even though no single incident was reportable on its own, so there was a record if it continued.
Exclusion like this rarely looks like something a single adult can act on in the moment — which is exactly why writing down the pattern, not just one event, is what makes it visible.
Short videos from Brynn built specifically for classroom teachers and staff.
What it looks like when harassment is dressed up as jokes, "help," or ordinary teasing — and why it needs to be documented differently.
The exact language that keeps a student's trust while being honest about your reporting obligations.
Small daily habits — assigned groups, named inclusion, structured transitions — that prevent isolation before it starts.
Brynn teaches live training sessions for teachers and staff on recognizing bullying, responding to disclosure, and building an inclusive classroom — offered both in person at your school and online for staff who prefer that option. Sessions can count toward your district's annual SEL training requirement under Public Act 23-167.
Register for a class → See the class plan (PDF) →See the full resource list below, including StopBullying.gov's educator guidance and the ADA National Network.
Dig into the full resource directory, or head back to see how the app helps overall.