The “bad student” skips school. They complete work late, sleep during class and their teachers label them “irresponsible.” After school, they sit in their parent’s hospital room for hours on end, unable to do their schoolwork as their mind spirals over what will happen when cancer or heart disease takes their loved one away. The next day, they scoff as the school counselor urges their class to “put themselves in other people’s shoes,” because teachers have never done that for them before. 

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are a broad category of possibly traumatic situations that occur before a child turns 18, ranging from physical abuse to substance addiction or toxic household environments. ACEs typically have negative effects on a student’s academic performance, and teachers are largely uneducated on how to handle them. MCPS should require more comprehensive training on ACEs and provide sufficient time for teachers to give this training the attention it deserves.

Approximately 75% of adolescents reported experiencing at least one ACE, and around 20% reported experiencing four or more ACEs. ACEs have long-term effects on teenagers, including an increased risk of physical and mental health issues.

Currently, teacher training on ACEs and trauma in general is minimal, AP Psychology teacher Kenneth Heckert said.

“We, as teachers, do watch modules over the summer, going over some trauma training,” Heckert said. “However, it’s not specific.”

Teachers receive ACEs training only in the weeks leading up to the school year, during which they also must participate in other training and preparation. ACEs training modules are minimal and are part of larger, more extensive modules, so they don’t provide enough information for teachers to understand the issue. ACEs training in MCPS is not thorough enough for an issue so common and variable.

ACEs also significantly impact learning ability, attention span and decision-making. Students who have experienced at least one ACE are more than twice as likely to be chronically absent, almost three times as likely to be suspended and nearly four times as likely to have lower grades than students who have not experienced any ACEs.

When properly trained, teachers can offer ample support for students who have experienced ACEs. If schools educate teachers more thoroughly about ACEs as part of mandatory onboarding, they will be more likely to help students with patterns of rocky behavior, rather than punish them for disobedience. 

Dr. Colleen Vesely, a professor of Inclusive Early Childhood Education at George Mason University, said if teachers learn to recognize the signs of deeper-seated issues that students present throughout the day, they can better empathize with and support their students’ needs.

“To best educate, we’ve got to be meeting kids’ needs that cut across emotional, social, cognitive and physical boundaries,” Vesely said.

ACE training should strike a balance between empathizing with students and equipping teachers to aid them without becoming overly involved in their students’ trauma. Teachers are not therapists, nor are they licensed or paid to diagnose trauma. Since they only see students for part of the day and don’t understand the full picture, it’s difficult to rely on them for a diagnosis. 

Allowing teachers to diagnose trauma could also lead to overdiagnosis because they don’t have the information or training to make accurate judgments on potential ACEs. 

“These diagnoses and these understandings don’t come from just one behavior in one moment in time,” Vesely said. “Just because you see a certain behavior doesn’t mean this person has definitely experienced trauma.”

Additionally, if teachers do try to diagnose, they may assume a child with trauma has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) due to their shared symptoms. When displayed in a school setting, symptoms of trauma, like dissociation and hypervigilance, can be misunderstood as symptoms of ADHD, like inattention and hyperactivity.

Dr. Kathleen Brewer-Smyth is a neuroscience author and professor at the University of Delaware. She said that conflating ADHD and ACEs is common because of the similar outcomes they have on students.

“Both can impact academic performance,” Brewer-Smyth said. “And the interventions are similar to address specific behavior.”

When trauma is misdiagnosed as ADHD, the treatment and accommodations students receive are not properly suited to address the root of the problem, which is why adequate ACE training is that much more important. Even when correctly diagnosed, ACEs can cause major problems for teenagers — like increasing risks of depression, suicide and physical health issues such as heart disease.

ACEs are very closely related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), although one is not a guarantee of the other. ACEs refer to the experience itself, whereas PTSD is just one of many disorders it may cause. Other possible conditions include borderline personality disorder and increased stress or anxiety.

Regardless of how students with trauma are diagnosed, attending school daily poses significant challenges for them, especially when teachers are not willing to adapt or understand trauma beyond a surface level, an anonymous Whitman student said.

“People don’t know enough about it,” the student said. “I’ve had people tell me that I’m faking it and that I’m fine.”

While teachers may not be able to diagnose and support students’ mental health in the same way a therapist can, if trained, teachers will be better equipped to handle the “bad student” who falls asleep in class rather than confining them to a box of stereotypes. To start, teachers can grant extensions for schoolwork or refer the student to a school resource, like a counselor or social worker. 

ACEs are not a problem with a simple fix, or really any permanent cure. While they can’t be removed, they can be accounted for if teachers learn to understand signs of possible trauma through increased required training.

“We’re consistently trying to be curious, as educators,” Vesely said. “Not judgmental.”