Cody

This story involves a student named Cody. Cody is pretty close to an excellent student. He comes to school on most days, he is always in uniform, he completes at least 95% of his work in content classes, and he is very polite, most of the time.
However, there are sometimes when Cody is far less than polite. Cody has a very serious temper problem. He has been known to throw raging fits and uproars all across the building. He usually ends up doing more harm to himself than anyone around him. However, other students are still emotionally and mentally affected by his actions. Also, teachers are starting to become disturbed and increasingly worried about Cody’s health because these acts are so random in that one minute he is perfectly fine and the next minute he may be banging his head against the floor or punching the wall with his bare hands.
I too am worried or was worried. However, I have to selfishly admit that my worrying wasn’t as sincere as it should have been because Cody has never thrown a temper tantrum in my room. We always had a great student-teacher relationship. I also held a great relationship with Cody’s mom. We had several conversations about Cody’s behavior in everyone else’s class. She told me one issue was that Cody has a problem with male authority. I agreed with his mom and we almost always ended our conversations with no objective and/or written resolutions.
It was February before his mom or I decided that a specific plan of action needed to be taken. The reason: Cody finally decided to throw a temper tantrum in my classroom.
It began with Cody and another female student having a minor spat about a desk. I asked Cody to move and sit closer to me as I always do and he said, “But I was here first.” I thought nothing of it and continued to wait for Cody to move using my teacher evil eye. After all, a 6th grade teachers hears, “But I was here first” a million times a day. Cody didn’t move this time. My third prompt was for Cody to take a step outside to calm down. I could tell that he was approaching his temper stage and we agreed previously that he would go outside when this occurred. Cody didn’t move. At this point, my mind and heart became fearful. Then I asked Cody if I needed to call the security guard to escort him out. He remained as still as the wooden desk he was just fighting for. When I walked over to buzz the main office, Cody got up in a rage like never before. He threw his Communication Arts textbook clear across the room and his pencil in the opposite direction. Even though my room is carpeted, Cody managed to throw the pencil with such vigor that it broke in three places. He slammed my door open and began banging his head against the lockers.
I was furious because I could not handle this problem the way I would with a child in my family or at home. I was sad because as far as I was concerned, Cody’s relationship with me ended in a matter of unthoughtful seconds. I was frustrated because I knew that he didn’t mean to do it, but because no one had ever dared to do anything like this in my room, my students were anxiously awaiting my reaction as well as Cody’s consequence. I had to make an example- an extreme example. Coincidentally, he was the first and the last. I wrote a behavior infraction referral on Cody as well as a referral for Lumina Counseling. This was my first and last referral as well. Cody received three days of In School Suspension and three days of full length lunch detention with me. He wrote me an apology letter and I acknowledged it by saying thank you and letting him know that it would take a long time for our relationship to resume in total normality. He nodded in approval.
Since then, I haven’t had any real issues with Cody. Eventually, the counselor and I urged his mother to consent to Lumina Counseling for Cody. Everything sounds well right?
Wrong. While Cody hasn’t had any infractions in my classroom, he is still busy throwing massive temper tantrums with other teachers in the building. The consequences for Cody are limited because he rarely hurts anyone except for himself. The problem is that his disruption to the learning environment is fierce. Furthermore, a few other students see this and are starting to think they too can get away with that kind of behavior. What do we do?