School started well enough at the beginning of the year. However, when siblings Michael and Maya returned from winter break with their classmates, something was noticeably different. (Youth’s names and details changed for privacy.) Both of the siblings’ teachers picked up on little concerning behaviors at first, which seemed to escalate in oddity and frustration from winter into early spring. Maya, in first grade, regressed and started sucking her thumb and biting her nails after lunch as the end of the day came close. One of the aides in Maya’s class noted to her teacher the six-year-old would cling to her every time the class moved out of their room and wouldn’t leave her side or let go of her hand. Both kids would end up at the nurse’s office complaining of headaches and stomachaches, sometimes at the same time and on the same day. Michael’s usual expressive demeanor dimmed in his second-grade class, and he now played alone at recess. Attendance became spotty, with one or both students absent with no note, sometimes out of school for longer than a week. At the playground, Michael lashed out at two of his friends, trying to kick them and scowling at them when the monitor separated him in timeout. A couple of weeks later, he was sent to the office for hitting and biting a classmate because the other student took Michael’s spot in line. Sadly, all the calls to the children’s home have gone unanswered.

It’s not a big leap to imagine something going on in their home life is affecting school behavior, which becomes all the clearer when one looks at the following list of police interactions happening at their residence during the school year