Yeah, I was afraid I might come across as a crumugeony old "these rotten KIDS these days" type, and wasn't sure I was saying enough to show that it isn't just Teens Being Teenagers, but a specific group of genuine troublemakers. And they DO bully the other kids. That was part of the issue the other night with the group that was playing Pokemon or whichever game they were playing there-- when we tried to contain the rowdy kids to the program room like usual but that's where the gamers were, they kept doing that horrible kind of indirect bullying that I always hated SO much as a teacher because you couldn't ever pin any actual RULEBREAKING on them: saying stuff like "Boy, it STINKS in here!" suggestively, making oblique comments about the gamers' clothes or game or whatever, and yes, the gamers came to us and complained, and we didn't know quite WHAT to do because there was nowhere left in the library to send the rowdy kids and, dangit, I'm not shipping the GAMERS off to another room when they were there first and weren't doing anything wrong! It's just, on ANOTHER night the rowdy kids WOULDN'T have been a problem doing what they were doing just then, but tonight it WAS a problem, comparatively. Granted, they've been problems just on their own, as well, at times. We've confiscated a few footballs that were being thrown about in the hall. And there's drug stuff going on, but nothing anyone's been able to pinpoint and call the police over.
We have kicked people out for the rest of the day (though not me, personally). We have only a few permanent bans: two girls who hid in the bathrooms until after closing (and got caught by the security alarm!), and a boy who peed in the elevator. Near-criminal stuff, as opposed to just obnoxiousness. Our guidelines for obnoxiousness are fuzzier. But the director is VERY aware of the issue, it's even been discussed at the board level. We have a security guard now, who spends a lot of time dealing with them. So it ISN'T my job to physically deal with them. It's just when my boss comes up and they're in there en masse, and I'm at the desk in the children's room working on other things, I'm told I should be IN THERE WITH THEM instead, but I feel like an idiot because I have nothing to do in there and the kids just kind of look at me like they're daring me to do anything, and because they end up not doing Anything Specific I Can Pinpoint they think they're getting away with something just because they swore or something (we have no policy against language if they're not shouting it down the hall or anything) and then they just Don't Care that I'm there. My presense has no effect on their behavior. SO I'M NOT SURE WHAT SHE WANTS ME TO BE DOING. I want a real policy on You Must Be Doing Something To Be Here, but she WANTS it to be a Hangout Spot. We also need more chairs in there.
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We have kicked people out for the rest of the day (though not me, personally). We have only a few permanent bans: two girls who hid in the bathrooms until after closing (and got caught by the security alarm!), and a boy who peed in the elevator. Near-criminal stuff, as opposed to just obnoxiousness. Our guidelines for obnoxiousness are fuzzier. But the director is VERY aware of the issue, it's even been discussed at the board level. We have a security guard now, who spends a lot of time dealing with them. So it ISN'T my job to physically deal with them. It's just when my boss comes up and they're in there en masse, and I'm at the desk in the children's room working on other things, I'm told I should be IN THERE WITH THEM instead, but I feel like an idiot because I have nothing to do in there and the kids just kind of look at me like they're daring me to do anything, and because they end up not doing Anything Specific I Can Pinpoint they think they're getting away with something just because they swore or something (we have no policy against language if they're not shouting it down the hall or anything) and then they just Don't Care that I'm there. My presense has no effect on their behavior. SO I'M NOT SURE WHAT SHE WANTS ME TO BE DOING. I want a real policy on You Must Be Doing Something To Be Here, but she WANTS it to be a Hangout Spot. We also need more chairs in there.