OPS Superintendent Mark Evans briefly addressed the issue at the start of the meeting, saying the district was adding support and some staff at certain middle schools.

“I think we’re making progress,” he said. “We still have some work to do.”

In an interview after the meeting, Evans said while some of the incidents shared by teachers were troubling and extreme, he doesn’t believe that serious discipline problems are widespread across the district. He said he agrees with teachers who want more counselors or social workers to help students deal with mental health problems or turbulent home lives that spill into the classroom.

Evans has been meeting and visiting several middle schools in the past few weeks, and the district has added extra staff at four middle schools with high poverty levels and more discipline problems — Nathan Hale, McMillan Magnet Center, Monroe Middle and King Science and Technology Magnet.

Central administrative staff and a consultant will help teachers and administrators at Nathan Hale work through behavior problems and improve classroom management, though several teachers said expensive consultants from outside the district weren’t needed.

Most middle and high schools already have uniformed police officers, called student resource officers.