Stop calling them Velcro Students, and stop allowing their behavior!

This is a follow up to my post earlier about a teacher making a tiktok post with her “Velcro students.” This term has seen a significant increase in its usage over the last couple of years.

For those that don’t know, a Velcro student is one that attaches themselves to a teacher and tries to spend all of their free time with this teacher. Even sometimes trying to skip class to be in this teachers classroom.

As a sub, I saw these students in almost every class, where any slight deviation from the regular teachers way of doing things, or not allowing these students to be in the class outside of class time was met with extreme animosity.

Normalizing these students actions and giving it a colloquial name is setting unhealthy boundaries with them. No student should be skipping class to go to another teachers classroom. It is healthy to have role model teachers, but I think that line has been crossed to far and it seems to be getting worse.