Behavior in class

I volunteered in my kids classroom for the first time. There was a sub in class. A child in the class had a huge meltdown and started throwing chairs. When I was bending down to chat with the kid, the kid tried to throw a chair in my face. The sub did nothing but said this happens every time she subs and called for backup. The kid went through the whole room grabbing and kicking chairs and knocking a bunch of stuff over and we ignored it and had the rest of the class in another area where the kid rampaging couldn’t reach the others without coming through us. People came and wrangled the child outside and locked him out of the room. The other kids in the class seemed nervous but totally unsurprised and just kept doing their thing.

The same day I found out my kids friend had changed classes after months of being attacked by kids in the class. The final straw was a broken finger.

I wrote the principal because it seemed disturbing to me. They wrote back and seemed like it was totally normal at the school and no big deal they made specific plans for each kid. The principal said they didn’t any policies they followed regarding aggressive behavior or kids hurting other kids but they try their best to keep the kids safe.

I talked to my kid and they said it happened often in the class, that the same kid had hurt the teacher and now the teacher will build a barrier of chairs to protect the other kids and get the kid outside and lock the door so the kid can’t get back in and the teacher can call for backup. My kid said that they often are on the lookout so they don’t get injured by the kid doing something similar to what happened when I was volunteering.

I scheduled to meet with the principal again because it didn’t seem normal to me and I wanted to share some policies I found at other schools that might be helpful for them to consider. Other parents have expressed similar degrees of dissatisfaction at the apathy in the response from the school when things come up around conduct of students and level of support.

My child does not seem to be targeted but has been withdrawn in class and started having negative self talk. They don’t like going to school but do well in school based on report cards.

Now I’m worried maybe I just don’t know how it goes anymore. Is this normal? Why wouldn’t anything be done in this case if this is happening so often? Any other suggestions of what I could do to change the culture at this school?