75% of its students are growing up without regular contact with their fathers, 25% without their mothers, and more than 10% are designated homeless (this means they've moved more than 4 times in a year; the state defines this designation).
The teachers are close with the students; we hear stories that tell us who has a really hard childhood. I can emphatically tell you that the harder the student's life is, the more misbehavior they exhibit and the more unhealthy they appear. By "appear" I mean weight, smell, visible grime, cuts and burns, these sorts of things.
Here is a list of signs of child abuse:
http://www.safehorizon.org/page/10-signs-of-child-abuse-58.h...
Here are signs you might not see as abuse when you come across them: thumb-sucking, fear of going home, body odor.
Each of those is easy to criticize or fix: "Get that thumb out of your mouth." "What do you mean you don't want to go home and watch [TV show they've mentioned]?" "[behind their backs] so-and-so stinks."
(put a ":)" after each of those criticisms to see how they could be jokes or a caring statements, depending on tone. Still, they don't go far enough in addressing the underlying problem)
Those criticisms identify the wrong signifier for their sign. The signifier is not sheer childishness (in the case of thumbsucking), but a coping mechanism for abuse.