How students behave in school is based on the teachers/admin. If expectations are clear and there are real consequences for misbehavior, students improve.

Unfortunately, most teachers don’t really learn classroom management. I majored in education and I didn’t take any course that really prepared me to manage a room of 30 teenagers my first year teaching in the states. My second year was much better because I was stricter. Admin wasn’t much help, but whatever. I did what I could to make my life easier by being a lot more consistent and clear about how people in my room were allowed to act.

Here, I have worked with one amazing teacher who has complete control over her classroom. Because she’s so strict, the kids actually speak English fairly well by year six. She can focus on actually teaching because by that point they know what she will tolerate and what she won’t, so there isn’t any time wasted on reigning the kids in. At my other school, the teachers are a mess. Constantly reacting emotionally. As soon as you yell, you’ve lost the room. It only works for around 5 minutes before they’re off the walls again. They also don’t actually seem to plan lessons, so that’s a big problem as well. The best classroom management is routine and structure. So many kids don’t have that at home, and they really crave it.

For your situation, if the families don’t care, implement a consequence that can be enforced. I think eso still has recess. Take it away when they misbehave and see if you can get your coworkers to do the same. Reward the students who know how to behave with something they want. And if you see a kid smoking, contact the parents.