I'm not a big fan of Wednesday's this school year. For some reason we have two specials on Wednesday and to make it worse they are back to back. First starting at 10:10am is Art and then at 10:50am we walk across the hall to Music which lasts until 11:30am. That's a pretty grueling stretch of time for me as I'm with the scholars for eighty minutes. That's a wonderful stretch of time for Gnu because she is not with the scholars for eighty minutes. In fact there are times when I wonder just what exactly does she do with eighty free minutes.
This past Wednesday was easily my worse day of the year. My emotions ranged from frustrated to angry and to make matters worse IvyL crossed my path in my angry stage and sadly I vented my frustrations at her which just made me feel like crap.
At the start of the day Gnu informed me that EM had been retested to try and figure our why in the third grade he can't recognize and then read some of the simplest words. These are words that we've been working on since the last school year and the progress has been minimal. Well I now know why as his test results show that his IQ is just slightly higher than my age. When Gnu mentioned this to me I asked her what will happen to him. She said there was a conversation about placing him into the general population because he doesn't belong in an emotional disabilities classroom. She went on to say that that plan was dropped because he wouldn't get the help he needed because there would be to many students in the room with him. As a result she said he will be staying in our room. My response was you've got to be kidding me. How is staying in our room going to help him? He needs one on one help to get caught up. While there are times when we can do that they are rare since the arrival of MiniJ and NoFouls. In fact our room has been so chaotic for the past couple weeks that we're lucky if we can focus on academics for a thirty minute period without someone erupting. As I sat there befuddled about EM's situation it dawns on me that we can have one of our inclusion teachers work with him in a small group setting for our reading block. Gnu's response was that according to policy he is not qualified for that type of assistance. Now sitting silently in the back of the room I'm thinking this is insane. This poor scholar is trapped in an educational no man's land and the decision makers have decided to maintain the status quo.
If you think what just happened to EM is unbelievable keep reading.
9:14 NoFouls takes off his shoes and is running back and forth across the room and sliding on his socks. We haven't even started doing any academics and the day is not starting out well.
9:18 Yo! is fishing (a tactic that includes intentionally saying something to another scholar just to make them mad and Yo! works like a silent assassin when fishing). He was asked to stop and promptly throws two objects across the room.
9:21 Yo! is intentionally agitating Uh-Uh-Uh who was using the time out room to do her morning work. When Uh-Uh-Uh told him to stay out of the room because she was working he stepped in front of her and walked in. I directed him to leave the time out room and he walked out of the classroom. He returned to the classroom at 9:46 and walked into the time out room. He started pounding on the walls, door and window. He began to hit the window with a hardback book. He left the room again and is wandering the hallways. He gets cornered on the second floor. It's now 10:20 and he erupts. Members of our crisis team are nearby and he is removed from the hallway and taken into an empty classroom. He promptly starts climbing cabinets and wall shelving units. For his personal safety the crisis times restrains him but not before he aggressively starts swinging his fists at them and kicking anything near him. The Big B arrives and gets to see first hand is behavior. That is not a good thing for Yo! He was retrieved at approximately 11:00 by his parental unit.
10:27 No sure why but EM decides to crawl under the big table at the front of the room. Maybe he senses danger.
10:30 MiniJ yells at NoFouls to get off his mother "efing" property. The eruption between MiniJ and NoFouls is huge. It starts with verbal aggression and quickly escalates to physical aggression. The fist fight starts. Punches are thrown. NoFouls gets MiniJ in a choke hold. Gnu grads one and I grab the other. A decision is made to evacuate the room to avoid any serious injury. She takes the scholars including NoFouls. I stay with MiniJ who is not trashing the room. Multiple chairs are knocked over or thrown. Multiple desks are flipped over. I pick up the phone and call for assistance. I get the backup crisis team as the primary crisis team is still dealing with Yo!. I also get to see the Big B for a second time. At 11:30 MiniJ's parental unit arrives to take him home.
From 9:18am through 11:30am was the most chaotic period of time I've seen in the three years that I've been doing this. For the first time since I started doing this both crisis teams were operating at the same time and dealing with scholars from the same classroom. Yo! will have his bad days and this was one of them but they are few and fairly spread out. MiniJ and NoFouls are a whole different story. They don't mix well and aggression between them will occur every day until they are separated. When will that happen? It probably won't and sadly we are just now at the end of the first quarter. What to do? What to do? I know, succession planning.
The school has two crisis teams. Each time is made up of three people. As of today there are four women and two men on the crisis teams. I fall into the men category and I'm on Team B. All six of us have received training to deal with either scholars with emotional disabilities or scholars in the general population who are angry. I love working with the the women on my team. They are experienced teachers who for some reason decided to get involved with crisis activities. Why I don't know as they are not special education teachers. What I do know is that they are great in a crisis with an amazing ability to stay calm. How calm? I've watched them avoid punches and kicks from an angry scholar while carrying on a normal conversation about daily school activities. That is pretty impressive and that is why I give thanks and praise to the almighty crisis team members.
One final comment. On Monday of this past week at 9:05am EM walks in the room and says to me we got kicked out of our house last night. What he said to me was confirmed by our social worker. His family if not already homeless is on the verge of being homeless. I'm praying that EM and his family are safe and I ask you to please do the same.
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