It Brought Tears To My Eyes

Crap!  Gnu met the parental unit of our new scholar today.  This is not the scholar we were anticipating but very shortly our count will go up to nine.  That means by the first of the year our tenth scholar will arrive. Although I have not personally met our new scholar I've decided on a name.  I'm going to call him River. Below is an updated scorecard.

The Scholars                                                The Staff

The Collector - 4th grade                               Gnu - teacher
Yo! - 4th grade                                              IvyL - behavior therapist
Wide - 4th grade                                            Oreo - behavior specialist
EM - 3rd grade                                              Duck - inclusion teacher
Uh-Uh-Uh - 2nd grade                                   Big B - principal
MiniJ - 2nd grade
NoFouls - 2nd grade                                      Staff Emeritus
River - 2nd grade                                            BaseG - teacher
Grr! - 1st grade                                               FillyFill - teacher
                                                                       PhD*Sparty - behavior therapist

Gnu called all of our current scholars up to the front of the classroom to discuss River's arrival.  When she finished talking she asked if anyone had any questions.  The first question was, what is he like?  Gnu's response was he is shy and slow.  The next question came from Uh-Uh-Uh, does he have problems controlling his anger?  Gnu's response he hasn't shown any signs of getting angry yet, he's just slow.  That response piqued my interest and I'm thinking to myself if he doesn't have any anger control issues why is he being placed in a classroom for scholars with emotional disabilities?  We will have ten scholars in our classroom soon and I'm frustrated.  Am I so frustrated that it brought tears to my eyes?  Nope!

Gnu was informed by email that River was about to arrive.  That sounds simple enough except that the email also said she was required to contact River's parental unit and schedule a case conference and this conference needed to take place by the end of school on Friday.  So you know Gnu was given three days to set his conference up.  When she mentioned this email message to me her frustration level was rising quickly. "How am I supposed to get all of this done with such short notice?"  "I'm not even sure what to do to coordinate this conference as I've never done this before."  "And I'm told that if I don't get this done on time it will be recorded as a negative on my evaluation."  I'm going to do my best to avoid profanity as it is now my turn to speak.  "Why is a first year teacher put into such a challenging job with no support from our school corporation?"  "Why is a first year teacher who is frustrated and sends out emails asking questions have to wait multiple days to get a response and it some instances never get a response?"  "Why did overhead personnel make a commitment to take a first year teacher to another school to observe and question a veteran special education teacher who is successful and fail to follow up?"  "Why was a first year teacher told the number of scholars in her room will be capped at five and then keep adding scholars to the room?"  This is soooooooo frustrating but is it enough to bring tears to my eyes?  Negativa!  But I am a little pissed. Opps!  I wasn't supposed to use a word like that.

He continues to get lost in the shuffle and is falling farther behind.  Who am I talking about?  EM, a third grade scholar who is stuck in no man's land.  I've wrote about him in the past but as a reminder he is well behind academically and should be in a general education classroom and not a special education classroom. The problem is that he is so far behind academically that he would be totally lost in a regular third grade.  So rather than get him the help and attention that is required to get him caught up academically they decide to place him in a special education classroom because of the smaller class size.  Dear overhead personnel, are you serious?  How can Gnu and I spend the required amount of time needed to help EM?  We presently have eight scholars in the room.  They range in grades is first through fourth grade but academically the range is kindergarten through fourth grade.  That's five grade levels and two people.  When we do academics the scholars are divided into two groups of four.  When I have EM he always sits to my immediate right as he will need the most help.  The problem is I can't spend the appropriate time helping him because three others need help.  When EM doesn't understand something and is told to wait for help he gets upset.  He'll walk away from the table and go into the timeout room, walk away and crawl under Gnu's desk, walk away and leave the classroom all because I can't divide myself into fourths.  Why does he walk away?  Because he is starting to understand that everyone in the classroom does better at academics than him and he so badly wants to get better.  It's so frustrating for me because some overhead person decided to leave him in a smaller sized special education classroom so he can get the required help and he is not getting it.  Is this enough to bring tears to my eyes?  Nyet!

I first met CorP when he was in the third grade in a classroom with only three other scholars.  For those of you who are new to the blog CorP spent two years (third and fourth grade) in my classroom and he is now in the fifth grade.  When I first met CorP he was a very poor reader and he knew it.  Getting him to read out loud was a challenge and if he actually read out loud it didn't last long and it was not uncommon for him to get angry and throw his book across the room.  Two teachers in particular took an interest in Corp with a determination to get him to read.  One you've met as it was BaseG my teaching partner from last year.  The other I'll call FillyFill who was a permanent substitute teacher at our school.  Both of these gentlemen were determined to get Corp to read and just as important improve academically in math.  While CorP's academics were improving so was the work of PhD*Sparty who was tasked with improving CorP's social skills and anger management skills.  These three individuals worked for two school years with CorP and I'm real excited to make this announcement.  About three weeks ago CorP was transitioned from a special education classroom for scholars with emotional disabilities into a general education classroom.  Is this news what brought the tears to my eyes.  Not quite yet.  With the news of CorPs transition I sat at my desk and took out my cell phone.  I addressed the text message to three people; FillyFill, BaseG and PhD*Sparty.  As I started texting this wonderful news the tears started.  I had to stop twice as I couldn't see clearly the screen on my cell phone to finish the text.  Within just a few minutes my cell phone started vibrating.  First it was FillyFill.  Then I heard from BaseG.  Lastly, I heard from PhD*Sparty.  I can tell you right now I was not the only one with tears in my eyes.  Who else shed a few tears?  I'll keep that private.

This blog is longer than I wanted it to be but I've worked with fifteen or sixteen different scholars in this job and never has one of them transitioned to a general education classroom until now.  Corp was a first for me and hopefully there will be many more.  Thanks for your continued reading about things that I see from my view at the back of the room.  I'm out.