On the top right side of my screen there is a series of icons. For over eight months I've basically ignored them until today. The icon shaped like a bell was lite up and had the number one in a red circle. What is that I'm thinking? So I click on the icon and it says I have one notification. Ok, what am I being notified about? I'm curious so I open the notification and it says you (and I'm assuming my blog) have been invited to the senders circle. I think about what happened and decide it's a good thing as maybe more people will read the blog. Then it hits me right between the eyes as I think of something the sender once told me quite a while back. So you know, the sender has been attending my Monday evening cycling class for quite some time and is a real good friend. The sender is also a member of the English Department at one of the universities here in Indianapolis. In fact he teaches English. Some time ago the sender told a story about grading freshman essays. In his frustration with the quality of work he received from university students he decided that students that wrote extremely poor papers would receive the appropriate letter grade and attached to their paper was an application to apply for work at McDonald's as they will not make it as a writer. Great! Now he and his circle are reading a blog that I know has grammatical errors. Dear Professor I Do No Sweat, if you bring in an application for McDonald's to the cycling class and hand it to me the resistance on that cycling bike will be going up incrementally for entire forty five minute cycling class.
Grrr! has arrived for his first day in our classroom. I mentioned this to my wife and she gave me this look of disappointment. I asked her about the look and she said the following. "Do you know what this means?" "When he steps into your classroom he will now have a label and this label will stick with him throughout his schooling." "This young first grade scholar has been labeled as special education and that is so sad to think about." "Image how his parental unit feels now that she made the decision to put her scholar into a special education classroom." Her comments really hit home. It makes me want to push even harder to reach the objective we have for everyone of our scholars. That objective, as I mentioned in my last post, is to get the scholar to the point where she/he can reenter the general education population. The challenge to do this will be great. We now have eight scholars with emotional disabilities that require a great deal of individual attention. Can we give them the attention they need with eight scholars in the room? NO! Can we give them the attention they need with seven or six scholars in the room? NO! Can we give them the attention they need with five or less scholars in the room? Probably! Do you think the powers that be in the high levels of my school corporation will reduce the number of scholars in my room anytime soon? NO! The fact is scholar number nine is on the horizon.
Back to Grrr!'s first day. He was the first to arrive and was assigned a desk and he sat down. Wide was the next to arrive. He made it into the classroom but stayed only a short period and then ran out into the hallway. Gnu followed him but returned without him. When I inquired as to his location she said he is outside standing on the top of his parental unit's car and is refusing to get down. About fifteen minutes later Wide arrives. He is being carried by his parental unit with assistance from Oreo into the classroom. When they have him in the room he is placed standing on the floor and his mother backs out of the room as Oreo blocks the door. Wide is now aggressively trying to get to the door. I move towards the door to relieve Oreo and go into my blocking mode. After multiple attempts to get past me I look at Oreo and say we can't do this all day and I nod my head toward the timeout room. She has the door open and I'm moving Wide in that direction. He is now wild. When I get him to the far side of the timeout room I try and back my way out. No deal as he charges at me and his anger is escalating. I move him back and try again. I'm not quick enough to get to the door and close it as he continually charges at me. Again, I move him to back of the room. This time he charges with his fists up high. I grab him by the forearms to prevent him from hitting me. As I hold him he sinks his teeth into my arm right by the wrist. I immediately release his one arm to avoid a serious bite. As I release his hand he grabs my glasses and twists them into the shape of a pretzel. I tell him to give me my glasses and he does. I then pick up one of he lense that is on the floor and walk out of the room. I'm not a happy camper as my visibility is limited and my glasses have been destroyed so I leave the classroom. The Big B is nearby and I show her my glasses. Her immediately comment, "who did this." I explain and tell her I need to leave so I can get them repaired. As I grab my coat to leave Wide is in the timeout room and is seriously banging his head on the glass window. Gnu, Oreo, The Big B and Wide's parental unit are in the room when I leave. I'm about thirty feet down the hallway when Wide's parental unit calls to me so I stop. "Mr. Schultz I will do everything I can to scrap up the money to pay for your glasses." I tell her that is not necessary as things like this happen in our classroom. She insists she will pay me. Again, I say it is not necessary and tell her to go back and be with her son.
I caught a break on the glass as the lenses were not damaged. The optical shop had the exact frame in the store and popped the lenses into the new frame and I was on my way back to school. When I returned to the classroom Wide was gone. He was sent home for the day. I then checked with the Big B about getting reimbursed for the cost of the frames. Her response was "I'll see what I can do." That was not exactly what I wanted to hear. What I wanted to hear was yes the school corporation will reimburse you for the $144.00 frames. About thirty minutes later our classroom phone rings and it is the front office and I need to go to the office. When I arrived there is a school security officer waiting for me. In order to start the potential reimbursement process I need to file a police report. Great! I have to file a police report against a fourth grade scholar with an emotional disability who when he actually calms done won't even remember what happened. I file the police report and show the officer a copy of my receipt. He photographs it and then gives me a tracking code to follow as my case is reviewed.
As of this post I'm still waiting to hear if I'm going to be reimbursed. I'll yet you know how it ends.
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