And Now She Is Gone

Damn!  Another person gone, another change in the lives of our young scholars that have so many obstacles to overcome.  Just once, and I don't think I'm asking a lot, I like to go through an entire school year without someone unexpectedly leaving.  It ridiculous, frustrating and the worse part is I found out via a text message in the middle of fall break so I didn't even get to say goodbye.

Come to think of it, I received two text messages during fall break.  You just heard about one of them and now I'll tell you about the other one.  The final decision from the case conference that took place regarding The Collector is in.  As a reminder, The Collector has really been struggling this school year, mostly as a result of a lack of medication, will not be going into some type of residential facility as was requested by his parental unit.  The final decision was to change his medication to see if that will help.  In addition to the medication change there is the possibility that The Collector will go to a reduced school day.  That is an interesting option given that his parental unit earlier recommended that he be removed from home and place in a residential facility.  I'm sure this parental unit will be thrilled to death that her scholar may soon be spending more time with her rather than less. 

Fall break down in Panama City Beach, Florida was interesting.  I got to talk to other teachers about their school and the issues/challenges they face.  What was of particular interest was the conversations about those high and mighty private schools that so many people think are the best thing going.  After our somewhat lengthy conversation I've drawn the following conclusion about the difference between the hoity toity private school and the whipping post of the lowest life form, the public school.  It's pretty simple actually, one set of parental units has a lot of money and no sense and the other set of  parental units have little money and no sense.  I'm sure you are curious about the conversations I had with other school teachers from other parts of the country so I'll share a few.

• One young scholar has one of the best scams going that I've ever heard about.  So as not to hurt the scholars feelings, self esteem, embarrass or whatever the current buzz word is, you can't call on this scholar to answer a question in the classroom.  Should the teacher have a mental lapse and actually ask this scholar a question and the parental units or their paid professions that are hired to protect the parental units prized trophy find out they turn into pit bulls and threaten lawsuits all because their scholar was asked a question.
• Due to the very intense classroom environment another young scholar, who starts to get stress during the school day, can request a time out.  When given this time out the scholar has two choices, eat a snack to relax or take a ball to the overhead area of the school and play catch with someone in an overhead position until the stress level drops.
• I really like this one as it has to do with sports.  The parental units of this fine young scholar decided that they needed to change schools as the school their scholar was attending didn't have enough athletes to form a sports team.  So off they go to a new school solely so their scholar can play sports.  Unfortunately the parental units picked a new school that has some pretty high academic standards and guess what?  Their scholar was well below the academic standard and can't play sports.  So what do they do, go postal, threaten lawsuits, insist that all meetings taking place regarding their scholar academic standing be tape recorded to see if they can find a weakness in the school's position so they can sue the school. 
• Last one.  This school had a bullying incident.  The incident involve several scholars of one race and one scholar of another race.  Unfortunately for the several scholars of one race, they got caught.  This will now get a little interesting because this straight up incident of bullying/racism resulted in a one day in-school suspension for the guilty parties.  It makes me wonder if the punishment, which is nothing more than a slap on the wrist, would have turned into an expulsion if the bullying/racism roles were reversed in this incident. 

The text message came on Wednesday while on fall break.  Gnu sent me the text message and all it said was that IvyL was being moved to a new location.  This initial message was immediately followed by a second text message from Gnu.  All the second text message said was, "ridiculous."  For those of you that are not familiar with IvyL, she is a behavior therapist that visits our classroom at least once and sometimes twice a day to work with the scholars on their social and behavior skills.  With the exception of academics this is the single most important event taking place in our classroom and now all the relationships IvyL built up with our scholars is for nothing as she is gone.  Earlier in the school year I was aware that IvyL was struggling, especially with the scholars in Knew2's classroom, and that she lost her composure a few times.  Although that is not supposed to happen it does.  I'm living proof that these scholars can get to you and you lose your composure as I cracked a window in the classroom a couple years ago.  I also know that every person that I've worked with in my classroom going back over three school years has lost their composure at one time of another with the scholars.  It can be a very stressful environment to work in and to use a term used by PhD(?)Sparty a few years ago when I cracked that window you made a "human error."   IvyL made a human error and for some reason she was moved.  Gnu described this event as "ridiculous."  I could use a much stronger word to describe what happened but I think I'll just stick with RIDICULOUS!

I'm on my last full day of fall break.  In about eighteen hours I'll be back in the classroom.  Thanks for sticking around and reading the musing of an old man who just lost a colleague and a friend as a result of a human error.