One Elf and Three Idiots

I have to get this out of the way quickly as I'd rather focus on happier activities so here we go.  We, as a school, bottomed out again.  The Indiana Stupid Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP) results are in and so is our school's letter grade and we, according to a bunch of idiots that have never stepped foot in this wonderful school, are deemed a failure.  I've said it before and I'm going to say it again right now, I like this school.  I like the dedication of the teachers, arriving early, staying late, coming in on weekends, supporting numerous before and after school activities, spending ridiculous sums of their personal money to make sure our scholars have what they need to be successful.  And for the umpteenth time, I don't need to do what I do, I choose to keep doing what I do because this is a great school in a neighborhood where parental units easily falls into the category of low social economic background.

Enough of that.  NO!  I'm not done yet as I forget to mentioning that teachers are compensated based upon the STUPID results.  The Indianapolis Star, a week or so ago, ran an article about teacher compensation based on the STUPID results.  Teachers, who are tasked to teach the scholars of wealthy, two income, two parental units with college degrees scholars can be compensated at or above $2,000 if their scholars perform well on the STUPID test.  Where in the hell is the challenge to do that?  These scholars were born into the lucky sperm club and they were going to do well academically from the day they were born.  Teachers, those that are in my school corporation, who are tasked with the challenge to teach scholars that are products of piss poor parenting are also compensated based upon the STUPID test results.  Well, you know the results as I mentioned it above.  So what are the wonderful, hardworking teachers, who deal with scholars who do not have wealthy parental units with college degrees, who, maybe graduated from high school, get compensated.  The average check for a teacher in my school corporation is $128.  That equates to seventy-one cents per day solely because the teachers that I work with are in a school  that is in the wrong zip code.  To the lowest life form on earth, the politician, and to the snooty, high minded, pointy headed intellectuals that continue to grade schools solely on the results of this STUPID test I have this to say.  You can take your $128 check and stick it where the sun don't shine.

I wasn't in the classroom when the conversation started but one or more of the scholars questioned the validity of elves.  If I was to venture a guess I'd say that Huey was a part of this conversation based up how he acted over the next few hours in school whenever elves were mentioned.  Later in the day, after the scholars were all gone, FBG walked into the classroom and started a conversation about elves with Gnu.  Apparently the two had spoken earlier in the day and decided to prove the existence of elves.  As they were strategizing I walked over and joined the conversation.  After about fifteen minutes of planning we had our game plan.  The elf was going to enter the classroom from one of the exterior windows of our classroom.  Fortunately, the window was unlocked but the plan hit a bump in the road because we couldn't find anything to make elf footprints in the snow that was on the ground.  Gnu searched the room and found a fairly good sized stuffed SpongeBob doll with legs and we decided that this is the best we had.  FBG opened the window and Gnu tried to put the feet of SpongeBob in the snow.  When she realized that she couldn't reached the ground she adjusted her body to the point that FBG had to get a hold of her to keep her from falling out the window.

With the foot prints in place outside we decided to use brown water color paint to make the foot prints inside the classroom.  That was right up FBG's alley as he is a decent artist.  He started making the foot prints on the window sill, then down onto a small electrical outlet that stuck out from the wall, and finally down on the floor.  As I was watching FBG I suggested that we reopen the window and put some foot prints on the outside of the window so that it looked like the elf had to climb up the building.  To make it more authentic, FBG drew elf foot prints from the wall by the window across the room to an area rug that we use.  When the foot prints reached the area rug FBG smeared some of the brown water color paint onto the area rug to make it look like the elf wiped his feet. 

The next step in this grand scheme was to leave a note for the scholars on the white board.  As FBG wrote what he wanted to say on a note pad I looked around for the smallest dry erase marker that I could find.  With marker in hand, FBG start writing the note in vary small letters at the very bottom of the white board.  As FBG was writing, Gnu retrieved a piece of yarn from our art cabinet and taped it to the ledge on the white board that holds the erasers.  When we asked her what the yarn was for she said, "the elf is little and he can use this to climb up to the ledge of the white board."  FBG and I looked at each other and then agreed that if the scholars can buy the elf foot prints they can buy using a piece of yarn to climb up something.

With the project almost complete the classroom telephone rang.  Gnu answered it, left the room for a short while, and then returned and announced that there was bus incident and one of our busses was returning to school.  Gnu then left the classroom and FBG and I finished up the project.  Gnu had not returned to the classroom, so with jacket on and heading home, I decided to alter my route to the parking lot and walk through the front office.  As I turned the corner I saw the BigB2, LittleBigB, and the school bus driver surrounding Big House as he sat in a chair.  As I approached them I passed the BigB2's office and saw MiniJ sitting in a chair with Gnu right next to him.  I stuck my head in the door and told her the classroom project was complete and I was heading home.  As I continued toward the exit door, the bus driver was trying to convince Big House to get up off the chair and get on the bus.  Being in his stubborn mood Big House refused to move.  When I was directly in front of him I said to him, "Mr. Bus Driver asked you very politely to get up and get on the bus as there are students that need to be taken home, now get up and let's get going." 

It was around 8:00pm when I sent a text message to Gnu to see how her day ended.  She responded that Big House and MiniJ received a one day suspension from the bus because of an fight with Huey on the bus.  She then immediately sent a second text message back to me, "I can't believe we do all of these fun activities in the classroom for these butt holes." 

It's now the next morning and as I walked into the classroom after doing my morning, standing out in the freezing cold, bus duty there was excitement in the air.  "Mr. Schultz, Mr. Schultz, an elf was in the classroom last night."  "Are you sure," I responded.  "Yes Mr. Schultz, he came in through the window.  You can see his foot prints outside on the ground and where he walked around the classroom.  He even left us a note on the whiteboard."  "Elves can write," I responded as I walked over to the white board.  After reading the note from the elf I started looking around the classroom.  Speaking to the scholars in general I said, "don't you think it is interesting that there are no foot prints showing how the elf got out of the classroom.  Maybe he is still in the school somewhere?"  Huey took the bait and immediately started looking around the classroom and then even looked out in the hallway.

I know this is getting lengthy but I have two more items to mention.  First, the bus altercation made it necessary for MiniJ's male parental unit to pick him up after school.  Just prior to the end of the school day the classroom telephone rang, it was a male and he wanted to talk to Gnu.  So you know, this is MiniJ's third year in our classroom and I never met or saw his male parental unit.  When I asked Gnu what the call was about she told me that MiniJ's male parental unit wanted to know what time school ended so he could pick up his son.  I looked at Gnu and said, "MiniJ has been in this room for three years and his parental unit doesn't know what time of the day school ends."  She turned and looked at me and said, "he also can't read."

Here is the last item.  Gnu and numerous others are faced with the challenge of educating young scholars like MiniJ who are the offspring of very poorly educated parental units and they bust their ass to do the right thing.  Gnu, working with FBG, put together this wonderful elf project after school, when they should have been on their way home, with the intent of making school a fun place to be for our scholars.  For their effort, the lowest life form, the politician, and those pointed headed intellectuals who put in place a horrible compensation plan that states your effort is only worth seventy-one cents per school day need to be driven out of office and out of our classroom lives.  

That's it.  It's wine drinking Wednesday so I'm out of here.  Good bye!  Merry Christmas!



 

       

       

      

The Safety Plan

One week out from our official winter break (really Christmas break but there is that separation of church and state thing) and we have, since very early in the school year, a behavior therapist that will do on one counseling sessions with our scholars plus group behavior sessions with them.  So here is an updated list of the adults that I work with on a daily basis.

BigB2 - principal
LittleBigB - vice principal
Gnu - the teacher
Me - the instructional assistant
Hill'sGirl - behavior therapist
MJ - our brand spanking new behavior therapist
FBG - behavior specialist

While I'm at it, I might was well list the scholars as we have a new part time scholar.

Knapper - 4th grade
MiniJ - 4th grade
Uh-Uh-Uh - 4th grade
Big House - 4th grade
Tourette - 3rd grade
S&T - 3rd grade
Grr! - 3nd grade
Huey - 2nd grade
Whale - grade uncertain, maybe 3rd grade. 

Whale is from one of our life skills classes and joins us twice a day.  In the morning he arrives at 9:00am and does his morning work (usually an easy assignment to get the brain started) and then returns to his classroom.  He returns around 1:00pm and joins us for our math block.  So far he has fit in real well and there have been no issues.  Hopefully, saying what I just said, I didn't just jinx myself.

Where should I begin?  I have two choices, the safety plan or the blonde Grinch.  I'm going to save the blonde Grinch until later just so you can once again get a feel for the quality of the person that occupies the front of the classroom.

From the moment he takes the first step off the bus in the morning until he puts his foot back on the first step of the bus to go home after school there has to be an adult with him.  The adult that is with him during lunch is Gnu.  The adult that is with at all the other times of the school day is me.  When he walks through the cafeteria tray line to get his breakfast, I walk with him.  If he needs to go to the bathroom I go with him.  No, I don't go into the bathroom with him.  I stand immediately outside the door.  If he wants to go to the library I go with him.  If he needs to go to the computer lab I go with him.  When he is outside at recess, this is the real danger zone, I stay within fifteen feet of him all the time.  Why is this happening?  A safety plan was put in place, not to keep this scholar safe, but to keep another scholar safe.

For the better part of three school years now Gnu and our behavior therapists and behavior specialists have worked with this scholar on his behavior.  Progress has been made, lots of progress.  No longer do this scholar erupt with anger and start tipping over tables, desks, and chairs.  No longer does this scholar start fights with his classmates over something stupid.  His behavior has progressed to the point that at the start of the school year this scholar was sent back into a general education classroom.  Unfortunately, because adults failed to do their jobs, this scholar returned to our classroom.  That's progress, real progress, except for one area, this scholar's mouth.  From his arrival nearly three years ago, this scholar has been well versed in obscenities, well versed in shouting out total nonsense, well versed in opening his mouth and saying something totally stupid without thinking.  Well, he opened his mouth and now we have this safety plan.

What actually took place is a bit sketchy as it happened on a morning bus.  When Gnu and I heard about the incident I believe we both knew that this was something our scholar would do but we hoped for the best.  Unfortunately, the best didn't work out.  When confronted about the incident, our scholar tried to defend himself by saying this other student was talking about his mother and threated to slap him.  As this incident was talking place on the bus this other scholar took out a cell phone and started recording our scholar.  With this happening, our scholar, who speaks first and thinks later, told this scholar and I'm paraphrasing, "why don't you suck my d...."  With a video in hand, this other scholar shows the video to a parental unit, the parental unit brings up the matter with the BigB2 and the end result is a safety plan to keep the two scholars separated.  Interestingly, our scholar was never suspended for his actions and I believe I know why.  Since this incident, this other scholar has started irritating Big House who is on the same bus.  Fortunately, Big House kept his mouth shut, walked away, and told an adult.  The adult then relayed this information to the BigB2.  The other day FBG and I were discussing the Big House incident.  He informed me that this same other student has an additional target, one of our Latino scholars.  Although you can't refute a video, I'm feeling confident in saying we haven't heard the rest of the story and who are the real victims. 

Academically, we are continuing our discussion about Queen Victoria, the Industrial Revolution,  Charles Dickens, and Dickens's story, A Christmas Carol.  With all of this going on Gnu decided that is was time for the scholars to write a letter to Santa Claus that she will tie together with A Christmas Carol.  When Gnu announced this assignment the scholars were pretty excited about writing to Santa Claus.  To assist the scholars in their letter writing Gnu handed out a worksheet the scholars could use to keep their thoughts organized.  The first step was to write down what you wanted for Christmas.  After each scholar wrote down what they wanted Gnu told them they had to list three reasons, with examples, as to why Santa Claus should bring them what they wanted.  This threw the scholar for bit of a loop as they didn't understand why they had to list any reasons as you don't need reasons, you just tell Santa Claus what you want.  Despite the confusion on the part of the scholars Gnu added one more item to the list of things the scholars had to have in their letter.  Once Gnu got everyone settled down she told them that they needed to write an opening statement to Santa that will act as a hook to get his attention so he'll keep reading your letter.  In order to get her point across, Gnu used herself as an example.  Dear Santa Claus, I live in a house that is too small.  The house only has one bathroom and in a few months I am going to have a baby so I'll need a second bathroom.  So Santa Claus, I'd like a new house for Christmas, one that has two bathrooms.

For two days Gnu worked with the scholars on their letter to Santa Claus.  One by one the scholars had to bring their worksheet organizer up to Gnu for a progress update.  When the blonde Grinch reviewed the scholars worksheets she rejected a lot of what they wrote and sent them back to their desks to start again.  With the scholars getting frustrated, they started to head for my desk for assistance.  When the blonde Grinch saw the scholars heading in my direction she said, "Schultz, you can't help them with spelling, sentence structure or ideas.  This is their project and they need to do it themselves.  Do not help them!" 

A couple days later, Gnu stands up and says, "I'm going to be Santa Claus, who has finished their letter to Santa Claus."  If my memory serves me correctly, S&T walked up first.  When he handed his letter to her she starting reading and then said to him, "this is boring.  I've read a million letters like this one.  You need to give me better reasons as to why I should give you a billion dollars for Christmas."  Dejected, S&T's head dropped down and then she took out her pencil, had S&T sit right next to her, and she helped him for over a half hour with the assignment.  Seven more times the blonde Grinch read a letter to Santa Claus.  Seven more times the blonde Grinch nitpicked them on their letter.  Seven more times the blonde Grinch picked up their spirits by helping them with the assignment.  Some time next week all eight letters to Santa Claus will be written.  Some time next week eight scholars, ranging from the second to the fourth grade, will have written the longest, best organized letter in their life.  The blonde Grinch beat them up about their letter.  Gnu, one of the finest, most caring teachers I've worked with pickup up their spirits so that they can be proud of the letter they wrote to Santa Claus.  For the umpteenth time, you again know why I keep doing what I do.

That's it.  Another blog completed.  We have five more school days before our winter break.  Both Gnu and I are not looking forward to next week as the closer we get to our winter break the harder it will be to keep the scholars focused on academics.  Hopefully we are both wrong and the week will pass uneventfully.  Thanks again for your return visit to read a blog written by an old guy that has a view from the back of a classroom.



       

    



   

Dear Parental Unit

Here is an update on my light at the end of the tunnel situation that I mentioned last week.  So far our school corporation's school board has not made an announcement about the changes to the start time and end time of the school day so it's still a waiting game.  However, the elimination of the emotionally handicapped classroom has taken an interesting turn.  A few days ago, one of those special education overhead personnel walked into the classroom and had a conversation with Gnu while I occupied the back of the classroom.  A short while later this same overhead person re-entered the classroom and pulled up a chair next to me with the intent of observing the scholars behavior during an academic lesson.  With the overhead person sitting within arms reach of me I decided to ask about the elimination of the emotionally handicapped classroom.  The response I received back was quite animated with the overhead person questioning me about who is starting these rumors.  What the overhead person did not know was that I asked Gnu what the overhead person spoke to her about earlier and Gnu told me that she was advised to look at other teaching opportunities as her job may be eliminated.  It's interesting, the overhead person took the time to advise Gnu about this upcoming change but chose to leave me in the dark.  Dear overhead person, I don't need to do what I do, I choose to do what I do and you telling Gnu one thing and me something entirely different really pisses me off.          

Gnu spent the better part of the last two school weeks studying early Native Americans during our morning reading block.  She read two different stories, the first was about the Native Americans in the northwest part of our country and the second one was about Native Americans from the southwest part of our country.  As anticipated, because these two stories took place outside the one mile radius of our school, the scholars were clueless about the location of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.  Fortunately, for these geographically challenged scholars, our classroom was the recipient of that really nice quilted map that you seen Gnu pointing to on the right side of this blog.  As Gnu read each story, the scholars auditory skills remained consistent as they could easily recall the stories to included the vocabulary words that went with each book.  It was also not surprising that the scholars knew about the Native American teepee.  What was surprising was that the scholars were clueless when discussing the totem pole.  While the book had pictures of a totem pole Gnu took it a step further and did an image search for totem poles on the internet so the scholars could get a better look at one.  As the scholars were looking at the pictures Gnu retrieve the Play Dough from a storage closet, set the containers on her front table, and asked the scholars to join her in designing their own totem pole.  As each scholar completed their totem pole, Gnu informed them that they had to describe what they put on their totem pole and why.  One by one the scholars talked about their totem pole.  Some were pretty simple but others, Grr!, Uh-Uh-Uh, and Huey, went into some pretty good detail.  As the assignment was winding down Gnu looked up at the clock on the wall and announced that we were late for lunch and everyone needed to line up quickly.  In less than a minute everyone was out the door and heading for lunch with the exception of the old guy that has a view from the back of the room.  He was left behind to clean up the mess on the front table.

I'm sure it was just a coincidence, but as Gnu was discussing the early Native Americans in our country, an email message poured in from the BigB2 that was sent to her by our school corporation.  This email message was written by a gentleman of Native American ancestry and to say he had an attitude is an understatement.  I'll keep this short as I need to get to the Dear Parental Unit part so I'll only mention two items that offended this Native American.  First, the person was offended that Native Americans were all lumped into one culture.  According to this person, the Native Americans are made up of numerous cultures so to group them all together is insulting.  The second item that offended this person was the fact that schools, mainly at the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten level, would have their very young scholars design, out of colored construction paper, a headdress.  For two paragraphs this person ranted on about schools being so insensitive to Native Americans that they would tolerate teachers having pre-kindergarten and kindergarten scholars making headdresses out of construction paper.  So, the schools, as well as the teachers, have been forewarned, headdresses are off limits.  As a side note, I'm considering writing my own letter of outrage.  On numerous occasions I've seen, and if my memory serves me correctly, BassG, a former teacher at our school was asked to address this during his time at this school, scholars arriving at school wearing a rosary as if it were a piece of costume jewelry.  If the Native Americans can voice their displeasure about the headdress, what can't the Catholics voice their please about using a rosary as a piece of costume jewelry?

Dear Parental Unit, you just moved again.  This is the third time in less that half a school year that you have moved.  What the hell are you thinking?  Do you know how much time over the past three school years teachers, behavior specialists, behavior therapists, and an instructional assistant have spent trying to give your scholar the best possible education so he can be a productive citizen of this country some day but you keep moving?  Do you know that your scholar was getting free before school after school tutoring help with his homework because you totally failed to help him yourself?  Do you know that your scholar had one place where he could go and feel safe and wanted and you just moved again?  Do you know, because you decided to move outside our school corporation boundary, what kind of additional stress you just put on your scholar who already has anxiety issues? Dear parental unit, are you mental?  EM and his family just moved again and are outside our school boundary and we can no longer help him.

Dear Parental Unit, have you ever noticed that your scholar leaves for school wearing one type of pants and returns home wearing a completely different type of pants?  Because you are apparently clueless and have not noticed this I'm going to tell you why this is happening.  Gnu was the first one to smell it and she new immediately where the order was coming from.  Huey had just pooped his pants for the third time this school year.  With Huey directed out of the classroom, Gnu passed my desk and said to keep the scholars on task and that she would be back in a couple minutes.  Huey was the first to arrive back in the classroom.  When I looked in his direction, he was wearing construction barrel orange colored pants.  He looked absolutely ridiculous and I had to do my best not to laugh out loud.  Gnu walked in immediately after Huey and when I looked at her she had this huge smile on her face and was doing her best not to laugh out loud.  Rather than walk to the front of the classroom, Gnu sat down next to me and told me what happened.  The orange pants were the only thing she could find that fit Huey.  She also told me that he wasn't wearing any underwear and when she questioned Huey about his lack of underwear he said he didn't have any.  When Gnu questioned Huey a second time about his lack of underwear he responded that he actually had underwear but every time he went to put on some underwear they were still dirty.  Gnu also informed me that she now knows why Huey walks in such an odd fashion, his shoes are one and maybe two sizes to small for his feet.  Slightly irritated that Huey is subjected to such piss poor parenting I asked Gnu if she was going to talk to the school corporation social worker about this matter.  Gnu stated that she was and would do so at the end of the school day.  The very next morning, all of the scholars are in the classroom and Gnu is about to start our reading block when the social worker walks into the classroom carrying a package.  Inside the package are pants and shoes for Huey.  Dear parental unit, are you even aware that you scholar pooped his pants three times in less than half the school year, arrives at school without any underwear, and when your scholar does want to wear underwear they are so dirty he refuses to put them on?  Dear parent unit, did you not notice that you scholar returned home wearing a brand new pair of pants and brand new shoes?  Dear parental unit, are you blind or just plain mental? 

I have one more dear parental unit but I'm going to save it for next week.  We just rolled into the month on December and Gnu has started a wonderful lesson on London, England during the Industrial Revolution that will also introduce the scholars to Charles Dickens and will eventually lead to a reading of Dickens book,  A Christmas Carol.  Stick around for a while because what she has prepared for the scholars is really quite special and to be honest I didn't think the scholars would enjoy this subject matter.  Boy, was I wrong.     





                    

The Terrible Weekend

Today is Friday, November 25th.  So as not to mislead anyone one, the terrible weekend that is referenced in the title of this blog was last weekend and not the Thanksgiving weekend.

It's 9:15am on Monday, November 21st, and all of the scholars, with the exception of Tourette, are in the classroom.  Gnu's first order of business on Monday mornings is to ask the scholars what they did over the weekend.  I usually have mixed feelings about doing this as our scholars rarely do anything real special.  They will say things like I went to Kings Island but that is doubtful which is sad.  Why?  The scholars will make things up just to sound like they did something special.  The reality is that they come from parental units that are poor and for the most part don't do much of anything themselves.  One by one the scholars told Gnu what they did on the weekend.  When the scholars were finished I heard Gnu say, "Schultz, what did you do this weekend?"  I just had one item to share, I got to baby sit my granddaughter.  When I finished it was Gnu's turn.  "To start out, my spousal unit and I bought a large pizza this weekend," Gnu said.  "The pizza was sitting on a low coffee table when my spousal unit and I got distracted.  When we came back into the room with the pizza we discovered that our dog has eaten the entire pizza.  To make matters worse, the dog kept waking us up all night to go outside and go to the bathroom," Gnu continued.  Hang in there, we haven't gotten to the terrible weekend part yet.  Gnu speaking again, "I also broke the screen on my cell phone.  I sat it on the edge of our kitchen table and I accidently backed into the table and knocked the cell phone on the floor."  This got the scholars attention as they all headed to the front of the classroom to get a closer look at the cell phone.  MiniJ, who is holding the cell phone and heading in my direction, "Mr. Schultz, Mr. Schultz, look what Miss Gnu did to her cell phone."  MiniJ handed me the cell phone and the screen was definitely shattered but the cell phone still worked so it wasn't a total loss.  Ok, dog at the entire large pizza, the cell phone screen was shattered and we still haven't reached the reason for the terrible weekend. Gnu speaking again, "and this weekend had to be the worst weekend I ever had.  When I went to put on my pants they didn't fit right, I had trouble buttoning them up."  Uh-Uh-Uh speaking, "that's because you are going to have a baby."  I thought about adding to Uh-Uh-Uh's comment, something about chocolate or pretzels filled with peanut butter, but chose to remain silent.

In my last blog post I mentioned that Tourette was removed, again, from the custody of his parental units by a social services agency.  When Gnu heard this news Tourette was serving a three day suspension from school.  On day four, which was a Friday, Gnu was expecting Tourette back in the classroom.  He was a no show.  Apparently the social services agency was trying to find a foster care home for him but was not having any luck finding one.  On Monday and Tuesday of this past week Tourette continued to be a no show in the classroom.  When I asked Gnu if she heard anything about Tourette's situation she replied, "no."  So as of this day, in the middle of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Tourette and his siblings are stuck in no man's land all because of the total failure of his parental units.  I asked that you keep Tourette and his siblings in your prayers and hopefully he'll be placed in a caring foster home and return to school this Monday.

Although you aren't aware, I just had one of those senior moments as I've misplace my notes that I keep for this blog.  You'd think, with today's technology, I'd keep my blog notes on my cell phone rather than on a piece of scrap paper that gets crammed into my pants pocket.  Ok, I just retrieved the notes. They were in the pants that I placed in the dirty laundry hamper.

Note #1.  It's early in the day, the scholars have not arrived when our classroom telephone rings.  Gnu was closest to the phone so she answered it.  After a brief conversation she hangs up the phone, turns in my direction and says, "I'll be back in a few minutes."  About ten minutes later my cell phone rings and it's Gnu.  "I'm in so and so's classroom on the second floor, can you think of anything in our classroom that I can use to make a head scarf?"  "Not right off," I respond, "but I'll look and if I find something I'll call you back."  A short while later Gnu returned to our classroom and informed me as to what happened that a head scarf was needed.  A scholar in this second floor classroom had a classmate that had head lice.  When this scholar, who didn't have head lice, told her parental unit about the head lice incident, the parental unit, to insure that no head lice enter his house, shaved the hair off of his daughter's head as a precaution.  With her head shaved, the scholar arrived at school the next day.  As soon as she entered the school an adult yells at her to take the hat off of her head as you can't wear a hat inside school.  The scholar removed her hat and every scholar near her sees her shaved head. 

Note #2.  Another email message arrived from our administrative czar regarding after school transportation.  Please be advised that Scholar A, Scholar B, and Scholar C are car riders.  It is important that you watch closely who picks up these scholars because there is a child protection order prohibiting certain parental units from coming in contact with these scholars.  This is the third such email message in about a week and a half.  When I was at the local Y last week a good friend of mine, AO from Vino, who reads the blog, commented on these email messages.  To paraphrase, "this is serious stuff that teachers have to deal with.  What happens to the teacher if something goes wrong and the child is placed with the wrong person?"  Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to that question but I suspect that if something goes wrong that teacher's name would be all over the local media outlets.

Note#3.  All of our third grade scholars will be required to take and pass the IRead3 mandatory reading test in either March or April of next year.  If my memory serves me correctly, only about seventy percent of our scholars will pass the test.  Knowing this, the BigB2 along with the LittleB sent out an email message to see if any of the teachers would be interested in working on Saturdays to prepare our third grade scholars for this test.  Gnu, as well as other teachers, signed up to help.  Note, they will be compensated for giving up their Saturday mornings.  The first help session was last Saturday.  When I asked Gnu how it went, she informed me that eighteen scholars showed up.  She went on to tell me that eighteen was a good start but our school leadership was hoping for a head count that neared thirty.

Although it may be premature, the light at the end of the tunnel may be nearing for me.  There are two different items, one at the school corporation level and the other at the special education department level that may cause me to either quit or lose my job.  At the school corporation level there is a shortage of bus drivers and/or bus monitors.  In order to combat this shortage the school corporation is considering a change in school hours and this may involve my school.  Right now, I believe our school corporation has three different start times.  To address the bus shortage, the school wants to move forward the start of the school day for my school and others.  In doing so, the bus drivers who run the first routes of the day will have completed their routes and can now do a second route by picking up the scholars that attend my school.  I don't have a problem with this but it will have an impact on my day.  Right now my work day is from 8:30am until 4:00pm.  With the later bus pickup, my day will start at 8:55am and go to 4:25pm.  That would mean that I wouldn't get home until around 4:50pm and that will not work as it will negatively impact my workout time at the local Y.  The other change, the one from the special education department, is the more interesting of the two.  For some time now there have been rumors that the special education department wants to eliminate the self contained emotionally handicapped classroom (the one Gnu and I are in) and place all of these scholars into the general education classrooms.  If you've been following this blog for a while you know how volatile the scholars that I work with can get.  Although I haven't mentioned it a lot this year, the other emotionally handicapped classroom, the one directly above our classroom, has some of the most violent scholars I've ever seen.  The scholars above me have knocked holes in walls, intentionally smashed laptop computers, seriously damage shelving units, and have literally kicked the walls out of the back sides of cabinets.  Knowing what I know, I wonder exactly what the overhead personnel are thinking when they want to place such violent scholars into the general education population.  It will be interesting to watch and more important it will be interesting to see if they will tell the parental units with scholars in the general education population exactly what kind of scholar they just placed in the same room as their scholar.  If this change occurs, as far as I can tell, my job will be eliminated. 

That's it for now.  I know this blog post doesn't have a very happy ending so I will tell you this.  Although I may not have a paying job at the start of the next school year that doesn't mean that I can't return to the school as a volunteer.  Why?  I like the school, I like the school leadership, I know the majority of the teachers on a first name basis, and most important, I like doing academics with the scholars at this wonderful school.  I'm out, see you next week.        



 

I Just Don't Get It

I think I'll start with a little politics, actually as little politics as possible, more along the lines of dictionary trivia that mentions politics.  The word of the year from Oxford Dictionaries is post-truth politics. Here is the definition, belonging to a time in which the truth has become irrelevant.  Given what just happened in our presidential election, I think the dictionary people nailed it. 

Ok, where to begin as it was a strange week.  I going to start with school transportation; buses, cars, and walkers.  I have bus duty every morning and for the most part bus issues have been minimal.  Well, except for one and I'll get to it later.  The walkers rarely have any issues but the car riders more that make up for the non-existent walker issues.  I'll give you two examples of what teachers and other adults face while on car rider detail.  Here is the first one and it came to my attention via an email message.  To all staff, please be advised that Scholar A will be going home with Parental Unit #1.  This is a change as Scholar A has been going home with Parental Unit #2 but that has changed and may change again as who has custody of Scholar A is being contested in court.  So, before Scholar A gets into a car please be sure that Scholar A is going home with the correct parental unit.  Here is the second one and it also came to my attention via an email message.  To all staff, please be aware that our school records indicate that Scholar B has three adults listed as emergency contacts and here are their names: Adult #1, Adult #2, and Adult #3.  Please be very careful when a car arrives to pick up Scholar B at the end of the day.  If you have any uncertainty as to who the driver of the car is, please ask for identification so Scholar B does not get in the car with the wrong person.  Imagine being an adult at end of the day with car rider line duty.  All you want to do is see the little scholars get in a car and go home so you can go home.   But no, you now have the added responsibility of a security guard checking ID's before the scholars can even get in a car.  One more item and this one should be interesting given the recent rhetoric of our two political parties during the latest election. Again, it came as an email message.  To all staff, please be advised that we have a new scholar starting today.  This scholar will be in Room #1.  Also be advised that our new scholar has a brother in our school that has been with us for a while and is in Room #2.  So that everyone is aware, our new scholar that will be in Room #1 just arrived from a foreign country and does not speak a word of English.  Later that day I had a chance to talk to our school administrative czar about our new non-English speaking scholar.  I had just one question for our administrative czar, how much advance notice did the school receive that this scholar will be in our school?  The response was one word, none.  I will now move on as no matter what side I take, someone will be mad at me.

As of today, our scholars and their parental unit(s) have available to them a psychologist, two social workers, a behavior specialist, as well as four behavior therapists.  The scholars and their parental unit(s) also have access to child advocates and various social services agencies.  With the exception of the social services agencies, I believe the scholars and their parental unit(s) have access to some of the finest individuals to support them as they work their way through our school.  Unfortunately, it's the social services agencies that can literally suck the energy out of Gnu and drive me to the point that I would like to walk into our padded wall time out room and just start banging on the walls. 

I first met Tourette when he was in the first grade.  Prior to meeting him, he was trashing his classroom and his teacher called me to help remove him from her classroom.  When I arrived he was in the hallway and was trying to hide behind the classroom door.  When I saw him I stopped, put my foot against the door so he couldn't slam it shut and them blocked his passage way so he couldn't run away from me.  When I spoke to him he immediately went into an obscenity laced tirade that ended with him flipping me off.  During the next school year, the second grade, I didn't have to respond very often to Tourette's anger explosions as our behavior specialist was tasked with working with him.  Although I wasn't around Tourette very often there was one encounter with him that I'll remember for a long time.  Before I go any farther, as a reminder, I don't make this stuff up.  I was walking through our main office area and when doing so I have a choice of routes.  I can cut through the teacher lounge/copy center/junk room or I can follow the hallway.  On this day I chose the hallway.  If I chose the other route, what you are about to read would not have happened.  As I was walking past the BigB's office Tourette was sitting in a chair outside the office.  As I walked past him I said, "good morning."  The response I got was, "shut the f.... up."  As I continued past him I said to him, "maybe tomorrow will be a better day."  That was met with another obscenity laced tirade.  Possibly one of the longest ones I've ever heard in my life.  When I turned around to look at him, he stood up, turned in my direction, and gave me the double flip off.

Gnu speaking, "Schultz, just so you know, Tourette will be in our classroom (third grade) this year.  He will arrive on a bus at the start of the day but will only be in our classroom until 1:00pm.  At 1:00pm, his day is over and a bus will pick him up and take him home."  Anytime we get a new scholar Gnu informs me about the scholar's issues and often we will also take about the scholars parental units.  Like just about every scholar I worked with, their problems start at home as they are products of piss poor parenting.  In this case, the parental units have certain dependencies.  When Tourette joined us, his parental units had lost custody and he was living with another adult parental unit of the immediate family.  Although Tourette's situation improved, the improvement was minor and he eventually ended up in foster care.  It was during his stay in a foster home that Gnu began to see improvements in Tourette's behavior at school as he now appeared to be in a structured setting and was taking his medication daily.  With some behavior progress being made Gnu began talking about extended Tourette's school day but then it happened, a social services agency decided it was time for Tourette to return to his parental units home.  It was only a couple days and all the progress made while in a foster home started to deteriorate.  Gnu recognized it first, Tourette was not taking his medication.  When asked about it he'd say, "I forget to take it," or "I'm out of medicine."  Tourette's first eruption occurred on the bus coming to school.  Something caused his anger to erupt as he directed an obscenity laced tirade at another student on the bus.  The bus monitor, in an attempt to get him settled down, got kicked in the shin by Tourette.  Tourette's punishment for kicking an adult, none that I'm aware of.  The very next day, another bus incident.  This time when Tourette erupted he started choking another student.  Fortunately, the bus monitor stopped him from causing any harm.  This incident cost Tourette a two day suspension.

For two days our classroom was quiet as Tourette was gone.  There was one minor incident with him but it had to do with him coming to school to just hang out on the school play ground.  When he was seen, he was told he couldn't be on the playground and was told to go home.  Later that day the school called Tourette's parental unit to inform this person that Tourette could not come to school and play on the school's playground.  This parental unit informed the school that Tourette was not on the school's property.  After the two day suspension Tourette returned.  He made it through the first day and left at 1:00pm for home.  A short while later the BigB2 saw Tourette on the playground again and asked him to leave.  Again, a call was made home and again the parental unit claimed Tourette was not on the playground.  At this point the BigB2 said something about taking his picture the next time this happens.  Sadly, it only took a short period of time.  I was sitting in the back of the room during our math block when a custodian quickly opened the classroom door and said to me, "Mr. Schultz, you are needed in the Prekindergarten room right away.  Given the tone of the custodians voice, I was up and moving quickly.  When I arrived at the Prekindergarten area I was told that I should continue down the corridor and exit the building.  When I walked out the door, there was Tourette in a full blown anger eruption.  The BigB2 was nearby, so was one of our behavior therapists, and a female person that I didn't recognize.  As I was observing and not certain of my role I walked over to the BigB2 and said, "let me know what I need to do," and then, "who is that adult?"  The BigB2 informed me that the adult was a friend of Tourette's family and right now I was to do nothing as Tourette was not in school.  When I turned around, this friend of the family had Tourette on the ground and was straddling him trying to get him to calm down.  This only caused Tourette's anger to escalate.  Finally, the behavior therapist asked the friend of the family to get off of Tourette as that might get him to settle down.  As soon as he was able to get up, Tourette got up, grabbed his bicycle and sped away from school.  Although I was not there to see it, Tourette returned to school for a third time on this day.  Not being there I don't know what happened but whatever Tourette did this time resulted in him getting a three day suspension. 

Tourette's three day suspension is over.  It's Friday and he is expected back in the classroom but he doesn't show up.  Gnu makes some enquiries and tells me later in the day that Tourette has been removed from the custody of his parental units again.  As of right now the social services agency is trying to locate a foster home for him but without any success.  So, as of right now, Gnu has no idea where Tourette is and has no idea when he will return to our school.

God, this is so frustrating.  Why did the social services agencies put Tourette back into such a poor home environment?  I don't understand it.  He was placed in a foster home where he had a structured life, was taking his medication daily, was showing progress in school, and then BOOM, he is returned to his totally dysfunctional parental units.  I don't get it and you know what's really sad, you just heard about Tourette.  The same situation has occurred with other scholars in our school.  Sadly, with several other scholars.  I work in this wonderful school that is staffed with professionals trained to provide the best service possible to scholars like Tourette and then a social services agency steps in and disrupts all of the good that is going on.  I don't get it.  I just don't get it.

There are other things to talk about but I'm stopping as this blog post is too long.  Gnu and I will only be on the classroom for two days next week as the Thanksgiving holiday is quickly approaching.  I just might get a sudden burst of energy and post another blog on Wednesday.  To quote a good friend of mine who leads a cycling class that I attend at the local Y, "with that said," I'm out.



   

          

 



 

Rough Week, I Got Stoned

What he is really saying is I don't want to be in a classroom with THOSE students.  A couple weeks ago I wrote a blog entitled, It's Going Down the Drain Slowly, that was about the supposed demise of the school corporation that employs me.  The idea for this blog post came from a social media site and I decided to write about it.  While at this social media site there was a second posting from an inclusion teacher that equally ruffled my feathers.  For those of you that are not familiar with inclusion teachers I'll fill you in.  These teachers support classroom teachers with students that are assigned an Individual Education Plan (IEP).  These are students that struggle academically, are in a general education classroom, but fall under the category of special needs so the inclusion teacher works with these scholars.  The inclusion teacher position is a pretty cushy job.  This person has little academically responsibility for the scholars, is not required to come up with daily lesson plans, does not have to worry about homework, tests, or mandatory state wide testing scores, does not have to send home report cards and doesn't have to deal with any parental units.  Now, on to the matter at hand.  This inclusion teacher went on a tirade at this social media site because there was a special education classroom that was without a teacher.  This inclusion teacher went as far as accusing the school corporation of breaking the law for not have a special education licensed teacher in the classroom.  So what actually did happen?  This inclusion teacher was asked to take the lead teacher role in this special education classroom until a permanent teacher could be hired and apparently this inclusion teacher was insulted for having to go into a classroom with THOSE scholars.  Dear inclusion teacher, you are part of the problem and if you don't want to teach THOSE scholars then get out of the teaching profession.

We lost another scholar recently and we are now down to eight scholars.  BayBee and his parental units relocated well outside our school corporation boundry a few days ago.  This is another scholar that falls into the category of "don't let the door hit you in the butt on your way out."  Actually, that is not a fair statement as BayBee wasn't all that bad.  The bad was the parental unit who, during the short period of time in our school corporation, threatened to sue our school transportation department and well as my school and school corporation.  On a lighter note, BayBee's new school sent a representative to our school to observe BayBee and gather behavior related statistics for this young scholar.  This representative stayed in the classroom for around ninety minutes as Gnu went through our morning reading block.  When Gnu's cell phone timer rang to indicate is was time to rotate to the next reading station the representative stood up to leave.  As he was exiting he asked Gnu an interesting question.  "Is this an EH (emotionally handicapped) classroom?  "Yes," Gnu replied.  The representative responded by saying, "it's not like the ones I'm used to seeing."  Although I was not part of the conversation I almost said, "it's an EH classroom that is exceptionally well run and is led by and excellent teacher so keep that in mind when BayBee's parental units tells you he changed schools because his scholars previous school was making his scholar's behavior worse rather than better" but I chose to remain silent.  I'm sure this new school will have a good understanding on how BayBee's parental unit thinks in a relatively short time period.

For the record, here are the remaining scholars.
S&T - third grade
Uh-Uh-Uh - fourth grade
Grr! - third grade
Knapper - fourth grade
MiniJ - fourth grade
Big House - fourth grade
Huey - second grade
Tourette - third grade

Gnu wasn't feeling well and she decided to reward the scholars with a second recess at the end of the school day for their good behavior.  At 3:10 pm we headed outside to our playground and stayed their until 3:30pm, the end of our school day.  It was at approximately 3:25pm when I saw Huey sprinting toward the gate of our playground and then out onto the school grounds.  Gnu stood up to go retrieve him but I waved her off and headed across the school grounds.  When I caught up with Huey he was trying to hide around the corner of the school building.  When I walked up to him I told him in very simple terms, "if you run away from me I will call the police and they will chase you down so get back to the playground."  He put his head down and slowly began the walk back.  As we approached the playground Gnu was escorting the scholars back into school as it was time to go home.  As I approached Gnu I noticed Knapper hiding behind one of the school support columns.  As I walked past him I said, "come on, it's time to get your brother and head for home."  I took a couple more steps toward the school entrance and then turned to see if he was following me.  He wasn't so I walked back to him and said, come on, you're holding everyone up."  "Leave me the f..... alone" was his response and just that quick the demons entered his head again.  Gnu walked back towards me to see what the delay was so I told her the demons returned.  She decided to let me stay outside with Knapper and she'd get everyone else going in the right direction to go home.  I told her I'd text message FBG, our behavior specialist, for assistance and I was alone outside with Knapper.  A very short time passed when FBG appeared.  He walked over to Knapper and said it was time to go home.  FBG got the same response I did and as FBG walked toward me he said to me, "he's gone."  A couple minutes later Gnu returns with the LittleB and we are informed that Knapper's parental unit was called and she was coming to get him.  About twenty minutes later Knapper's parental unit arrives, she was walking, and not in her car.  Great I thought, how are you going to get your scholar home with him in this condition.  Knapper's parental unit approached him very slowly and when she was a few feet from him she said to him, "come on, let's go home."  Get away from me you stupid f....ing b-word he screamed at her."  Knapper then pickup a hand full of loose gravel and threw it as his parental unit.  At that point he crossed over the line and FBG and I now needed to shut this down before someone gets hurt.  As I'm moving toward Knapper, he picks up another hand full of gravel and takes two steps toward me.  I stop moving and I'm staring him down.  As I stared at him I thought for just a second that he was going to start crying.  I was wrong and he went into his best baseball throwing wind up and fired the gravel directly at me.  Know what was coming I just turned my back, got hit, and then turned around and was heading directly at him.  Knapper made an attempt to reload but forgot that FBG was behind him and just that quick FBG had a hold of him.  The LittleB directed us to take Knapper back to our classroom and off we went as Knapper was struggling mightly to escape.  While enroute I got kick in the shin at least four times, avoided a head butt and one biting attempt.  Once in our classroom time out room Knapper kick and pounded on the door several times, pounded on the wire meshed window a couple times and then sat down.  After about twenty-five minutes Knapper stood up, looked at everyone through the window and calmly asked if he could come out of the room.  The electronic magnet that we use to secure the door was release, Knapper walked out, pick up his stuff and started to walk calmly out of the classroom door with his parental unit and just like that, whatever had entered his head quickly departed, and there were no further incidents.  What thought had entered this your scholar's head to behave in this manner remains a mystery.

I mentioned previously that a child advocate spent time in our classroom observing Gnu and S&T.  As the child advocate was leaving the room following her observation she commented to Gnu on how well S&T was progressing academically and behaviorally.  I believe the words she used was that S&T was in a wonderful environment.  A couple days ago Gnu received word that S&T's original parental unit is working with a social services agency to regain custody of him and have him relocate to Wisconsin to live with her.  S&T has been in this classroom with Gnu for about a year and a half.  When he arrived his academic ability was very limited.  His reading was almost non-existent, he had trouble with letter formation, and his math abilities were limited to the simplest addition and subtraction.  Since his arrival S&T has advanced to the point that he wants to read, that he now does his math with little or no help and his behavior has improved immensely and he may be about to leave to live with a parental unit that lost custody due to poor parenting.  Damn!  We sure live in a screwed up world.

Speaking of a screwed up world.  I was certain that the world, as we know it, was going to end last Wednesday following our election process.  I thought for sure I'd never get to write another blog post.  Well, six days have passed and the sun keeps coming up so today's blog post is complete.  Will I get to post another blog next Sunday or will the world as we know it start to crumble.  I guess we'll have to wait and see.    
       

 

Dum Dum Suckers

A little local politics to start the day.  This is a quote from a candidate for the school board of my school corporation.  "One of the most important things that a school board member can do is to sue and be sued on behalf of the district.  I'm ready to immediately, right after I get elected, to march a lawsuit right over to the federal court."  This candidate, who has attended numerous school board meetings and has been escorted out of the meetings by the police, has also accused the present school board members of "perpetuating slavery" and "child molestation."  As a reminder I don't make this stuff up.  Sadly, one of the major political parties, as well as a major statewide political action committee, has endorsed this candidate. 

We had a child advocate in the classroom a few days ago.  For those of you not familiar with the role of a child advocate, I'll enlighten you.  This person has the responsibility to represent and protect the best interests of children who are victims of abuse or neglect.  When visiting our classroom, this child advocate's role was to determine if S&T was getting the best possible education in the school, the classroom, and from the classroom teacher.  Knowing that she was being observed, Gnu felt a little pressured to be on top of her game on this particular day knowing full well that at any moment one of our fine scholars could go into a major anger eruption and destroy all of the good that was going on.  We were in our reading block when the child advocate arrived and this person sat on the perimeter of the room with pen and paper in hand.  S&T was at the front table with Gnu working on letter sounds and reading from a story book during the first twenty minutes of our reading block.  When Gnu's cell phone chimed the scholars knew that it is time to rotate to their next reading station.  S&T is now on the move from Gnu's front station to our independent reading station.  On his way there he picks up a laptop from one of the scholars who just finished the independent reading station and sits down at the same table his child advocate is occupying.  Gnu makes the announcement for everyone to start our next reading station and S&T opens up his laptop, logs in, and goes to the reading site, find the story he is to listen to, clicks on the story, and listens as the narrator reads.  A few minutes go by when I hear S&T speak.  I glanced over in his direction and he is talking to the child advocate.  I'm not sure what the conversation was about but as they talked, S&T turned his laptop a little so the child advocate could see the screen.  When Gnu's cell phone chimed again, the scholars started another rotation.  As the scholars were rotating, the child advocate walked over to Gnu.  Although I couldn't hear the conversation, Gnu told me later how please the child advocate was with S&T's reading improvement and said that this classroom was a "wonderful learning environment." 

A scholar can erupt for the strangest reasons.  "I hate this f....ing school."  Gnu speaking, "BayBee, I'm going to text your parental unit if you don't stop cussing."  "I don't care.  I hate this f....ing school, I hate this f....ing classroom, I hate all of you."  BayBee is in an absolute rage and Gnu is short on patience.  She walks to the back of the room as BayBee is sitting with me during our afternoon math block.  She removes BayBee from my table and escorts him out of the classroom saying to him, "when you get yourself settled down you can return to the classroom."  Now in the hallway immediately outside our classroom door I hear, "I hate this f....ing school," and now I'm up as we have a problem.  Immediately across from our classroom is a restroom.  There are young scholars outside the restroom and BayBee is dropping F bombs left and right.  It's now my turn to direct BayBee and this time it is to our timeout room.  I tell him to get himself under control and when he is ready he can come out and get back to work.  "I hate you, I hate this school, I hate everybody" and he is saying all of this as he slowly walks in circles in the timeout room.  About ten minutes goes by when the door to the timeout room opens slowly and BayBee peaks out and says to me, "I'm ready to come out now."

It took Gnu a while before she walked over to my table.  "What was that all about," she says to me and now you will hear the beginning of the story.  Huey, S&T, and BayBee are with me for their math block.  Huey and BayBee are talking about some type of action figure that Huey has at home.  BayBee wants Huey to bring this action figure to school so he can play with it as it is an action figure that he does not have.  Huey tells BayBee that he will not bring it to school because it might get stolen or broken.  BayBee continues to pester Huey about the action figure and Huey is getting a little frustrated with BayBee and says to him, "look Dude, I'm not going to bring it to school."  To rescue Huey from this conversation I say to BayBee, "why don't you just ask your parental unit to buy you one."  "That will take days, that will take weeks, that will take f.....ing years for my parental unit to do.  I hate this f....ing school."

This coming Friday, November 11th, is Veteran's Day and I going to tell you a little story and then call it a day.  A couple years ago my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and I were is Washington, D.C.  We were standing near the Rolling Thunder souvenir stand as I had just purchased a stick pin to put on my baseball cap that reads Vietnam Veteran.  I case someone is interested, the stick pin was a small shield of the 23rd (Americal) Infantry Division which is where I served while in Vietnam.  As my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse was helping me stick the pin on my hat a voice behind me said, "there is an American hero over there, go show him some love."  When I turned around to see who this American hero was an African American gentleman walked up to me and said, "thank you for your service" and shook my hand.  Standing directly behind this gentleman was a group of school kids from the state of Washington.  One by one this group of students walked up to me and said, "thanks for your service" and shook my hand.  As I was shaking hands I said to this group, "I had more people thank me for my service in the past ten minutes than I have in the past forty plus years and then I thanked them for making my day.  Like I said at the beginning of this paragraph, it's been a couple of years since I've had this chance meeting, but I can tell you this in no uncertain terms, it's a day I will never forget. 

For someone with morning issues I was surprised to see this person walking around the classroom with a sucker in her mouth.  After I made a silent inquiry as to why this was happening I discover that suckers helps suppress morning issues.  After the school day ended I was heading to the store with the objective of finding Dum Dum suckers.  I found some at a CVS Pharmacy, aisle five, about halfway down the aisle on the left on the bottom shelf.  Crap!  The smallest quantity of Dum Dum suckers was a package of two hundred.  Then I thought, it's a long way to around the first of June.  Bye!  Thanks for following along.   





   
  

It's Going Down the Drain Slowly

Although it hasn't happened in a while, I get real excited, if not down right animated, when it does.  When it happened previously it appeared in the local media and I took it upon myself to comment on it with a letter to the editor of the local newspaper.  This time it happened in social media and, as in the past, I'm about to comment.  As I was putting together my thoughts on how to proceed I recalled something my daughter told me when she was the managing editor of a student newspaper when she was in college, "you should never piss off a member of the media that buys ink in fifty-five gallon drums."  Obviously, times have changed and I don't need fifty-five gallons drums of ink to write this blog.  All I need is fingers, keyboard attached to a laptop, a blog, and an attitude because once again my school corporation has come under attacked by someone who has had little or no involvement in this school corporation for maybe a decade.  What this person has, from what I can figure out, is a communication channel that goes directly to some malcontent who doesn't like change.  So, let me take a few minutes to tell you what my view is of my school corporation.

1. The school corporation changed leadership during my first year in the classroom.  Our new school superintendent was immediately faced with a thirty-five million dollar deficit.  In less than two years, after thoroughly reviewing the disaster that he inherited he pronounced that the school corporation now had an eight million dollar surplus.  The naysayers immediately attacked by questioning his accounting practices.  He response was to open the books for all to see.  The naysayers tucked their tails between their legs and retreated.  Does this sound like a school going down the drain slowly?
2. The teachers, probably due to ineffective representation, had gone at least five years without and increase.  The new superintendent found the funds to give the teachers a raise.  Does this sound like a school going down the drain slowly?
3. Since the new superintendent arrived, instruction assistants, that would be me, have received loyalty bonuses.  So far I have received three of them.  That, to be best of my knowledge, never happened before.  Does this sound like a school going down the drain slowly?
4. Our new superintendent, along with a school board that focuses on change rather than doing the same old thing, implemented Magnet Schools in the school corporation.  Here are four of them, an innovative studies school, a school for the performing arts, a medical magnet school and a school for law and public policy.  Does this sound like a school going slowly down the drain? 
1. As a side note, I recently saw two theatrical productions in our school corporation.  One was the Nutcracker and the other was Shrek the Musical.  Both performances were impressive and greatly exceeded my expectations.
5. My school corporation recently introduced a school webpage.  This webpage is open to the public and contains both current events and events that will happen in the future.  When you look at the events mentioned on this webpage, I can't image anyone saying this school corporation is slowly going the down drain.
6. A Parent Involvement Educator position was recently created in my school corporation.  This person, and there is an excellent one at my school, focuses solely on getting parental units involved in their scholars school.  Monthly the Parent Involvement Educator sends out the agenda for the upcoming parental unit meetings.  I brought home a copy of the agenda for my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse to read.  Her reaction was simple.  "You have all of this going on in your school, we certainly are not doing that much at my school."  Does this sound like a school going down the drain slowly?
7. Soccer was recently introduced into the elementary schools.  In the first year approximately twenty elementary schools started their first ever soccer team.  The number of teams playing soccer greatly exceeded everyone's expectations.  Does this sound like a school going down the drain slowly? 
8. In a couple weeks, hundreds of scholars from my school corporation will run in a five kilometer race in conjunction with the annual Monumental Marathon run.  At my school alone, we have around forty scholars participating.  Keep in mind, my school only goes up to the sixth grade.  Does this huge participation is a running event sound like a school going down the drain slowly?
9. At my school, we have a gardening club, a Spanish language club, and a running club.  We have what might be the most actively involve group of parents when it comes to after school activities of any school in our school corporation.  Does this sound like a school going down the drain slowly?

Paraphrasing, "your school corporation is going down the drain slowly my friend and has been since the early 90's in my opinion.  But look at the top people and you see why."  I look at the top person, I look at the school board and here is what it see, CHANGE, and the desire to move the school corporation upward.  There is no leadership problem at my school unless you are the union.  There is no leadership problem at my school unless you are some malcontented teacher who spends a good portion of the day complaining about anything and every thing rather than packing up your bags and taking you sorry attitude somewhere else.  I've been writing this blog for almost three years now and I think I've done a pretty good job at pointing our the bad as well as the good in my school corporation as well as my individual school and I can tell you this with no uncertain terms, this school corporation is moving in the right direct and you know how I know that?  I've been in it for almost five years and I don't need to do this, I choose to do this, because I like what I'm doing and I like the direction the school corporation is going.

Back to the classroom and Gnu is continuing to read mysteries in our reading block.  She recently introduced to the scholars short stories that follow the same theme as the game board Clue.  She blew up colored pictures of all the characters and handed each scholar a copy of the game board.  As she read the story, the scholar were required to take notes on what each character was doing as well as the various rooms that are visited during the story.  When she finishes reading the story she breaks the scholars into small groups and tasks them with solving the mystery.  It's been real interesting to watch the scholars as they discuss the story.  There are times were they are in agreement and times when they disagree and start debating each other on why someone is right or wrong.  So far, Gnu has read three Clue stories and the total time it takes to begin and end one assignment is around forty-five minutes.  That doesn't sound like much but when you take into consideration that Gnu has managed to keep nine scholars with emotional handicaps on task for that length of time it is really impressive.

He is the part that makes me continue doing what I do.  With the reading block on mysteries completed Gnu asked each scholar to take a seat and be ready to answer a question.  She went on to say that the person that can answer this question will earn extra points that can be added to recess or choice time.  That obviously got the scholars attention as everyone was seated.  "Can someone tell me why we just spent so much time reading mysteries and following along on what Mr. Green was doing in the Study with Miss Scarlett and why there was a candlestick holder in the room?"  The question was met with silence.  Even I could not come up with an answer to the question.  After a short pause to let the scholar think, Gnu said to them.  How did you solve the mystery?  Hands went up, "we found clues and gather evidence."  "Exactly," she said.  "And when you couldn't decide who the criminal was, what did you do?"  "We went back and got the book and reread the story to find out what we needed to know."  "You actually picked up the book and reread the story?"  "Why?"  "So we could solve the mystery."  "That is the perfect answer," she said to them.  Gnu continue, "in a few months each of you will be required to take a reading test, either IRead3 or ISTEP.  When you finish reading the passage and start to answer the questions, keep the game of Clue in mind.  If you come across a question and don't know the answer don't just guess at the answer.  Instead, put your detective hat on and reread the passage just as you did with these mysteries.  If you do that, you are going to pass these tests.  Gnu just spent the better part of two weeks reading mysteries just so she could get to this point with the scholars.  It's a simple point, reread the passage but the message was powerful.  As I was sitting in the back of the room I thought to myself, you are really working with someone special. 

Time for a scholar update.  One update puts a happy smile on my face.  The others, well you'll see.  We have one departure so that will put us down to nine scholars, one girl and eight boys.  Oil is departing to a new school.  We are not sure if this is a parental move or just a parental unit that listens to her young scholar who constantly declares, "I hate this school," every time he has to do any academics. So, no matter the circumstances,  this scholar is going to a new school, again.  Oil's departure is one of those, "don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out," departures.  He was a challenge for Gnu and I with his oppositional defiant disorder.  As I mentioned in the past neither Gnu nor I do will with this disorder.  Moving on, someone, possibly the Department of Children Services has decided to remove Tourette from a grandparental unit to his original parental unit.  Caution flags went up immediately when Gnu and I heard this news as Tourette has strung together a couple of good weeks when it comes to behavior so changing parental units didn't seem like a good idea to us.  One his first day with his original parental unit Tourette's behavior changed and not for the good.  Gnu recognized pretty quickly that he didn't take his medication.  The next morning Gnu gave me an update on Tourette's change of parental units.  She stated that while Tourette got home safely, as he leaves just after lunch and is a bus rider, his brother didn't fair as well.  Why?  The parental unit that both of them just moved back with forgot to pick him up.  School ends at 3:30pm.  At 5:30pm the school began calling the parental unit to come and get her scholar.  Apparently she forgot he was in school.  For the record, this scholar is in kindergarten.  Last one and probably the toughest one for me.  EM and his family are on the verge of homelessness for what I think is the fifth time.  From what Gnu knows, his parental unit was forced out of the home due to unsanitary living conditions.  For some reason, a parental unit with six young scholars though that it was necessary to bring home a few dogs as pets.  I'm good with pets but if you have pets and they mess in the house you have to clean up after them.  Apparently this wasn't happening so they were evicted.  When you know that this parental unit does not work, you'd think she would have plenty of time to clean the house.  Sadly, cleaning must not be a priority so EM and his family are house hunting again.

I'm presently sitting on my screened in porch on the back of the house and it is going down the drain slowly.  No, not the school corporation as some misguided individuals think, but the sun.  It's cooling off fast so I'm moving inside.  I'm going to leave you with this, someone in my school has been experiencing a string of days where there is a feeling of being sick in the morning.  I'll let you think about that for a little while.  Thanks for reading along with an old guy that has a view from the back of a room and is part of an ever improving school corporation. 

 

It Got A Little Tense

Fall break is officially over and I've been back in the classroom for one week.  When I last posted a blog I chose to start fall break on a happy note rather than a sad note so I guess I need to discuss the sad note first today.  Before I do that, a little bit about fall break.  My part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and I spent eight days visiting as far west as Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, plus hiking in three national parks in the high desert of southern Utah.  The adventure started in Salt Lake City where we actually spent a day and a half with as far west as Utah.  A side note for those that are confused.  As I've said before, I don't use any real names so, when you read "as far west as Utah," that is the name of a real person who lives in Utah.  We first met as far west as Utah outside the Coliseum in Rome when we were vacationing in Italy a few years ago and we've maintained a friendship ever since.  We spent a good part of a day in Salt Lake City visiting the national headquarters of the Mormon Church which was an absolutely fascinating experience.  From there we headed to the national parks.  We visited Arches National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, and Zion Canyon National Park.  The scenery was amazing and our hiking in the national parks covered between twenty-five and thirty miles at elevations that are definitely not found in Indiana.

It was Wednesday before fall break at approximately 1:25pm when the collision occurred.  We were in our physical education specials classroom and the scholars were participating in a game of tag.  There were around twenty-five scholars involved in the game and running was taking place in the confined area of a basketball court.  I didn't actually see the collision but when the PE teacher was walking out of the gym with a scholar with a nose bleed I knew something bad had happened.  As the PE teacher was walking past me I asked him if he wanted me to take the scholar to our first aid room so he could continue with his class.  He agreed, so I walked the scholar to the first aid room.  In addition to a nose bleed, the scholar also had a small cut on the inside of his lip so there was a fair about of blood.  Our school does not have a nurse and to the best of my knowledge there is no one trained in first aid in our school that I could contact for help.  That left me two options, tend to the scholars injuries or leave the scholar to sit quietly in our first aid room by himself and hope the bleeding stopped.  I chose to assist the scholar.  In doing so, I lost track of the time.  When I had the bleeding stopped and made sure that the blood that was all over the scholars face was cleaned off I returned to the gym.  As I walked in, the general education class that we rotate through specials with was lined up at the door waiting to leave.  When I looked for my scholars I didn't see them so I asked the PE teacher where they were.  He informed me that they left to return to their classroom.  That was a little disappointing to hear because the PE teacher or any other teach never just lets scholars return to a classroom without an adult escorting them.  With the scholars not in my sight, I was moving quickly back to my classroom.

As I approached the classroom there were loud voices coming from within the room.  Huey was up and moving about and Gnu was maneuvering to corner him.  Apparently something happened in PE when I was out of the gym doing first aid that carried over all the way to the classroom.  I was about halfway across the classroom when Gnu put Huey into the approved hold and was trying to move him into our timeout room.  As I approached Gnu I said to her, "let me take over."  Her response was aggressive. "I've got this.  Where were you?  Why were these scholars allowed to leave the gym and enter the classroom by themselves?  I was in a meeting and this is what I walked into when I return to my classroom?"  Gnu was angry and her anger was directed at me.  I've been in this classroom for four and one quarter school years and never has there been any angry exchanges between the adults.  This was the first one and fortunately I recognized that I needed to stay under control.  "A scholar was hurt during gym class.  I took him to our first aid room to help stop the bleeding from his nose and mouth.  I thought I did the right thing in helping this scholar" is what I said to Gnu.  My response was met with silence.

It took a while to get the classroom settled down then Gnu started our math block and the day ended peacefully.  Around 3:35pm Gnu left the classroom with the scholars that ride a bus home and I stayed in the classroom to put everything back in it's proper place.  As soon as I was finished I left school and headed for home.  When I walked in the door my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse knew something was wrong.  "Tough day," she said to me.  My response was one word, "yes" and I took a seat in our living room.  I sat there for several minutes before I heard, "so what happened?"  As soon as I told her she said to me, "you don't need to take it personal.  You know you work in a tough environment and sometimes emotions get to the adults just like they do with the scholars.  Let it go, you know Gnu didn't mean it."  I was home for about an hour and a half before I completed my own de-escalation process.  About thirty minutes later my cellphone rings and it's a text message from Gnu.  "I just wanted to apologize for what happened.  You are so important to this classroom and I just wanted you let you know that."  My response was, "we are a team.  We work in a difficult environment and some times things happen.  That will not change us from being a team, a real good team.  See you in the morning."

On Friday morning, our last day of school before fall break, and Gnu walked into the room and said to me,  "I'm so excited, the BigB2 has assigned an inclusion teacher to our room.  This teacher will arrive everyday at 1:00pm and take responsibility for the independent math station."  "You're kidding," was my response.  "No, and I'm so excited because we will be able to get some much more done."  At the end of the day Gnu and I walked out of the school together.  Gnu was flying out to Florida on Saturday morning with her gentleman caller to spend some time on the beach.  I have five days off before packing to head as far west as Utah.  I knew when I arrived home discussions would immediately start about what I was going to do for five days as my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse will be in school.  Saturday and Sunday went about in a normal fashion.  On Monday morning I heard my part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse leave for school but I chose to remain in bed for a little longer.  When I finally got up, I walked down to the kitchen, turned left to head to the coffee pot, and there it was right on the counter and as big as life, my to do list. 

It's a beautiful day here in Indianapolis.  The maid of honor at our wedding and her husband are passing through Indianapolis as they head back to Michigan and we are meeting them for lunch.  We will be dining at a place called the Fireside.  They have a Sunday brunch and best of all at the Sunday brunch, they have $5.00 Bloody Mary's.  I'm pretty sure I'll order one, maybe two.  Thanks for continuing to follow the adventures of a teacher that I named after an African animal, Gnu, and an old guy that has a view from the back of the classroom.







   
           

          

Time Out

Although it doesn't seem like it, we are forty-five days into the school year, and it's time for a time out as it is fall break.  Gnu and I will have two wonderful weeks without anger, ADHD, ODD, and assorted other scholar maladies.  If you haven't already figured it out, it took me a while to get started on the blog.  Well, I farted around long enough so here I am on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon sitting on my screened in porch watching a white breasted nuthatch visit a bird feeder that is about twelve feet away from me and watching my neighbor cut his grass.  I had two thoughts on what to write about today.  One is fun stuff and the other not so fun, in fact it was one of the toughest days emotionally for me.  I'll go with the fun stuff and save the not so fun stuff for the next blog post.

Gnu is slowly transitioned from the Patricia Polacco books to fairy tales.  We finished reading a Polacco book called the Lemonade Club and started reading the fairy tale Cinderella.  In fact, so far, we've read seven different versions of the fairy tale Cinderella.  Before discussing the Cinderella stories I need tell you about the Lemonade Club.  Before reading the Polacco books, Gnu reads them while at home.  When she decided to read the book Junkyard to our scholars she asked me to read the book because she got a little emotional reading the story and didn't want to cry in front of the scholars.  When Gnu moved on to Lemonade Club neither one of us read the book in advance and Gnu again asked me to do the reading so she could work on lesson plans.  When I looked at the cover of the book I was certain this was going to be a story about two girls selling lemonade.  Wrong!  Not even close.  The Lemonade Club is really a club.  The club has three members, two school girls who are best friends, and their teacher who is also a girl.  One of the girls was diagnosed with leukemia and shortly after, in the story, the girls teacher was diagnosed with breast cancer.  The three girls would meet under a tree to discuss how they were feeling when dealing with cancer.  The conversations included chemotherapy, hair loss, weight loss, and the constant thought about dying.  It was a tough read for me.  If my memory serves me correctly, I had to stop four times so I could keep my emotions in check.  Why did I have to stop?  I'm a cancer survivor and I know about chemotherapy, hair loss, weight loss, and the thought of dying and it brought back some tough memories.  The story had a happy ending as both girls were cured of their cancer.  When I finished the book I looked up at Gnu and said to her, "did I ever tell you that I'm a cancer survivor?"  "Oh my God, why didn't you tell me.  I never read the book so I didn't know what it was about.  If I'd known, we would have read a different book."

Ok, on to Cinderella.  By the way, did you know that there are estimates as to how many versions of Cinderella there are throughout the world.  The estimates range from 350 to 1500 versions of the book and Gnu is progressing through them one at a time.  Right now we've gone through seven versions.  We started in France, went to the shores of Lake Ontario, Canada, moved on to the old west in the United States, traveled to Zimbabwe in Africa, then to Egypt in Africa, wandered over to China, and arrived in New York City, New York.  As Gnu moved from story to story, she'd draw a Venn Diagram on the white board.  She uses the Venn Diagram with the scholars to highlight the similarities and differences between stories.  She then pairs the scholars into groups of two, hands them some Post It notes, and working as a team the scholars have to come up with the similarities and differences.  Once they find what is needed, they take their Post It notes up to the whiteboard and place them in the appropriate spot on the Venn Diagram.  Every time she does this I watch in amazement at how well the scholars recall the stories.  I know I've said this numerous times before but I going to say it again.  The best reader in our classroom is maybe an average reader.  However, we do have a classroom of excellent listeners.  One last comment on Cinderella.  Of the seven books we've read, the class favorite is The Rough Faced Girl.  This is an Algonquin Indian version of Cinderella and it takes place near Lake Ontario on, I believe, the Canadian side of the lake. 

Scholar updates

MiniJ is in a downward spiral and it is so frustrating for Gnu and I to watch.  He has gone full circle, from a very angry scholar when he arrived in the second grade, to a scholar who behaved so well in the third grade that he was placed into a general education classroom, to an angry scholar again in the fourth grade.  What caused this change?  Gnu's best guess is a medication change that was required as MiniJ had been on the same medication for a couple years and after a period of time the medication needs to be changed.  Why change something that works is beyond me but I'm not the doctor prescribing the medication.

EM actually made it through the first quarter (forty-five) days of the year in a general education classroom.  Although he struggles regularly, he keeps going back.  Gnu continues to stay after school just about every day to help him with his homework.  A couple days ago I got called to the front office to see if I could convince EM to go to his classroom.  It was a struggle.  When he saw me he knew why I was there so he walked out of the school.  As I pursued him he kept walking away from me.  Eventually he made a full circle of the parking lot and headed back to the front door of the school.  Unfortunately, he had to walk past his parental units car so he climbed inside the car and locked the doors.  As his parental unit tried to persuade him to unlock the doors, I'd had enough and headed back to my classroom.  Eventually, EM made it to his class.

Grr! is going to have a surprise when we return to school after our fall break.  He is going to transition to a general education third grade classroom.  Grr! has had a great first forty-five days so Gnu is somewhat confident that he will make it. 

Last one.  On the last day before fall break Gnu decided to have a fun afternoon.  Johnny Appleseed had a birthday a few days back so Gnu decided to bring apples into the classroom.  I believe she had four different kinds of apples to taste.  She also used one of the apples to make an apple volcano.  But the real reason for the apples was to make apple turnovers.  As all of the scholars gathered at the front table and started the baking process it was fun to watch how Gnu divided the work load so that every scholar had a task.  My task, in case you are wondering was to preheat the oven, bake the apple turnovers, and while everyone was eating the apple turnovers with ice cream on the side, clean up the massive mess the scholars made at the front table, and do the dishes.  When my task was complete I got to sit down and eat the last apple turnover.  As I had the apple turnover in my hand, three scholars asks me if they could have it.  One by one I gave them my, don't come over here and bug me look, and they silently retreated. 

That's it.  There are one hundred and thirty-five school days left this year and I'm sure these days will have there highs and lows and like I have in the past, I'll tell you what my view from the back of the room was like.  Thanks so much for continuing to follow along.