For the record, the number of days without a licensed teacher in the classroom was four. The number of days with a licensed teacher in the classroom was two. The number of days the instructional assistant directed all the daily academics was six. With the exception of PhD(*)Pete and Hill'sGirl (a behavior therapist), who technically are not of this school corporation, the number of school personnel that took the time to enter the room to see how I was doing was zero. The number of overhead personnel who took the time to enter the room to see how I was doing, one for a total of two minutes over a six day period. The number of times I was thanked for doing what I did was once and she arrived on a Thursday morning looking all tanned and relaxed. The being all tanned part was disgusting but her looking so relaxed made me feel pretty good.
It's Thursday morning at 8:45am and I'm wearing my bus duty captain's hat as the first bus has arrived. MiniJ exited the bus, walked up to me and said, "Mr. Schultz, is Miss Gnu back?" I responded that "she was" and he was so excited he ran into the school. EM exited the second bus in line and he walks up to me and says, "Mr. Schultz, is Momma D back?" I respond "yes" and his eyes lit up and he had this huge smile on his face. Our last bus arrived and ShortTime exits the bus and walks up to me and says, "Mr. Schultz, is Miss Gnu back?" I again respond "yes" and another scholar is sprinting into the school. When I finally make my way to the classroom, all the scholars are present and they have Gnu surrounded as she is showing them pictures from Maui. Did the scholars miss her? I'll have to give that a big yes.
Prior to Gnu's departure to Maui we had a conversation about the arrival of a new scholar for our classroom. Unfortunately, with the scholars so excited about her return, plus the fact that our third and fourth grade scholars had to take the Indiana STUPID Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP) test on Gnu's first day back, we didn't discuss this scholars impending arrival. The testing process went quite well as all the scholars stayed on task and completed the test to the best of their ability. With the day complete, I left the classroom early as I had to return a bus driver's copy of a bus incident report to the bus driver. As I'm approaching the bus, the driver steps off the bus and says to me "I'm glad your are here, I was told to pick up a scholar and bring him to this school at this time of day and I don't know what to do with him." I ask the driver "Where is the scholar?" and as I'm doing so the scholar (BigHouse) makes his appearance as he is standing in the exit door of the bus. I step around the bus driver and ask the scholar his name and he tells me. I then ask the scholar what school is he coming from and as he tells me, the light goes on. I introduce myself to the scholar and ask him to follow me. As I'm leaving, the bus driver says to me, "thank you for helping me as I was really nervous about dropping off a scholar when I know that school day is over." As the driver is talking to me I'm thinking about how this scholar will get home so I ask the driver, "are you going to pick him up later this evening and take him home?" The driver's response was, "No, my day is over." As I'm walking back into the school I'm thinking to my self that BigHouse is our new scholar and I'm wondering how is he going to get home when his school day is over. I'm only a few feet into the school when I see Gnu talking to a group of teachers so I walk over to her and get her attention. "This is the new scholar that we were expecting, his name is BigHouse." The look I got from Gnu was, are you serious, as we head towards our classroom.
As we entered the classroom, Gnu immediately walked over to her computer and logged on to email. A minute or so later, she confirms that BigHouse is our new scholar. She then informs me that the overhead person that sent her the email message did so at 1:00pm which was three hours ago. Gnu speaking, "what teacher will stop doing academics during the school day to check email? They send me an email in the middle of the day and actually think I will see the message. They know our school phone number and they know my cell phone number but they choose to send me an email message giving me a three hour notice that our new scholar will be arrived at our normal school dismissal time." When she finished talking I asked her, "how long will he be with you?" She informs me until 6:30pm. I then ask her how BigHouse will be getting home. She replies, "his parental unit will pick him up." At this point, I have all kinds of scenarios popping into my brain and they are not good scenarios so I ask her if she would like me to stay with her until 6:30pm. She responds, "No, you can go home, I'll be ok."
I'm now in my car heading home and I'm running all these scenarios in my head as I just left Gnu in a EH (emotionally handicapped) classroom alone with a scholar. Recently, in the state of Indiana, teachers doing totally stupid things in the classroom have made the headlines of newspapers as well as being the feature story on the evening news. These are teachers who were involved in inappropriate contact with scholars. These are teachers that have brought illegal drugs into their classroom and the more I think about these breaking news stories the more I begin to think about what could happen to Gnu. What happens if the scholar gets angry and turns violent? What happens if the scholar gets angry and runs out of the school building? What happens if the scholars parental unit is late or very late picking up this scholar? What will happen if the scholar totally makes up a story about what his teacher said or did to him while they were alone in the classroom. The more thinking I do the more concerned I become about Gnu's safety. The more thinking I do the more I begin to wonder, what the ..... is wrong with the overhead personnel that made the decision to put Gnu in this position.
It's now 4:30pm and I'm home. As I walk into the house, my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse is sitting in the kitchen reading the newspaper and eating a snack so I tell her about the position Gnu was just placed in. "Are you serious, you've got to be kidding, who would put a teacher in such a unsafe position?" At one point, as she was talking, so stood up and continued as she was really upset. Later in the evening I'm at the local Y, I just finished my weight lifting routine and I'm sitting in the lobby area waiting for my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse to finish her workout routine. As I'm waiting, a professor from one of the nearby universities joins me so I tell him the story about Gnu. When I finished speaking, the reaction from this professor was very similar to that of my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse. That's two teachers, with about 45 years of teaching, and both gave almost the identical response and then I'm thinking to myself I wonder what as far west as Utah will say about Gnu's situation. I'm also wondering what a 30+ special education teacher as far north as Michigan will say about Gnu's situation. I'm pretty sure I'll hear from both of them by 8:30pm my time on Sunday evening.
My feelings about Gnu's position are pretty clear, what the.....? Two teachers gave me almost identical responses on Gnu's position and their responses gave me the impetus to send an email message. After I hit the send button I was comfortable that I wrote as professional a letter as I could. I didn't question anyone's decision making process, I just wrote a letter stating my concern with the unsafe position that Gnu was placed in and I actually got a response. To be honest with you, when I saw that I got a response, I'm became real nervous as I just received an email message from the top cat of overhead personnel in my school corporation. In a matter of minutes I settled down as I knew that I did the right thing. Gnu was placed in a horrible position and I'm going to state my case. If top cat doesn't like it, then maybe I need to find another school corporation and change my view from the back of the room.
On Monday we start IRead3 and all of the third graders, MiniJ, Uh-Uh-Uh, and Knapper will be taking this reading test. Gnu took all three scholars to our media center and walked them through a practice IRead3 test. Both Un-Uh-Uh and MiniJ answered all of the questions correctly. Knapper missed one question. Those are very positive signs but I know this because she told me. "I'm going to be a nervous wreck all weekend worrying about this test," said Gnu as I left the school for the weekend. I'm going to say a prayer for this outstanding teacher as IRead3 approaches and I asked that you do the same.
I'll keep you up to date on my conversation with the overhead top cat and I'll let you know how our scholars did on IRead3. Right now it's time to go. I'm going to put my grandfather hat on and spend a little time with my granddaughter. Thanks for continuing to read along.
No comments:
Post a Comment