In either the first or second year that I started my view from the back of the room I attended a professional development day for instructional assistants. One of the speakers was PhdJack, a special education overhead person who, when in my classroom, actually took the time to speak to me unlike the others who stand within six or seven feet of me and pretend I don't exist. The subject of PhdJack's presentation was Suspensions Are the Pipeline To Prison. The presentation really had my attention as PhdJack spoke on a subject that was pretty foreign to someone from the suburbs. In a nutshell, PhdJack put forth a presentation that stated the more a scholar is suspended from school, the more likely the scholar will drop out of school, and after dropping out of school the more likely a scholar will make a series of bad decisions and end up in jail. PhdJack had all of the necessary statistics and data tables up on the big screen for everyone in attendance to see and she made a very valid point.
Moving forward to the start of the 2015/2016 school year where several email messages came across my desk from our school corporations human resource department about the need to reduce, if not entirely eliminate suspensions as they are nothing but a pipeline to prison. Accompanying all these reduce suspensions email messages was an updated copy of the school corporation's progressive discipline policy. Given that I'm in a classroom with scholars with emotional handicaps, who have sudden angry outburst that could result in injury, I started to read the policy. About half way through the document I scrolled to the last page and realized that this policy was forty-two pages long so, quite honestly, I stopped reading it.
Moving forward again to today and I'm pretty frustrated with our school corporations reduce, if not, eliminate suspensions policy and here is why. So we are clear on this, the particular incidents that I'm about to mention, did not happen in a couple days but go back at least two or three weeks and a number of these incidents involved scholars that are not in a special education classroom.
Classroom Incident - A scholar is very angry at the teacher and shouts, paraphrasing, "I'm going to stab you and cut out your guts." A second scholar gets angry at the aggressive scholar and charges at as this scholar because he is upset at the way the other scholar spoke to his teacher. Fortunately, the scholars were separated with the second scholar directed out into the hallway to cool down. The telephone in my classroom rings and I have to put my crisis team member hat on and head up to the classroom where this incident took place. Just as I arrive, the scholar that was walking the hallway to cool down returns to the classroom, sees the other scholar and bull rushes this scholar. Within a matter of seconds two male members of the crisis team are on the floor trying to contain the charging scholar. This scholar is in such a rage their is perspiration all over his face and a slight foaming at the mouth. After several minutes, both scholars are de-escalating in separate locations, and the day continues. Action taken for this very aggressive behavior, nothing that I'm aware of except this, both scholars got off their respective bus the following day.
Bus Incident - a bus monitor exits a bus and gets my attention. "You need to step on this bus right now as two scholars are fighting." As I enter the bus and head to the bus aisle there is a scholar on the floor half crying and half screaming, "my jaw is broken." The other scholar involved in the fight had returned to his assigned seat and was sitting quietly. The scholar that sustained the most damage was the scholar who was doing the provoking (fishing as Phd(*)Sparty and Phd(*)Pete call it) came out on the losing end as he caught a round house right to the side of the face. I escort the injured scholar off the bus, convinced him that his jaw is not broken, because if it was, he wouldn't be able to do all of this screaming and handed him off to a member of our crisis team. The second scholar involved in the altercation exited the bus in a fairly calm manner and was also escorted into the school. Just as the other scholars on the bus are about to exit I hear this from a third scholar, "you better open up that door and let me of this moth....f.....ing bus." To the best of my knowledge, no school suspensions but one bus suspension for one day were the disciplinary actions taken.
Bus incident - The bus door opens and the first scholar that exits the bus has blood on her face and well as quite a bit of blood on the sleeve of her jacket. The next person I see is the bus monitor who informs me about the incident and points out the second scholar on the bus that was involved in the fight. Again, to the best of my knowledge, no suspensions.
I'll admit those are rare incidents, far from the norm, but they happened and in a relatively short period of time. There are two more that I could talk about but I think you have an idea of how badly things can get on any given school day so I'm shifting gears. As you are aware, I'm a crisis team member that responds to some pretty serious incidents. At the same time I'm also the contact for other serious incidents that don't rise to the level of a crisis team call. These are calls I get that just state go to this general education classroom as so and so scholar is misbehaving. It's these calls that are far more numerous, in fact they happen four or five more times that the crisis team calls. So what do I deal with, scholars flipping over desks, knocking stuff off of desks, throwing objects, acting total rude, angry, defiant, and disrespectful toward their teacher and spewing forth some very obscene descriptive terms direct at their teacher and anyone else close to them.
Despite what you've just read, the pipeline to prison is being slowly closed but as they say, for each action their is an equal and opposite reaction force, and he is the reaction.
Every day five buses arrive at our school and I greet them as the bus captain. With five buses, there are five bus drivers and five bus monitors. "Why do we have do deal with these disruptive scholars on this bus? Every day it's the same scholars acting poorly. Every day we report their behavior to the school and nothing happens. We don't deserve to be treated the way we are treated." These drivers and monitor are correct, they don't deserve to be treated this way and I don't know what to tell them. I guess I could tell them that suspension is the pipeline to prison but that would be a waste of time as it will not resolve the challenges they face on their buses.
We have less than five weeks of school left this school year. Right now I can easily say there are five teachers in my school that are thinking of leaving the school. A couple I know real well and they've had it with the disrespect if not right down right abuse that they have to take in a classroom. This past Friday I went on-line to check on the number of open teaching jobs posted for our school corporation. There are numerous. Today, it's not uncommon to read about the looming teacher shortage and that the number of high school graduates that are entering college and pursuing a teacher degree are down.
For every action this is an equal and opposite reaction. The smaller the pipeline to prison shrinks the wider the pipeline to teachers leaving the profession grows. I don't know if there is a happy median so I guess I'll have to choose which pipeline to close. If there are no teachers, there are seriously overloaded classrooms. If the consistently disruptive scholars are removed from the classroom the other twelve, fifteen, eighteen, or twenty scholars will received a better education. The closing of the pipeline to prison is causing bus monitors and bus drivers to quit. The closing of the pipeline to prison is causing teachers to leave the profession, open the pipeline back up until a workable solution can be found.
Non-academically, it was a tough week in the classroom. First, the BigB announced that she is leaving our school. That came as a huge surprise to just about everyone that works at my school. I've worked with the BigB for four years and it has been a wonderful experience. While she is not leaving our school corporation, she is leaving our school and she will be missed. Second, on Thursday of this week, Gnu's cell phone rang during an academic lesson. Normally, she will look at the phone to see who is calling and set the phone back down. With this particular call she answered the phone. The scholars noticed it first. "Miss G, why are you crying?" When I looked in her direction she was up and walking toward me to tell me her news. There are tears in her eyes when she tells me what is going on. A family member is ill and hospitalized in poor condition. I put my arm around her and we walk toward the classroom door. "You need to go to the hospital," I tell her. "I can't, there is too much to do." "No, you need to leave. All of the day's work is out on the counter tops and I know what needs to be done so leave." She stopped by the BigB's office to tell her she is leaving and I moved to the front of the room. The scholars are all asking me what is wrong with Gnu. I'm not sure what to say as I know exactly what is going on because Gnu told me. I can't tell the scholars the truth and I won't tell you. All I ask is that you pray for her and her family during this most difficult time.
It's Sunday, late afternoon, and I'm in my favorite blogging location, the screened in porch on the back of the house. I chose a vodka and tonic over a bloody mary to assist me in my blogging this week. Family members came down from Michigan to see my granddaughter and a good time was had by all. That's it. Thanks for continuing to follow along.
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