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.
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Sunday, November 20, 2016
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.
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.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
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.
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.
Sunday, November 6, 2016
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.
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.
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