Before I get to Tornado, a story about a dog that lives in tornado alley in the Midwest of our country, WLNutt, who Gnu and I just wrote off, may be on his way back to our classroom. One of our school social workers made an appearance outside our classroom at around 3:00pm on Friday. Gnu saw her standing in the doorway so she walked back to see what she wanted. Although I caught very little of the conversation, I did hear the name WLNutt mentioned. A few minutes after dismissal Gnu told me about the conversation with the social worker. It appears that WLNutt has fallen into the homeless category is what Gnu told me. "How can he be homeless, isn't he living with his parental unit and a sibling of his parental unit," I asked. Ok, I hope I can explain this correctly. According to our social working, you are considered homeless if you reside in a place where you do not pay the rent or mortgage even if the residence is owned by a family member and you are living with that family member. Due to my advance years, I had to think about that for a couple minutes and then it hit me. Based upon this definition of homeless S&T and Tourette should both be classified as homeless but I've never heard that label attached to either of them.
If you recall from the last blog post, WLNutt and his parental unit moved well outside the boundary of our school corporation. But, with the designation of homeless attached to the family, some unknown overhead person decide that our school corporation should provide WLNutt with bus transportation back to our school. So, beginning as early as Monday, a full sized yellow bus with a driver and bus monitor will make the trip well outside our school boundary and pick up WLNutt and only WLNutt and return him every day. Again, this is from a previous blog posts. When WLNutt first arrived at our school a bus picked him up and brought him to school. After a couple days WLNutt asked me if I could change his bus schedule. I told him I couldn't and he responded, "that bus picks me up to early in the morning so I'm not riding it." So, after missing fourteen days of school out of the twenty-five days of school since arriving at our school, another bus will be assigned to pick WLNutt up and bring him to school. This new bus, because of the distance that it needs to travel will be picking him up even earlier and getting him back home even later that his original bus. Any guesses as to how many days WLNutt will miss for the remainder of the school year. I believe we have just over thirty days left in the school year so give it your best guess.
Just over two weeks ago, S&T crossed the academic and behavior threshold and earned an opportunity to attend a general education classroom. He had been asking Gnu about going for several weeks and finally he's getting his big chance. When Gnu told him he could go the smile on his face was huge. Later that day Gnu laid out the S&T game plan. First, although he is in the third grade, he will be going to a second grade reading group. Gnu felt that going to a second grade reading group would be better for him than trying to survive in a third grade group and I'd agreed. Secondly, as Gnu looked at me, she said, "you are going with him at least for the first couple weeks," and I was again in agreement with her.
It's Monday morning, S&T's big day. At 9:30am Gnu gets all of the fourth grade scholars attention and tells them to head to their general education classroom. She then looks over at S&T and says to him, "are you ready to go to your general education classroom?" It's the big moment. After bugging Gnu about it for weeks, is he going to go? Is he going to have the ability to walk down the hallway, make a right turn and walk into a classroom full of scholars and he will not know a single one of them? S&T slowly stood up at his desk, look at Gnu, hesitated a moment, turn and starting walking toward our classroom door. As he approached me, he stopped, looked at me and quietly said, "Mr. Schultz, will you go with me?" "Sure," I said, "let's do this." That's all it took, S&T's smile returned and off we went.
S&T walked up to the front of the classroom and was introduced to all the scholars by the teacher. I took my normal seat where I had a nice view from the back of the room. After about ten minutes I hear, "Schultz, if you are going to stay in my room I'm going to put you to work." Shorty after that statement, I'm joined by S&T and five of his new classmates at the back table. Our objective was to read the first three chapters of a book titled Tornado that was written by Betsy Byars and the book won a Newbery Medal. S&T was on my immediate left so I pointed at him and said, "you read first and we'll move around the table." After each of the six scholars read, I guess correctly that the second grade that S&T was in had been leveled and he was with the low level reads. That may sound a little disappointing to you but it worked out perfectly as S&T fit right in with the other beginning readers.
The next morning S&T was back in the general education classroom sitting with the scholars on a rug in the front of the classroom. The teacher announced that she was going to ask questions about the story that everyone was reading. When she finished asking the first question, several hands were raised and S&T's was one of them. When the teacher called on him for the first time, he answered correctly, When she called on him a second and third time, he answered both questions correctly. As I sat in the back of the room watching him it just felt so good to see S&T being successful. As I sat there I also thought this, Gnu should be the one sitting were I'm sitting so she can see what she has accomplished with a young scholar who walked into our classroom at the beginning of the previous school year with a history of doing poorly academically and behaviorally.
I have one more fabulous S&T bragging story and them I'm finished. It's Friday and S&T is now sitting at his own desk in the general education classroom. "Everybody get out a pencil and a piece of paper as you are going to take a test on the book Tornado," the teacher announced. "Schultz, I'll have you work with S&T on this test," I'm told. There were six vocabulary words that needed to be matched with their definition and then eight multiple choice questions. Like other tests that S&T takes right now, someone can read the material to him. The vocabulary words gave him a little challenge but he flew through the multiple choice questions. When S&T finished the test he looked up at me and said, "Mr. Schultz, how did I do?" "How do you think you did?" I asked him. "Good," was his response. I looked at him and said, "you did real good, you got them all correct and that is an A+."
Here is the reason why I've stayed in this classroom for five years and dealt with some very serious anger outbursts. When S&T and I were heading back to our classroom after taking the reading test he started to run down the corridor. I quickly reminded him that he needed to walk so he slowed down for about two steps and then he started walking, faster and faster and faster. He was well ahead of me when he made the left turn and enter Gnu's classroom. When I finally walked into the classroom, S&T was at the front table with Gnu and the smile on his face was priceless as he talked to Gnu about getting that A+ on his reading test.
It's now 5:53pm on Sunday evening. My part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse spent a good part of this beautiful day cleaning and preparing our screened in porch on the back of the house for occupancy. So, next week for the first time since last fall, I'll be writing this blog from my favorite blogging place. Life is good.
30 days. That's my guess.
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