It Just Happened

Wednesday, September 26, 2018, Parent In Touch (PIT) day and no school for me.

Today I'm going to jump back in time about six years.  I was doing volunteer work, serving lunch to scholars at one of those hoity toity private schools, when it was mentioned to me that a certain elementary school was in need of volunteers.  Due to the passing of time I can't recall why I did what I did but I decided to go to this school and see if they could use some volunteer help.  The school's response was an immediate yes.  After filling out all of the necessary paperwork, to include a back ground check, I was approved and I began an adventure that has lasted for over six years.

My contact at the time was the school's Parent Liaison and she asked me how many days a week I could volunteer.  My response was everyday if that was what was needed.  She then took me on a tour of the school, walked me into several classrooms to have a look around, and then asked me what I wanted to do.  After a brief discussion I decided that I'd volunteer one day a week in the following general education classrooms: third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade.

Although I can't recall the day of the week, I found myself sitting in the back of a fifth grade general education classroom.  The teacher was in the middle of a math lesson and I sat quietly and just observed.  In time I got to know some of the fifth grade scholars, actually all boys.  One of the scholars caught my attention because he was wearing a police ankle bracelet.  One day one of the boys asked if he and some others could stay in the room with me during their lunch break and read.  With the teacher's permission I started my little reading group.  The scholar wearing the ankle bracelet asked if he could join the group one day and I agreed.  I introduced myself to this scholar and then asked him his name.  He told me his real name but then ask that I just call him Awesome so I did.

Moving ahead one year, I'm now in a Special Education classroom with scholars that have an emotional handicap (EH).  I can't recall the exact circumstances, I believe a field trip, but one day in walked Awesome.  Apparently, because of behavior concerns, he couldn't go on the field trip so a decision was made to ship him down to the EH classroom where BaseG was the teacher of record.  Because I knew Awesome I stood up and asked him where he would like to sit.  He looked around the room, saw an empty teacher desk near the window, and asked me if he could sit there.  As we walked toward the teacher's desk Awesome asked me if he could have a pencil and paper so he could draw.  I game him a clipboard, paper and pencil, and then asked him what he was going to draw.  He said that he didn't know so I suggested that he draw a picture of me.

A short while later it was time for Awesome to return to his classroom.  As he walked past my desk he handed me the pencil and clipboard.  On the clipboard was the paper I game him.  On the paper was a portrait that he drew of me.

I was near the end of the school year before I crossed paths with Awesome again.  He was in the main office with what was probably a parental unit.  As he requested earlier, I walked up to him and said, "hello Awesome," and then asked him what he was doing in the office.  He informed me that he was changing schools and when he arrived at his new school they were going to place him in a classroom with scholars his own age.  After thinking about what he said to me, I realized that he was going to move up two grade levels.  We talked for a brief time and during our talk he seemed quite happy that he was going into a classroom that matched his age.  After our brief talk in the office we parted ways and I never saw him again.

In all, I think I had a chance to interact with Awesome around five or six times.  Most of the interaction took place in a fifth grade math classroom and here is what I saw.  A young scholar with anger control issues, prone to violence, hence, the ankle bracelet, and a police record in the fifth grade.

Fast forwarding to Tuesday, September 25, 2018, and the headline read, "Crash investigators probe whether man intentionally drove in a wrong direction on highway."  The collision was near head-on.  The occupant of the smaller car was killed.  The driver of a much larger car, driving at a high rate of speed, on the wrong side of a four lane divided highway, was transported to a local hospital with non-life threatening incidents.

It just happened, yesterday.  When I read the entire article and knew what happened it just sucked the air out of my lungs.  I sat there looking at that article and was stunned.  Going back to my first year in that EH classroom the topic would come up that someday one of the scholars that spends time in this classroom will have his/her name show up in the news for all the wrong reasons.  Although this doesn't involve an EH scholar, it involved a scholar that I knew.  This scholar had anger issues, was prone to violence, wore a police ankle bracelet when he sat in a fifth grade classroom and needed help.  Was help provided?  I don't know if this scholar had a parental unit that was capable of getting him the help he needed.  I know that, while in my school, this scholar had mental health issues and needed help. Was help made available to him by the school?  I can't say for sure but I'm thinking not likely for two reasons.  First, the process moves at a snails pace and second, there is a cost involved and money was very limited.

Funding for mental health issues has been in the newspaper a lot lately.  Every time the funding issue is raised nothing happens and it angers me because as far as schools go I know where the funding can be found.  It's called ISTEP, soon to be relabeled ILEARN, and the state of Indiana has spent tens of millions of dollars on a testing process that is near worthless.  It's time the state of Indiana wakes up.  It's time that the politicians responsible for this worthless test wake up.

It just happened as Awesome was behind the wheel of the car going the wrong way on a divided highway, at a high rate of speed, and collided head-on with a vehicle that was being driven by a man who was killed while just driving to work.  Was this an intentional homicide or an attempted suicide? Only time will tell but I'm fearful that it will just happen again and the next time it might be Floss, LeftSide, Knapper, MiniJ, Tourette, or Yo!.  All of these are scholars that I got to know real well and there are so many other scholars that came into this word with so much baggage and they need help.  The help can be readily made available and all that needs to be done is to stop funding a worthless test and put the money into addressing serious mental health issues.  

Today is an off day.  My part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse told me to go on a bicycle ride and enjoy the day.  I did that but it didn't help much.  I'm saddened.  I'm angry.  I'm fearful that it will just happen again.