Thursday: neglect? April 24, 2009

I have a kid in my class — let’s call him Kid — who is one of several children at his home.  He’s got some issues.  He also has had green goo coming out of his nose for months, his breath is stunningly bad, and his adenoids are swollen and slimy.  If I were his mother, I’d have taken him to the doctor ages ago.

Miss Nelson has been concerned about him, I’ve been concerned about him, Miss Slinger has been concerned about him, the speech therapist has been concerned about him, and the nurse has been concerned about him.  The speech therapist says he’s so congested he can’t form the sounds correctly, and his infection is probably in his ears, because it seems like he can’t hear her.  The kids stay away from him because he smells so bad.  He’s needy and he bursts into tears at the slightest provocation. 

Miss Nelson and the nurse have been trying to reach mom for ages.  Finally Kid’s social worker went to the house to meet with mom.  Upshot is, she said she would take him to the doctor (she said she did, months ago, and the doctor said there was nothing wrong.  I find that difficult to believe.).

Then Thursday morning the social worker emails us and says, do we have enough evidence to file a report of medical neglect?  Miss Nelson promptly goes into a tizzy and we all try — and fail — to meet, so emails go bouncing around.

We decided to give mom one last chance.  She said she would take him to the doctor on Friday (today) so we’ll see. 

If within two weeks we see no evidence he is receiving medical care, we will file.

YUCK.

Friday: blood April 24, 2009

So Titch kicked a little boy with Down’s Syndrome in the face and knocked out his tooth.  Apparently there was blood everywhere.

We were on the playground, and I was trying to gather my goslings to line up and get ready to go home, and Titch — the line leader — was missing.  Miss Slinger found him and brought him  in, and then next thing I know, Titch’s dad is there, calm but upset, telling me what Titch had done.

Titch’s dad works at my school, and was responsible for the little boy whose tooth his own son kicked out.   How’s that for complicated?  After I sent the kids home on the bus, Titch’s dad and I went to talk to the assistant principal and I had to recommend suspension.  Titch’s dad understood, and then I emailed Titch’s mom at work, and she called immediately.

Titch’s parents are getting divorced — painfully — and the stress is clearly finally getting to him.  What happened today was the culmination of a difficult, and slightly violent, week for him.  (Choking Harold in the bathroom, hitting Harold at gym class, poking Owen and Ferdinand during meeting, kicking Leo, etc.)

The hard thing is that his face looks happy and calm.  He shows no signs of remorse or concern.  “I was on the climber and he was on the ladder coming up and I didn’t want him up there so I kicked him in the face” as if it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

I started my weekend feeling so tense and upset and sad for Titch and his family.

the economy, hitting close to home March 19, 2009

I arrived at work today and a friend said to me, with a dazed look on her face, “my husband just got laid off.”

“I’m so sorry!” I said.  “How awful.”

“We’re just numb,” she said, and then we had to go in to our meeting and I couldn’t say anything else. 

Then when school started a girl in my class said, “My daddy just lost his job.”

I stupidly replied, “how scary.”

She looked at me blankly, and then said, irritated, “NO, it’s sad.”

She’s right.  It is very sad.

Mrs. Migraine, again March 18, 2009

I’m not posting much right now, as I’ve had migraines every day for a week.  I got desperate and tried acupuncture today.  I’ll go again every week for three more weeks, and I am very hopeful that it will help. 

I’ll be back to posting soon.

sick teacher January 21, 2009

I’ve been hit with a horrible cold.  Started with pinkeye on Friday (thanks, kids!) and turned into a vicious, energy-draining cold the next day.  I’ve mostly been in bed all week.

Anyway, back to posting in a day or two when I go back to work and have something to post about!

bus behavior January 15, 2009

So…I get to school this morning after not being able to request a sub, and get a note from the district transportation office saying that on the way home Tuesday, my babies were HORRIBLE. 

Apparently they were running around the bus and fighting and ignoring the driver completely.  She had to pull over to the side of the road three times, to no avail.

Then I get to my room and there’s an angry grandma.  Her grandson was hit and punched by “four Mexican boys” and what am I gonna do about it?!  Somehow I managed to talk her down.  I reassured her, and told her I, too, was appalled to hear about the behavior on the bus, and that I would take care of it.  I also told her all the steps I’d be taking.  (I also mentioned that I know who the likely worst culprits are, and some of them are not Hispanic, and some of them are not boys.)  She left mollified, thank goodness.

Step one:  write a letter to the parents describing the behavior and asking their help in teaching the children the importance of bus safety.

Step two:  get the letter translated (THANK you Rita!).

Step three:  ask the behavior lady to come to my class to talk about bus safety, and how riding the bus is a privilege, not a right.  (She was great.  The kids listened really seriously.)

Step four:  send home my letter, and walk the kids to the bus, and assign each one a seat.  Have them apologize to the driver (she’s new, which could be part of the problem) and go over the rules one more time.

I really hope I hear good things about the bus ride when I talk to the driver tomorrow!

when technology goes wrong January 15, 2009

I woke up feeling ill (after leaving school early with a migraine yesterday), so I decided to request a sub to be on the safe side.

The school district website is down, which means I can’t request a sub.

Which means, off to school I go!  Thank goodness we’ve got a three day weekend coming up.

in a tough situation January 6, 2009

Today was a really hard day.  The kind of day where you have a confrontation with a coworker and feel shaky and ache-y in your bones the rest of the day.  I’m having a glass of wine and writing to try to unwind and stop feeling so awful.

I haven’t blogged about my team much.  I have never really written about my assistant teacher, who was new in the fall and has become a wonderful friend.  She’s also a wonderful assistant teacher.  Let’s call her Miss Slinger, after Mr. Slinger, the wonderful teacher in Lily and the Purple Plastic Purse.  Miss Slinger was not the issue today (she’s never an issue!), but I just wanted to mention something positive.  Sometimes I’ll ask her to do something in passing, and then before I know it, it’s done.  Those days, I call her Super Slinger.  I get to work with Miss Slinger every day, and that is a really good thing.

There’s also Amelia Bedelia, our special ed assistant teacher.  She’s only in our room on Mondays and Fridays, but those days are always good.  She’s great with the kids and really fun to work with.  So I get to work with Amelia Bedelia, and I’m lucky there, too.

Then there’s Miss Nelson, the special ed teacher who works on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays with my four special ed students.  She’s a very good person, very caring, and extremely conscientious.  She’s also overworked, possibly overwhelmed, and fairly tightly-wound.  Her style of teaching is quite different from mine, and I think it has been hard for her being in my room, and not being the teacher in charge.

One student in particular is a problem where Miss Nelson is concerned, because he behaves differently for her than he does for Amelia, Miss Slinger, or me.  Miss Nelson has low expectations for him (without meaning to, but he’s got a disability, you know), and he exploits that and manipulates her.  When she’s not with us, he is part of the class and he does pretty well.  When she’s in the room, he’s rolling on floors and tables and running out the door, laughing.

I talked frankly to her this morning about how I’d like to change the way things are going for this child.  There was a power struggle with him later in the morning, and she stepped back, so I stepped in, and I took his hand and firmly brought him back to the group.  I held his hand and brought him all the way down the stairs.

Here’s the email she sent me today, with names changed:

Hello Kiri,
It is with great regret that I tell you that I felt the need to share with R______, K_____and the Prince, the incident this morning with X_____ on the stairs coming back from Art. I was disturbed by the use of an arm pull down the stairs that was used to promote his compliance.
Please understand that I have great respect for your skill as a teacher, but I believe that a child with a disability needs to be handled differently than a typically developing child. I hope that by working together to combine our own teaching styles and support the best interests of special education children, we can talk through this situation, put it behind us and move forward.
 
Sincerely,
 
Miss Nelson

Here’s the email that I drafted in response:

Miss Nelson,

It’s okay, I understand your concern.  And I am sorry to have upset you.  However, I think that you may be blowing this incident out of proportion.  I never yanked on X____’s arm, and I never pulled hard.  I didn’t hurt X_____, and the end result was that he came back to the line and rejoined the class.  (I’m very happy to speak to K____, who is expert in these matters, about how to handle this sort of situation in the future.) Having rejoined the line, X____ participated for most of the morning and had a good, happy day.  It was wonderful that he chose the art center, and that he made some progress on learning how to use scissors.  Had he been allowed to continue to refuse to participate, as has happened many times before, we would have lost him for the rest of the morning, as has happened many times before.   

I hope you understand that I am not advocating for treating X____ exactly like any other student, all the time.  I am, however, advocating for having high expectations for him so that he has the opportunity to succeed.  He is, after all, in our class to be mainstreamed.  Rather than say from the start, “he can’t do this, it’s too much for him,” and not even try to have him do things with us, I’d like to start with the expectation that he will be a part of all that we do, and then make adjustments as necessary.
I am looking forward to our meeting with R____ and K____ on Thursday, and want to let you know that the Prince will be there as well.  I hope that the two end results will be that X____ starts to be fully integrated and really successful in the classroom, and also that the two of us will improve our teamwork and partnership, with a strong sense of shared purpose and trust on both ends.  
 
Kiri

I probably won’t send it.  I’ll send her a brief, edited version.

The good news is that I called the Prince at home, where he was trying to make burritos, and he gave me his full support.

Now I just have to make it through this big meeting on Thursday.

racism December 18, 2008

Last week on a day I was out sick, a little girl in my class kept refusing to play with a boy who had also chosen to play in the house corner. The volunteer told her that the boy had a right to be there, and that they all had to play together. The girl kept refusing. Finally, the volunteer asked why, and the little girl said, “I don’t like black people. My mother told me not to play with the black kids.”

My assistant teacher handled it the best she could in my absence, and when I returned, I asked the girl if it was true, and after being silent for a long time, she admitted that it was. I gave her the standard speech about how we are all friends in our class, and that we have to be respectful of everyone, and that the color of someone’s skin doesn’t matter. I felt that she didn’t really understand a word I was saying.

I asked our African-American assistant principal for help, and she gave me some good advice.

So we have been talking a lot about friendship, and how we are all different but really the same, and reading books about friendship and about diversity, and I have been talking a lot about our school family, and how we must all be kind to one another.

But still. I don’t know what to DO.

the painful part of winter December 9, 2008

Now that it is cold and snowy, I’m reminded of one of the many painful parts of being a teacher. My students are not prepared for the cold weather.

Most of them don’t have any snowpants. Many of my students don’t have winter boots, and while most of them do have gloves, they tend to be the cheap knit kind you get at Target, rather than warm waterproof ones that might actually keep out the cold.

I can’t go out and buy them all boots and mittens, though I’d like to.  But it really hurts me to take them outside unprepared for the cold.