I went grocery shopping tonight. I agreed to go. I was not forced as is often the case. I am pretty gullible about it, Sarah will say "want to go to the mall?" and then on the way home we end up at Wal-Mart. This is not a joke. I really dislike the grocery store and on the way out to the car I saw a cat so I was a little distracted anyway.
So...Sarah is saying how she should have gotten a sitter for me since it was late but I was trying to be good. We did our shopping and $96 later headed for home. It was around 10 and we were just going home to finish some scrapbooking pages when all hell broke loose. As we got to our door (in our safe apartment complex, the safest in Yuma). Sarah was finding her keys, as I was irresponsible and forgot mine. I heard a noise, turned around and saw a policeman run at full speed out of a neighboring apartment with his gun drawn. I whispered to Sarah to get in the house now because something bad was happening and we ran in the house, threw the groceries and got out of the windows with the lights off.
I crawled to the living room window and peered out to see what was happening. The woman who lives in said apartment had run out after the policeman and had left her door wide open. They had run out of view so we remained in hiding. I drew the shades and we put the groceries away.
We heard lots of sirens and they stopped right at our area, Sarah saw an ambulance and cop cars pull up. I voted to walk the long way around to see what was happening but then we would still have been in the line of fire as Sarah rationally pointed out. The door has been open for sometime and a policeman just went back in and shut it tight.
We don't know what happened but we are praying for the family. A mom and her two kids live in the apartment. A small girl and late elementary aged boy. They have only been here about a month and the boy plays soccer and basketball outside our place constantly.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Helpless or Hopeless?
I mentioned in my last blog that I was looking for a new career, I'm beginning to think I wasn't kidding myself. Yesterday I started the morning dealing with contacting parents of children who have failing grades for 3rd quarter. Report cards come out next week and we, the teachers, are not allowed to give an F unless the parent has been notified. Now, keep in mind this is not the first notification that I or many of the teachers have made. Each quarter is 9 or 10 weeks long and we all send progress reports home regularly, call or send notes in the student's planner. This particular phone call should not be a surprise. But inevitably it is and the parent is upset and wants to fix it but then I have to say it is too late in the game for that. I called 9 parents yesterday and I only have 57 students.
I was disappointed by the reactions, many of the parents have given up. As long as you are not suspending their child it's OK. They can deal with the failure academically, almost as if it is expected. Report card time is always like this. Some parents freak out but, sadly, most don't care. That will become apparent next week when we have parent-teacher conferences and the numbers of parents showing up go down like they always do.
While I was having students call and telling parents of their fate I came across one student who has been in my class since the beginning of January. He has ADHD and is in charge of taking his own medication every morning, as part of "taking responsibility" for his actions. Since his arrival we have had two parent meetings, one with the counselor, one with the vice-Principal and still this child comes to class with nothing. Not a piece of paper, a pencil, nothing. Yesterday when we talked about the failing grade I asked him of he was taking his meds. He said no. Alarm bells went off in my head. I then had my attention immediately split in two. I was teaching my class and trying to figure out why a 12 year old is required to worry about the fact that his medication ran out and there is no refill for it. He had been out for 6 days.
Fast forward to lunch time. I asked an innocent question regarding a student who has ditched a couple of times to see if her absences had been excused for the past two days. I needed to call mom regarding her grade. I was told to talk to the school resource officer (the police). The officer sets me down and tells me that she is missing. Yep, one of my students ran away from home Sunday and hasn't been seen since. Evidently her 29 year old ex-boyfriend is also MIA. Now my brain is divided into 3 parts. My brain doesn't handle this new split well and I get a little cranky.
I called my mom and dad as soon as I got home and told them what had happened because I just need to hear them say it is going to be OK sometimes. My mom said "you must feel so hopeless, I mean helpless"
Yes, I do feel helpless. There is nothing I can do.
I can't take a child to the Dr. get the meds and make sure he takes them, I can't find a 12 year old run away any better than the police can and I can't make pre-teens stop having sex (we had a pregnancy scare recently also). So while I do feel helpless, I can't help but feel a little hopeless too. Next week we are having big fundraisers for an 8Th grader at school who is going through treatments for cancer and we have had 4 kids kicked out for drugs in the last month.
I know that I am a positive influence, as I was told yesterday, my heart is 18 sizes too big! But today it just hurts and hurts until I think it can't hurt anymore. I am scared and angry and have no idea what to do. These kids are not kids. They don't know how to be. When did that change? When did kids turn into little adults bringing their Starbucks to school with the grown up problems to go with it and making their own rules along the way.
I'm not so sure my mom was wrong, I do feel pretty hopeless.
Thankfully my jury duty was cancelled for today and I was able to have golf practice today which was great. It was nice to be outside and the kids were great.
Please pray for my run-away student and her family. It is a very serious situation that I can't go into detail about but each day that goes by is scarier than before.
I was disappointed by the reactions, many of the parents have given up. As long as you are not suspending their child it's OK. They can deal with the failure academically, almost as if it is expected. Report card time is always like this. Some parents freak out but, sadly, most don't care. That will become apparent next week when we have parent-teacher conferences and the numbers of parents showing up go down like they always do.
While I was having students call and telling parents of their fate I came across one student who has been in my class since the beginning of January. He has ADHD and is in charge of taking his own medication every morning, as part of "taking responsibility" for his actions. Since his arrival we have had two parent meetings, one with the counselor, one with the vice-Principal and still this child comes to class with nothing. Not a piece of paper, a pencil, nothing. Yesterday when we talked about the failing grade I asked him of he was taking his meds. He said no. Alarm bells went off in my head. I then had my attention immediately split in two. I was teaching my class and trying to figure out why a 12 year old is required to worry about the fact that his medication ran out and there is no refill for it. He had been out for 6 days.
Fast forward to lunch time. I asked an innocent question regarding a student who has ditched a couple of times to see if her absences had been excused for the past two days. I needed to call mom regarding her grade. I was told to talk to the school resource officer (the police). The officer sets me down and tells me that she is missing. Yep, one of my students ran away from home Sunday and hasn't been seen since. Evidently her 29 year old ex-boyfriend is also MIA. Now my brain is divided into 3 parts. My brain doesn't handle this new split well and I get a little cranky.
I called my mom and dad as soon as I got home and told them what had happened because I just need to hear them say it is going to be OK sometimes. My mom said "you must feel so hopeless, I mean helpless"
Yes, I do feel helpless. There is nothing I can do.
I can't take a child to the Dr. get the meds and make sure he takes them, I can't find a 12 year old run away any better than the police can and I can't make pre-teens stop having sex (we had a pregnancy scare recently also). So while I do feel helpless, I can't help but feel a little hopeless too. Next week we are having big fundraisers for an 8Th grader at school who is going through treatments for cancer and we have had 4 kids kicked out for drugs in the last month.
I know that I am a positive influence, as I was told yesterday, my heart is 18 sizes too big! But today it just hurts and hurts until I think it can't hurt anymore. I am scared and angry and have no idea what to do. These kids are not kids. They don't know how to be. When did that change? When did kids turn into little adults bringing their Starbucks to school with the grown up problems to go with it and making their own rules along the way.
I'm not so sure my mom was wrong, I do feel pretty hopeless.
Thankfully my jury duty was cancelled for today and I was able to have golf practice today which was great. It was nice to be outside and the kids were great.
Please pray for my run-away student and her family. It is a very serious situation that I can't go into detail about but each day that goes by is scarier than before.
Monday, March 10, 2008
My Crazy Life
I wish I blogged more than I do but to be honest there isn't that much happening that constitutes an entire blog so I will to a synopsis for you.
- Two weeks ago I had a disappointing evaluation from one of the VP's at school. So bad in fact it got me thinking about alternate career opportunities the upcoming job may afford me. Let's jsut say I am not qualified to do much else!
- Fast forward a week to school wide evaluation. We all get evaluated on the same day and are compared to every school in the county. No, no pressure at all. Sarah and I spent hours of our weekend preparing a lesson that would be perfect, the evaluators saw maybe the first 1/8th of it but it was great and I impressed the powers that be. unfortunately that may have been the trigger for a migraine.
- Wednesday of last week, actually walked out of my class. Abandoned my children, without even telling them I was leaving because I was so sick. I got someone to cover my 6th period and I passed out in the nurses office. No one bothered to check on me or my class for 7th period until Sarah found my kids working alone with no adult. Thank God they didn't run away or start a fire or something.
- Wednesday afternoon, got myself together long enough to have first golf practice with 40 children and then passed out until Friday. I don't remember much of Thursday, except that I woke up a couple of times to inject medication.
- Saturday got hi-lites. that was fun and cruised the mall, mostly window shopping. No work this weekend.
- Sunday we cleaned the house which was much needed after the crazy winds have brought all the desert in the house.
All of this while still getting the kids ready for AIMS and trying to keep them from getting distracted from Spring Break (9 days and counting!). Job hunt continues, lots of possibilities but still hard to narrow down with Sarah's applications pending.
I have jury duty starting Wednesday, can't wait for that ;-( I hope I get dismissed. And we are trying to get our plans straight to go to Texas to visit the Brick House for Easter. And yes to the little Bricks, we did ask our parents if we could stay over!
That's what's been going on here in the desert. I will keep you posted.
- Two weeks ago I had a disappointing evaluation from one of the VP's at school. So bad in fact it got me thinking about alternate career opportunities the upcoming job may afford me. Let's jsut say I am not qualified to do much else!
- Fast forward a week to school wide evaluation. We all get evaluated on the same day and are compared to every school in the county. No, no pressure at all. Sarah and I spent hours of our weekend preparing a lesson that would be perfect, the evaluators saw maybe the first 1/8th of it but it was great and I impressed the powers that be. unfortunately that may have been the trigger for a migraine.
- Wednesday of last week, actually walked out of my class. Abandoned my children, without even telling them I was leaving because I was so sick. I got someone to cover my 6th period and I passed out in the nurses office. No one bothered to check on me or my class for 7th period until Sarah found my kids working alone with no adult. Thank God they didn't run away or start a fire or something.
- Wednesday afternoon, got myself together long enough to have first golf practice with 40 children and then passed out until Friday. I don't remember much of Thursday, except that I woke up a couple of times to inject medication.
- Saturday got hi-lites. that was fun and cruised the mall, mostly window shopping. No work this weekend.
- Sunday we cleaned the house which was much needed after the crazy winds have brought all the desert in the house.
All of this while still getting the kids ready for AIMS and trying to keep them from getting distracted from Spring Break (9 days and counting!). Job hunt continues, lots of possibilities but still hard to narrow down with Sarah's applications pending.
I have jury duty starting Wednesday, can't wait for that ;-( I hope I get dismissed. And we are trying to get our plans straight to go to Texas to visit the Brick House for Easter. And yes to the little Bricks, we did ask our parents if we could stay over!
That's what's been going on here in the desert. I will keep you posted.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Fight Club!
For any of you that have seen the movie fight club, you know rule #1 is that you don't talk about fight club. Well that's not how Ms. Knapp plays it. Some of our kids decided to have their own version of fight club in the bathroom this week at school. Friends fighting, just to see who could beat each other up. All in all there were about 15 kids involved.
Yesterday one of our incredibly smart (note the sarcasm) 8Th graders decided to ditch and because she didn't want to get into trouble got into a car with a stranger, that's right a stranger. I don't know all of the events that played out, as I came in on the tail end but I do know that she is safe now but was missing for about 4 hours yesterday.
Sarah and I decided to go to the movies last night. We don't go very often for two reasons, it is expensive and there are bound to be students there. We sucked it up and went to the mall which has a little added pressure now because of the February 14Th fatal shooting of an eighteen year old gang member right outside the theatres. We got there early and walked around a bit, window shopping and taking in the sights. We were spotted and pointed out loudly by one group of students and were not surprised to see 2 police cruisers parked in front of the theaters and the cops doing foot patrols with mall security. It has only been two weeks but that hasn't deterred anyone from being out and about. The place was packed with teens, families, Marines, everyone. The gangs were out in force showing colors and marking territory but thankfully nothing has happened in a public place since the last incident. I think we are more aware because of our work in the schools than most people who are just out to eat and shopping.
We saw Fools Gold, it was a cute movie. I laughed, which I needed after a not so good week. I have been summonsed to jury duty so I will keep you posted on that. I guess I better get up now and get the weekend chores started.
Yesterday one of our incredibly smart (note the sarcasm) 8Th graders decided to ditch and because she didn't want to get into trouble got into a car with a stranger, that's right a stranger. I don't know all of the events that played out, as I came in on the tail end but I do know that she is safe now but was missing for about 4 hours yesterday.
Sarah and I decided to go to the movies last night. We don't go very often for two reasons, it is expensive and there are bound to be students there. We sucked it up and went to the mall which has a little added pressure now because of the February 14Th fatal shooting of an eighteen year old gang member right outside the theatres. We got there early and walked around a bit, window shopping and taking in the sights. We were spotted and pointed out loudly by one group of students and were not surprised to see 2 police cruisers parked in front of the theaters and the cops doing foot patrols with mall security. It has only been two weeks but that hasn't deterred anyone from being out and about. The place was packed with teens, families, Marines, everyone. The gangs were out in force showing colors and marking territory but thankfully nothing has happened in a public place since the last incident. I think we are more aware because of our work in the schools than most people who are just out to eat and shopping.
We saw Fools Gold, it was a cute movie. I laughed, which I needed after a not so good week. I have been summonsed to jury duty so I will keep you posted on that. I guess I better get up now and get the weekend chores started.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)