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.
No comments:
Post a Comment