Intern!

I have an intern!!! She is in her last semester of interning before student teaching. She has to be with me 75 hours this semester. Today was her first day in the room, she was just observing. The kids were NUTS today. I think it was the rain, it throws them off. I'm hoping some of my gems didn't scare her away. One of them told her a story about how he protected his sisters this weekend by sitting in the house with a knife so he could slash a ghost and then there was blood everywhere. He's a special one. He's one that will hopefully soon be moved to a self-contained behavior classroom. I never thought it could get worse than my other little guy, then this one came. He makes the other look like a saint in comparison. The poor other little one is even wowed by him.

In other news, the original "tough kid"'s mom is supposed to be getting him medicated soon! Hooray! He desperately needs it. I'm hoping it will help him with his self-confidence, so he doesn't call himself stupid anymore.

I had a meeting today with a grandmother of one of my girls who now qualifies for math resource. She doesn't know the value of coins and barely knows addition facts. Her life story is unbearable to hear and I'm so glad she has a grandmother whose main goal in life is to help her grandkids. If only some of the other parents cared 1/100th as much as she does.

This year out of the 4 that I have taken through the process of getting extra help, 3 have qualified for services. Feels pretty good to know that I'm the reason they are getting the help that they need. Still have to convince a teacher mom that her son has serious issues that look like Autism, but I'm guessing she's not going to budge on her perfect son.

Is it just me, or did parents used to care more? Maybe it was just mine...I'm just lucky I guess. :-)

Addendum to Stressful Tuesday

We had a meeting with the school psychologist, special education resource teacher, social worker and mom on Friday afternoon to discuss that little guys psycho-educational evaluation. We know that he is so severely ADHD that he can't function, but some things came up in his evaluation that we were not expecting and are terrifying. We basically had to tell mom that it is time to medicate and get her son in counseling, but we aren't sure if she actually heard any of it.

According to the evaluation this little guy has elevated levels of: depression, anxiety, violence potential, helplessness, hopelessness and worthlessness. These levels are as elevated as they can be according to the rating scale that I filled out about him. The scariest part of all of this is that normally those scores don't come out unless the kid is rating themselves. So that fact that he is projecting these things for others to see is shocking. He is 9 and hates himself and feels that no one in his life loves him because he can't control himself (those are his words to me). We are begging mom to get him some help but we are 90% sure she will do nothing. She never sees him so she doesn't realize what he is going through. We are out of options to help him at school, now it's all up to her.

My next step is to follow up with child protective services and see if it's neglect or something if she doesn't help him. I've got to believe that with psychological evidence of depression and everything else that some higher power than mom can help him.

Hearing of the violence potential really struck me considering he just brought a knife to school. I did not see him as a threat originally. I knew he had the potential, but I just figured it would come later in life if he was not helped. Essentially, I have no idea what to do for this poor child. I feel so horrible that he feels this way at the age of 9 and I just pray that his mother will see that he is in serious need of intensive help. She cried during the meeting when we all said that we really like him and know that he has huge potential if he gets some help. Hopefully that means that she listened.

Stressful Tuesday

Yesterday was quite the hectic day in the Barnes classroom. The first bell rings at 8:05, by about 8:10 I had a note in my hand from a student saying that someone had a knife in their backpack. Of course I have to call the office, by law I am not allowed to look in backpacks. My principal was off campus at a meeting, so someone else from the office came down and found the knife. He was escorted to the office with a pile of "stuff" to work on. We had to wait for the principal to return to campus to hear his "fate". He was suspended for 3 days, yesterday counted as day one. In my 3 years of teaching, this is the second knife and last year I had a toy gun. All have resulted in 2+ day suspensions. Needless to say, starting the day that way throws everything off.

In other interesting news, the 4th grade team at my school has been selected to participate in an international math assessment. We are one of 2 schools in the state. My school is a very low socio-economic school with a mostly Hispanic population and a lot of students who are not proficient in English. The 3 of us upon hearing this news looked at each other and laughed. Our mentor told us that the program is trying to select schools with similar groups of students, which seems impossible considering that it is an international exam. So basically, our students who are behind according United States standards are going to be compared to students from excelling countries. We are not going to stress about it, we will just laugh it off, because we were chosen completely randomly from a lottery of all the schools in the state. We won't see the results until this year's 4th graders have left the school.

It has been an interesting couple of days to say the least.

Back to Reality

So after a hectic Winter Break, we are back in the swing of things. Barry and I have moved into our home and all my kids want to see pictures...anything to stall schoolwork. I had 2 students move over the break so I am down to 27, until tomorrow when I get a new little guy with an IEP (individualized educational plan) meaning he receives special education services. One of the kids that moved was a behavior problem that fed off of others and competed for negative attention. It's been smoother this week. One of my little guys that usually never makes his day has been fine this week! It's been weird.

I was totally braindead Monday and Tuesday, but today seemed to go a little better. I was observed yesterday and it went well. Because I was having a total brain fart all day, there were a few things that I needed to fix that normally would not be an issue for me. Oh well, there's a first time for everything.

Basketball will be getting started tomorrow and our first game is the week of the 18th. We don't have a lot of time to prepare the girls, but hopefully it will work out ok.

Report cards went home today, so I'm sure I will get some phone calls in the next few days. I have already gotten some from a mom who is in denial about her son having attention problems. Other teachers have spoken with her and she continues to blame others and say that her son is just bored, though she does not think he is gifted. We are getting offended that she continues to say that we are boring and give suggestions (because she is a substitute) for things that we should be doing. All of the suggestions are things we already do . Nothing is getting through to her, and we have had to mention multiple times that his constant nose picking is a HUGE problem, but she doesn't agree. It's extremely frustrating.

Anyway, I will update soon, hopefully with more uplifting or happy news.