And the Honor Goes to...

School is back in session!

We began classes last Thursday with our kids. We have quite the interesting group. I will write more about the kids as time goes on. I can guarantee you this...it is going to be an interesting year!

Yesterday was the first Monday of the year. Boy, was it a Monday!

Monday morning began with a colleague of mine coming into my classroom before school began to talk with me about a parent. Seems there is a parent in our system who has decided to file a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights, in Atlanta! She is claiming our system is discriminating against her son because of his disability...autism. So I spent some time in the morning reading over the emails and the complaint filed by this parent.

To add to my fun of the day, I had two girls come up to me after lunch claiming a 7th grade boy clapped one of them in the back of the head while in the lunch line. They also said he was doing pelvic thrusts towards the same girl. Had to report this boy (not on my team...thank goodness) to our new assistant principal. God bless her!

At the end of the day, we took our kids outside for some release and downtime. My teammate walked under a tree for some shade. We turn around and two of our boys are rolling around on the ground punching each other. My teammate is screaming for them to stop, and I am on the ground pulling the boys apart. Once I get them apart, I am holding on to one of the boys while having the other boy circling me like he is a predator and the boy I am holding back is the prey. Add to it, the boy I didn't have a hold of was rigid, his head down, eyes rolled back in his head, huffing and puffing, snot coming out his nose, etc. I would have sworn he was possessed. Exorcism seemed to be the order of the day.

While holding back the one boy, I had the radio in the other hand yelling for our police office and one of the three principals to come outside quickly. Boy, did they ever! Within 60 second we had all three principals and our police office running outside. I took the one boy I had a hold of into the office while the rest of them dealt with our possessed child.

The scary thing was the boy I brought in was as cool as a cucumber. He acted like nothing had happened. It was odd. We talked about what had happened, and then he asked me the strangest question. He asked if I thought he would get home by 3 pm. I asked him why, and he stunned me further by saying he had a court date at 3:30. Yes, my 11-year old little boy is on probation for vandalism.

While talking with this one student, I saw the police office escorting my other student into the office. He was kicking, screaming, and saying he didn't care if he went to jail. They finally got him into the main principal's office. Mother was called.

The mother of the probation child came into pick up her son. She sat there and told us flat-out that she did not know what to do. She claimed she didn't have any control of her sons. She then proceeded to tell me her other son (a former student of mine) has been on house arrest, probation, and now DCS has removed him from the home.

The second mother came into the office and told the principal that she would support whatever decision he made concerning her son. She also took the time to explain some of the circumstances surrounding her son. I did not get to meet her yet. What I was told is that she is well-educated, well-spoken, polite, and supportive. (This is a type of parent that we get fewer of every year!)

So the decision of the principals was to give both boys two days of summary-suspension. This means that when they return, they will meet with the parents, principal, guidance counselors, and the school psychologist to determine if it is safe for them to return to the classroom.

Seems my team has the honor of having the first students of the year to be suspended! That is not quite the honor I was hoping to have this year, but it had to happen to someone. Did I mention how fast word spread around the school. Seems every teacher that I ran into in the hall after school was asking what had happened. Amazing how fast the news spreads in my school of 89 teachers!

There you have it...the beginning of my school year. It is certainly unlike any year I have had before!