6 Days

That's all I have left! And every day closer to the end I get, the harder it gets to get there the next day! Goodness.

Today, A. came back to school. He tried to come back yesterday, but the office staff didn't allow him back until his mother had contacted the principal because just last week we had a transfer of records request from the town he lived in before he moved here in the last week of January. Apparently, that conversation happened.

This is a kid who is court ordered to attend school. Before he was court ordered to attend school, he was absent almost 50 % of the time. After the order he came for two days in a row before he missed again. Then he came in all in a rage because the police had taken his mother to jail the night before. Apparently, when she took him to court, they realized that she'd failed to appear on a different charge of her own.

Today, he was back, but he was late so I was already in class. Whoever brought him apparently just dropped him off. He walked into the school office and just announced that his dad was in jail. Apparently, the police took his dad from his home last night.

The counselor brought him to class, the both of them almost in tears. This is the kid that I fought so long to get new shoes for, as his were rancid nasty and split open down the sides. I had to go to his house once to get some papers signed. It took forever to find the place because it's not a residence, it's a trashed out, half burnt out, storefront shop in old down town. His mother is obviously cracked out.

He's 10 years old, can't read a lick, and has none of the social skills needed to attend school, which is why he's in my class.

Usually, the other teachers and administrators make fun of me for caring about my students and trying to sort them out as well as I can, but today the counselor looked at me and said that she just didn't know how I'd dealt with all this stuff all year long. Honestly, I don't know how I've done it, either.

But these are simply not kids who can be taught in a regular classroom. I need to try to advocate for them, to try to sort them out as much as possible, because they are the people with whom I live forty hours a week, all in one small room, all day long. I don't even get lunch or a planning period as a break. I need them to be as well sorted out as possible! It's not just what's right for them, but for me, and by extension, for my own son who has to live with his stressed out mommy when he comes home from school.

Q. still hasn't come back and won't. He's in Chicago, but there has been no request for records transfer. He's just not going to go to school any more this year, and maybe not next year, either. They took him away to avoid taking him to court--because they were about to get caught in a bunch of their own mess. At least nine other kids still in the home and no parents.

Lord, Have Mercy. Six more day.