Chapter 3
DAY 3
ALTHOUGH MOST EVERYTHING seemed to be going fairly smoothly, there seemed to be a couple of snags. For one thing, the teacher schedule had me listed for lunch duty during Time Block Three, every single day. What that meant was that I would be in the cafeteria first and second lunches, sandwiching my own lunch time between the two student lunches. I would not be able to go to lunch with friends and get a break from students. I would be standing on my feet the entire time, keeping the peace, watching every single thing that was going on, keeping kids from talking too much and too loudly, telling kids where to stand in line and where to sit, reminding children to chew.
In other words, Prison Duty.
And then there was my mild/moderate program for which I was hired and had so carefully designed. It seemed that every five minutes someone or other was telling me about a severely involved student who would be enrolled in my classroom.
“Oh, well, this little guy has to wear a helmet because of his seizures, and he is a bleeder, and well he functions on a pre-kindergarten level, but we don’t have anywhere else to put him and he is in this school zone and there is no money for a special education aide because we already have two in the ED (EmotionallyDisturbed) program." "She’s a pretty little girl but she does bite, scratch, and scream. And sometimes she leaves the classroom when she feels the urge to do so and steals things and by the way she has no basic skills.” “These girls are autistic and hurt themselves and fling themselves at walls, but they are real cute.” - that kind of thing.
Ostensibly, my middle school MR program is for students who have a mild/moderate classification: high functioning mentally retarded; lower functioning learning disabled. That is the area for which I am certified. We perform PASS skills (Priority Academic Student Skills); we don’t have baby books or coloring books or play time or free time. We work! That is what we do. There are many programs designed for severe/profound and other health impaired and the physically challenged.
I did not want to become a dumping ground for any and every disability just because I had room in my program. And that seemed to be what was happening before my very eyes.
Bravely, I confronted these two situations head on.
With what I hoped was tact and diplomacy, I sent a carefully worded e-mail to my principal explaining that - had I known about the cafeteria duty thing before I took the MR position at Washington Middle School - I would have had to decline. Call it a cancer thing.
Having had a malignancy in my right leg which required hours of surgery and resulted in a large, unattractive scar and a weakened muscle, I was not up to that sort of task. Mr. Perkins quickly took care of this and I was assigned a Life Skills class for my students during Time Block Three. God love his heart!
Then, I courageously told the powers that be in my building and at Special Services at the Board of Education, that I would have to protect myself from being put in a position of having students enrolled in my room who had a disability in a classification for which I was not certified or trained, nor did I ever want to be. I felt like an English teacher who was being told that she would now be teaching Quantum Physics. It was not a good or fair thing. I told them that I was prepared to have my attorney present at any and all meetings which addressed this very thing. Oh my God, everyone was in a panic and threats took wing. But, that was just too damn bad. And I did not bend. I did not arrive at that point in my career by looking the other way or letting people take advantage of me. If nothing else, I have kahoonas.
And then, as if by magic, I was told that those students would be attending other schools that did indeed have programs designed for children with their same classifications and disabilities.
Miracles do happen and there is a God.