Quite the day....

Today was a day to remember. It is funny because before school this morning, many of the teachers had made comments about how thankful they were that it was Friday, that it had been a tough week and although this week has not been a "walk in the park" it was not too much to handle. That all changed once 8:25 rolled around....

I am overwhelmed. Many of the 18 students I currently have need more support from me as well as interventions in order to get them on track to succeed. Just a few that I have in mind:

*My student who I have seen only a handful of times has refused to do ANY work in my class even with my 1 v 1 assistance. Today he got angry when I wouldn't allow him to charge his cell phone in class and threw the worksheet on the floor. He never returned for his 2 other class periods and come to find out, he stole a bicycle from his 1st period science class yesterday.

*Or, the student who I have done extensive intervention with and who I love dearly making zero progress in both his attendance, his academics and his behavior. Beginning Monday he will be suspended until he is finally expelled. I will cry about it because he has such potential but is yet another African American young male statistic who will not make it to high school graduation.

*Or at 1:16 when school was getting out and I was running around trying to call 5 different parents concerning 5 different behavior problems while trying to touch base with my principal regarding the above 2 issues and 2 different teachers corner me and tell me that they cannot deal with MY students and something needs to be done. First, they are not MY students...they are our students and we all need to work with them. Second, try interventions before you say you cannot teach them. I can have empathy if my students are behavioral concerns but I cannot if they behave, are present, but just can't grasp the material.

I had a little breakdown in front of one teacher and my assistant principal, but it just gives me upset when I think that I have 5 African American boys who probably will not graduate because they cannot behave in class, are not in class enough to succeed and are extremely dis-respectful and dis-engaged from school. I hope that I can work to get 1 back on track, but they each have SO many distractions that take them away from the importance of education....

I need to re-group this weekend, re-establish my priorities and return on Monday ready to rock my classroom because there has been some pretty great learning in there. In English all my students have written a complete paragraph and I cannot wait to share some of them!