Bitch Stole My Ride...

Yes.

I am talking about an 8 year old.

One of my ga-dang kids put their grubby hands in my purse and snatched some old gummy bears and my keys.  It didn't click until the end of the day when I was crouched down next to my car digging through my purse looking for my keys at 5 pm on Friday evening.

Yes.  Friday.  Evening.

Still in my observation window.

Not that I don't usually stay and get ready late one or two nights a week, but point made.

It's Friday and I was ready to go and I'm fishing for my keys and my hand hits the old gummy bears in my purse and then I remember.

We were in the science lab in the morning and a few of the kids tell me that Tawanda is eating gummy bears.  I shrug it off, because she is always eating something and can we please just compare the salt water to the fresh water for Pete's sake???

And now, I'm kicking myself.  She got the effing gummy bears out of my purse.  I had hung it up way out of reach.  I have been locking away all of their stuff and just hanging up my stuff thinking that was enough of a deterrent.  I guess that was wrong.

It had been a hell of a day.  Started out kind of rough.  Tawanda told me that she was getting beat up at her apartment.  Geneva confirmed it.  There was a fire drill.  The sub didn't come for Ms. Jetson, so we had to split her class and we had 4 kids join us.  We went to the science lab.  At recess, a police helicopter landed on the school gym and the principal announced a soft lockdown due to an armed robbery at the gas station a few blocks away.

Three kids cried.  I don't blame them.  The helicopter thing was scary.  Tawanda told me that she was mad at me and wanted me to give her something.  I explained that I am not a money tree.

Ahhhh!  Fuck. Fuck.  Fuck.  Long ass day.  I think she was so pissed that she took my keys and by the end of the day had a change of heart or was scared that she would get caught with them and pitched them before she got on the bus.

This is not good.  It sucks for me that some of Tawanda's acting out is directed towards me.  I don't know how to help her sometimes.

I'm not perfect.  I forget things.  Like reminding her to do x or y or z.  Or I forget to pick my purse up off the floor when we have a schedule change.  Or I get distracted sometimes.  I'm just human and I don't respond perfectly in every situation.  I'm not a robot.  I wish I was...  Sometimes, I really wish I was.

It's never THAT easy....

So come to find out, I can't just exercise my "right of refusal."

Well, I could.   There would be a shitload of paperwork and Tawanda would get pushed into someone else's classroom on my team.  I wouldn't be allowed to talk to her and she wouldn't be allowed to come back to my class.

So that's not an option.

I don't want to refuse her if that is the case.

1. I am not evil.

2. I love little fucked up Tawanda and it won't be good for her to go to someone else's class that she doesn't know and be a throw away kid.

(Sidenote: I thought that if I "refused" her, that she would go the the "structured" classroom where she knows and loves the structure teacher and teaching aide.   Plus, I thought that she could come back to me, when she started her medication.)

3.  I am not evil.  Oh, did I already say that?  I meant it.  I wouldn't do that to a co-worker.

4.  Plus, that's like saying that you can't handle it.  And that is not what I'm saying.  I'm really saying: Hey, if my student is spitting on people, would you, please, do something about it???? For example, how would you respond if she spat on you?  Or your child?  What if she stole out of your purse?

So I'm a little bit stuck for the time being.  I have a few days respite and hopefully, she will be back on her meds after Monday.  I don't know.  I have my fingers crossed on this one.

Dumpster Diving with Ms. Milky

I've seen some seriously messed up shit at school. On my second day on the job, one kid busted another kid's two front teeth out. Another kid had a bowel issue where he was completely unaware that he had crapped his pants. One of my favorite students was a kleptomaniac. He couldn't NOT steal. Also, he had a thing for Sharpies.

I've seen my fair share of straight up hungry-ass kids. The kind who have some pretty empty kitchens at home. This can require some tricky maneuvering depending on the intensity of the situation. Sometimes, it's just a couple of snacks in drawer and other times it becomes more invasive.

Right now, I am providing my entire class with snack everyday. If I don't, it gets too hairy and we don't learn anything, because Tawanda gets too consumed with stealing other people's food. So, instead of fending off Tawanda everyday, I just pass out snack and they all get the same thing and she is de-incentived to take from other people, thusly turning my classroom into a giant squabble-fest each day.

What I haven't seen though is the mind blowing "holy-shit-did-you-really-just-do-that???" mess that Tawanda pulled today.

The girl ate out of the trash.

She ate out of the trash IN FRONT of the other students!

She grabbed the remnants of an already day-old cupcake that had been sitting at the bottom of the trashcan all day underneath snotty tissues and glued-on paper scraps and bits of thrown out nerds. Then she shoved it into her mouth. I could see the green frosting all around her little lips. She tried to scrub the evidence off with hand sanitizer, but they were still sweet smelling and sticky.

I won't go into the other weird things that she did today. It's too much. I don't even know if I can emotionally handle the mess that this poor kid is going through, so I don't know how she is handling it. It's so clear to me that someone is hurting her and/or neglecting her. Someone who should be taking care of her.

Don't worry. I've called about it. A few other people and I have a direct number to one of the supervisors at cps. But here is what I want to know? When is somebody going to actually protect this child? Maybe I'm just a know-it-all teacher that wants to point my finger at the parent before I suggest helping the parent or maybe everything inside my body says that this kid is being abused and trying to "help" her abuser/gatekeeper/neglector is fucking ridiculous.

Let's help the abuser once he/she is in prison. For fuck's sake. FUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKK!

Like I said, I've seen a lot of messed up shit. I know that there is horrible stuff that happens to kids that I will never know about, even kids that are in my class. But this is a case, where I know that a kid is being abused and neglected. She is eating out of the trash. She is doing things that I won't write about on an anonymous blog. Something is terribly wrong with the way that our government goes about "protecting" children from their own "caregivers."