Crazy, CRAZY Morning...

I've recently come to the realization that everyday is a crazy day in my classroom. But, today was definitely an exceptionally crazy one...

I went to the office to sign in to find a student (who isn't in my classroom but, as department chair and an all-around nice person, I care about her) marching through the office after scratching her 1:1 paraeducator so badly she was bleeding and trying to run off campus. She told the assitant principal that she wanted to F*@# her up to which my assistant principal calmly replied that she preferred she didn't. I found that hilarious.

At the ned of 1st period, I learned that the student who had bitten me almost a year ago had injured the adaptive p.e. specialist and one of our paraeducators. Apparently, he was upset and was squeezing the APE teachers arms when the paraeductor intervened. The student then pinched the paraeducator's arm so hard that it left a four finger hickey on the upper arm of the para.

During 2nd period, the director of special ed. decided to stop by the room to discuss our caseload overages. Well, my co-teacher and I hadn't realized that we were even over at all! Apparently, our classroom is considered a part of the SH category (severely handicapped) - I had always thought is was part of the M/M category (mild/moderate) as the majority of students have moderate disabilities. M/M classes have a maximum of 18 students each and SH classes have a maximum of 12 students each. The clarification of our classification as SH had recently been made since we just got a new principle who was trying to understand our program. My co-teacher and I have a combined total of 35 students, which means that we are an entire caseload over for SH classes. Instead of hiring another teacher for this school year, our boss offered us each one substitute day each week for us to work in the classroom on IEPs or lesson plans or anything else school related. Sweet! Now, here came the bad news. I have a M/M credential. My boss told me today that, unless I want to go back to school, I may not be able to teach in my classroom again next year!!! Well, I AM in school but I'm working toward a Level II M/M credential and, if I want to get a SH credential, I have to start all over again (like back to ASU days!). We continued our discussion and are going to have many, many more before the year is over but we're thinking that if we strategically place students who are more moderate on my caseload then I should be fine. We'll see... Maybe I'll be looking for a new job next summer! :(

3rd period started with a phone call from a paraeducator who supervises students in the strength and conditioning class informing me that one of my students had hit a girl so hard it left a handprint on her back. He was kicked out of class for the last time and is going to be dropped permanently from it. He came into class, upset of course, and I closed my office door to call his mother to let her know what had happened. My co-teacher was in the classroom. While the door was closed and I was on the phone with the parent, two more of my students decided to get into a physical fight over colored pencils which resulted in the smaller of the two being scratched pretty severely on his neck and the larger of the two planting himself on the floor in front of the refrigerator about ten minutes before snack. UGH!!! I got off the phone with parent #1 who, of course, blames the other student and the teacher for her son making a handprint on the back of a girl half his size and ran up to the nurse's office to take pictures of the scratches for student records and to get an accident report. Returning to the classroom, I made an executive decision to send the scratcher home so I called his parents but got the voicemail (of course!). I then had to call the mother of the scratchee at work to inform her that her child had been assaulted at school and that I was not there to witness the altercation. Not a fun call to make. Luckily, my parents are all pretty awesome and understanding! Meanwhile, administration had gotten involved and the p.e. girl-hitter was suspended for the rest of the day. I took him to the office and while his dad was walking out the door with him, the scratcher's dad walked in the door for his son. We literally had a revolving door for a minute!

The rest of the day went farily smoothly. One student stormed out of the classroom - the student who doesn't talk to me. Another student who has auditory hallucinations came in from lunch looking miserable and complaining of feeling faint and we had to call security to come pick her up. But, that was nothing compared to the first three periods of the day!

All in a day's work, I suppose. ;)