I said what I said. Teachers are asked to do way too many tasks for the scheduled time we have, that’s a given. We adapt and work well under pressure.
The kids. The behavior. The lack of consequences. The lack of support. The lack of safety to do a job effectively will be the demise of public schools.
Last week, on Friday my 4th grade class earned their weekly reward. My students love a Free Seat Friday. They can move wherever and sit wherever for the class that day. Well, one kiddo was PISSED. The chair he likes to move to was already occupied by another student. This student could have sat at any one of the other two seats available at the table he wanted to be at. But no. He wanted that occupied chair. He starts whining and crying. I refuse to give him a seat that someone IS ALREADY IN. Pull up another chair!
After 20 minutes of crying and refusing every single cool down opportunity, the student who was upset was about 6 feet away from me at my teacher table. He picks up his laptop and two handed used all his force to chuck that thing directly at my face. I’m not even exaggerating when I say, I dodged that thing by merely a fraction of a second! I was so lucky to not catch that straight to my face. The laptop hit the wall behind me leaving dents, a piece flew off and struck the child who was at my table with me requiring her to see the nurse.
I called the front office for administrator support to remove the student. The principals were all tied up already dealing with other behavior incidents so a counselor was sent. I meet her in the hall with the student who is on the floor crying and scratching the wall. I tell her what happened. She nods her head at me.
She takes the boy to the counseling office with her. She never asked if I was alright or anything. Ok cool whatever. I text my partner teacher an SOS and she covers my class so I can step out and recollect myself. When I return my partner decides to go check on the counselor and transport the student to the in school suspension room.
When she arrives, he’s eating a snack and playing with fucking toys. The counselor said she’s sending him back to my class to come apologize and promise to not do it again…
My partner had to tell her that I would definitely not be accepting him back in the class and that is a terrible idea to send an emotionally distraught student back to class ALONE after he attempted to assault his teacher 20 min prior.
So my partner had to take the boy with her to her class… by lunch time I decided the principal must be clueless to what happened. I text her and I bump into her in person. I tell her what happened and she apologizes profusely and then nothing. No one did anything. Our district policy classifies this as a removal from class immediately and 1-3 days of suspension. The student will be in suspension today. But damn teachers have it rough!
17 days until break