Dad on Duty #84

I worked almost every day this week.  I had some elbow room at the day job, and the District had the Bosses flung all over town most of the week. So I figured I’d try to help a little extra.

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The second day I worked, I didn’t get to school till late morning, just before kindergarten lunch.  As I enter the office, I’m immediately met with a chorus of “where the h*&$ have you been?!?  This is the WORST day ever!”

Well, hello.  Good to see y’all too.

The kids are being awful today.  For no apparent reason. There are three lined up to talk to the A/P, two more just on hold in the front office, and the nurse’s station is packed.

Maybe it’s a weather change, or a moon phase…..who knows.  But something ain’t right.

Deb laments, head in hands: “this day has been like FOUR days”. And it’s only 1045 am.

Carol gets a bottle of “calming oil” from her purse and starts wafting it around the office. It’s unclear to me if it’s for the kids or the adults, at this point.  Nurse Lindsey exclaims, to no one in particular, that “these kids need to calm down; we’ve got four months to go till summer”. And they ain’t gonna make it at this rate.

She then turns to Carol, who has the calming oil in hand, and says “you gotta get that on the kids”. “Which kids?” Carol asks.  Lindsey replies without hesitation “all of them. Every. Single. Child. In. This. Building.” tapping her finger to her palm with every word, to emphasize the urgency of the situation.

Amen

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This job is heavily female dominated. As I mentioned before, there are only three full time guys, and me and an occupational therapy guy, part time, compared to about 50 women, in the building.

So as you might imagine, the staff bathrooms are not exactly man-caves.

There is potpourri and lotion and…well….more utilitarian feminine items. All over the place.  With notes that say “feel free to take one” or “welcome to use this”.

Next week, I’m bringing a package of beef jerky and one of those male grooming devices, the ones you use to trim nose and ear hairs, and leaving those in the bathroom.  With my own notes:  “dude, nose hairs. Really” and “Snacks!  That make you fart!”

That’ll make me, Raol, Nick and Frank feel better, I’m sure.

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There is a constant conflict between the needs of the individual campus and the overall plans and strategies of the District, as it relates to the staff.

Public schools lost a lot of manpower a few years ago, and it has not been replenished.  There are only a few aides, and no “extra” teachers on campus.

So, when staff must leave for training or meetings…which are important to our overall success, no doubt….there is no backfill.  What we have is what we have. Deal with it.

My third day at work this week is a great example.  We are down to a skeleton crew. Lunch and recess are challenging.  I take half of KG by myself and, later, the same for 3rd grade.  I don’t get to eat with Tori today; we are spread too thin.  Thankfully another neighborhood friend is there visiting the DBD, Libby, so Tori hangs out with them and doesn’t really notice my absence.

But everyone is stressed and stretched.  It matters.

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A subset of kids are headed to a UIL contest at the high school.  It’s a big deal; you had to qualify in your event and if you do well at this level, you could move up and compete outside our District.

Pretty cool.

As the UIL kids are lining up to get on the bus, I’m helping with traffic control. One of our high-needs kids, who qualified in her domain, comes running up and darn near tackles me.  Hugging hard, she exclaims “I’m so excited!!”

An amazing moment for her.

And us.

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I’m walking kindergarten out to the playground after lunch.  It’s a lot of kids.  One boy about 1/4 the way down the line tugs on my shirt and says “Johnny’s crying”, pointing toward the back of the line.  As Johnny approaches, he’s clearly very upset.

I lean over to get on his level and ask “what’s wrong buddy?”

He immediately buries his face… covered in tears and snot…into my neck, sobbing.  I am not quite prepared for that level of intimacy.  It shocks me a little.  I crouch down, hug him back, but then push him back and tell him “get back in line and let’s talk about it when we get outside”.  He boys-up and marches on out, but we can all still hear his crying.

I escort the mob out to the playground, stopping him before he enters.  As soon as I touch him, he does it again; burying his face, snot and all, into me.

As we talk, I discover that he suffered a minor injustice; a boy cut in front of him as they lined up for recess

And he came unraveled.

I do my best to talk him off the ledge, with some success.  He’s better.  But once he gets on the playground, he just stands, alone, looking down.

My heart hurts.

I challenge him; bet you can’t do a pull-up!  He lights up a little, and shows me otherwise.  Can you do a flip?  Yep, here he goes.  What about that slide?  Zip!

Now he’s running around, laughing and showing off.

But he’s still not interacting with the other kids.  At all.

This is so clearly the tip of an iceberg.  There is a lot of stuff going on in this little man.  What is it?  How will it affect him?  How will it affect us?  What will it mean for society?

What can we do?

This is the real stuff going on here at school. It’s terribly important.  And we’re not fully equipped to deal with it.

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Every day, I check the lost and found (my nemesis) for items with names, and try to get them back home.

I find a jacket with a name written on the inside label.  Yay!

It looks like it says V. K%$#%@. Can’t read it.  V. K. something?

I head down to the office and pull the student roster.  There are a couple kids with V K that are possibilities.  I engage the help of Rosie and Deb.  We all study the writing very carefully, like it’s an artifact from an Egyptian tomb. We go into full McCoy CSI mode, trying to match the initials to the size and cross referencing to possible suspects.  The A/P jumps in too.  Nope, can’t figure it out.

Four adults spend probably 15 minutes on this project.

Finally, we think maybe it’s a kindergartner in Mrs Grimes class.  I walk it down, but the suspect denies ownership, and Mrs Grimes backs her up.  As I walk out, I run into little Mr. Tull, another KG kid, along with another teacher. I show the teacher the label, and she shrugs. Nope, no idea.

Little Mr. Tull reaches out and grabs the label.

And flips it over.  Without a word.  Just flips the label the other way, and shows it to me. Silently.

There, clear as a bell, like it was embroidered in Times New Roman, is a name.

I just stared at him for a second, then back at the label, then back at him. And said “you gotta be kidding me”.  I rubbed his head and walked away.

Shoulda just started this whole damn process with him.  I’m going to him first from now on.

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On Friday, we are starting our “enrichment” rotations for the first time this semester.  It’s a lot of moving parts; the kids are scattering to about 20 different locations in the school.  At the appointed time, the teachers release the hounds and the halls are full of kids going a dozen different directions. Many of the teachers have to move too.

It’s pretty crazy.

About a minute after the mass migration starts, the A/P comes on the intercom and announces “we’re about to go to enrichment. But…important….don’t move until I tell you to, in just a minute”.

Oops.

Everybody….everybody….freezes for a second and looks around. Kids look at each other, kids look at teachers, teachers look at each other.

For just a moment, it is quiet.  And you can see a few teachers silently mouth “oh.  s@#%“.

Then the entire school collectively shrugs, and continues their travels to their respective destinations.