Dad On Duty #117

Here I am, at the end of a physically and emotionally exhausting day, sitting beside a teacher, on the exam table in the school nurse’s office, while the nurse combs through our hair looking for lice. 

How the &*#^ did we get here?

Well, I’ll tell you.

*********

It’s a Friday, which is usually a little nuts.  That’s one of the reasons I pick Fridays, typically, as the day to work at school.  It’s the culmination, or perhaps the perfect &%*^-storm, of the week.  It all piles up today.

Kim, our A/P, is sitting with a kid in the hallway who is having a meltdown.  He’s sobbing.  She’s on the floor with him.  This is, already at 10:30 am today, the THIRD instance almost exactly like this I’ve seen her engaged in.  As I walk by, I say, incredulously, “another meltdown?”.  She says “yeah, but I told everybody the next one is mine”.  Yeah, totally should be.

As if that’s not enough, one of the very high-maintenance behavior kids comes completely off the rails.  The teacher and Kim do their best to manage the explosion, but within a few seconds, Kim gets actually punched.  Hit hard.  Enough to get her full attention. 

This is not a good Kim day.  I’m not sure there’s enough lavender bath salts in the whole world to make this better.

**********

There is a huge pile of supplies occupying 50% of the available space in the main office.  I motion to the stack and ask the ladies “what’s up with this?  Can I get this out of here?”  They tell me it all belongs to the Pre-K team, but nobody’s had time to do anything about it.

So, with their input, I decide to load it up and move it to a room we use for kinda “whatever”.  Then when Pre-K dismisses, I’ll take it to her room. 

It turns out to be a pretty significant project.  It’s a LOT of stuff.

I go warn the lead Pre-K teacher, Ms. Ramos, that I’m gonna bring her a bunch of supplies…..I think I emphasized “bunch” adequately….and she vaguely acknowledges me.

So, after her kids are gone, I show up with this:

Ms. Ramos is, appropriately, pretty overwhelmed.  It is literally 500 lbs and 25 square feet of markers and blocks and glue sticks. 

But she quickly chips away at it and gets it distributed.  She does it pretty much herself with the help of her aid.  It is hard, physical work.  Admirable grit, way to represent.  I wish the kids had seen it. 

*********

I turn a corner after helping 1st grade get to specials, to find Kim in a standoff with yet another high-needs behavior kid.  But this kid appears to be intent on….getting away.

As she is negotiating with the scholar, he keeps backing away from her.  To me, the worst-case scenario threat is obvious.  I try to help contain him by just positioning behind him, but he just moves around me.  So as Kim starts to close in on him again, while she is within a few inches of me, I whisper to her “I’m going to go cover the outside door” to which she replies “uh, yeah…ya think?”.

The kid is headed to the juncture of a “T” intersection in our school.  At that point, there is a door that leads outside (which is very bad) both to the left and to the right.  The door to the left is much closer, so I move to block that one.  Thankfully, one of our behavioral aids happens to be in the hallway near the exit to the right.  I point to her, and motion to her to stay put.  She stops and acknowledges.  I point down the hall and indicate “kid moving this way”.  She nods.  All, btw, with signals, no words.  ‘Cause, people, we’re pretty good at this……..

I can hear Kim and the Subject of Interest talking, and moving, very close to us, but I can’t tell what’s happening.  So I take a few steps in, where I can see, and find that Kim is closing on the kid quickly now.  He spins around, shucks and jives around her, and starts sprinting the other way, down the hallway, away from us…..toward another exit door that leads to the neighborhood.  He’s in full head-down mode, running as fast as he can. 

I *may* have shouted “S&^%!!”, surprisingly loudly, before spinning around to exit the building.  I was right outside the music room, and I’m pretty sure some KG-er went home that day and told her mom “the Man at school taught me a new word today!  You want to hear it?”  Sorry about that, mom.   The aid opposite me did the same thing (except I don’t think she cursed…..because she’s a professional……) and spins the other way to run down the parallel hallway.  She is hauling buns…..no idea she could run that fast…..

I hit the exit doors in quick succession, with no mercy…..”BAM……BAM” and am now running as hard as I can, outside the school, parallel to the kid, to cut him off at the far exit.

Later, a 1st grader in Ms. Riley’s class tells me she saw me outside their window, “running really fast”.  “Why were you running?”  “Um….because it’s good for you…..”

Kim is yelling on the radio “BCS…help!  I’ve got a runner!”

The team intercepts the kid a few feet from the exit door.

“We got him.  All clear”. 

Someone else says “good, because <some other kid> has locked herself in your office now…..”

Um…..what?  Can somebody please go deal with that?  Yes ma’am, we’re on the way.

*********

Remember, we have a special program here, for really little kids that need extra help.  They have dedicated teachers, but we also rely on the overlap effect to fully manage those kids.  The really little kid teachers move with and mix in with the Pre-K classes, who also have a little extra staff.  When it’s all stirred and cooked together, it works quite well.

Today, though, most of the Pre-K teachers are subs.  Without the usual level of experience with this challenging soup of kids.  So it doesn’t go as well. 

It’s an important lesson for us as we plan to move the program forward. 

At one point, all of them….the really little special needs kids and the regular Pre-K kids….are on the blacktop for play time.  One of the little guys goes to the far gate……I see him doing it, but am as far away as humanly possible in that space.  He is really little, and I *think* can’t reach the latch on the gate.  So I’m watching him, but not particularly stressed about it. 

I was wrong.

He gets up on his tippy-toes, musters every bit of strength and stretch he has, and reaches the latch. 

Oh.  Crap.

I start quickly walking over there, shouting his name.  He turns and looks at me, then turns back to his objective.  I bark at him; “don’t you do it!  You freeze right now!”.  He thinks that’s cute…..

……and lifts the latch, opens the gate, and proceeds to run toward the big playground across the parking lot. 

I get to him about five feet out, and scoop him up just as he’s about to enter the gate to the big playground. 

Are you kidding me?!?  *This* kid is gonna break out too?!?

He laughs and laughs as I carry him back into the blacktop area, drooped over my forearm like a sack of chuckling potatoes.  I alert one of the FT teachers to watch him.  “He’s a bugger” she comments.  “But he’s so darn cute, you can’t get too mad…..”    That is absolutely true. I think he’s gonna get away with a LOT of stuff.  

******

As I pass a KG class, I see the teacher standing on a student table, trying to attach paper to the ceiling.  It looks like the introduction to a really hokey safety video you are forced to watch at work, which is showing stuff NOT to do.  “What is Jane doing wrong here?” the narrator would say.

I walk in and ask “uh…..what are we doing?”  She tells me she’s trying to create a weather theme, for their next science module.  OK, cool.  But how about I get a ladder and maybe help you?  So you don’t fall and break your head, and then I have to teach your class?  Sure, she says, good idea.

So for the next 15 minutes I help her do some stuff like this:

I think it’s pretty cool. 

*******

When Nurse Cavacos attempts to have lunch, I try to cover the nurse’s station.  Most of the stuff is in my wheelhouse, but I do occasionally have to send a kid back into the wild and tell them to come back later when somebody more competent is here.

Two customers walk in, and I ask what their malfunction is.  They tell me “our heads itch”.  “Get.  Out.”  I reply, pointing to the door.  I realize, not entirely caregiver-ish. But I don’t know anything about that, and it kinda freaks me out.  Your intestines can be hanging out, or you can simultaneously poop and barf on me, and I’m just fine.  But cooties……I can’t deal.

So I walk them back to class and tell their teacher “Cavacos is at lunch, and this is not something I can do.  I’ll come get them in a few when she’s back”.  Ok, no problem, the teacher replies.  The two kids say, loudly, to pretty much everyone in the room “our heads itch!”  The teacher immediately shuts them down, as obviously as possible.  Her eyes now big as saucers.  Yeah, that’s about to be 22 cases of itchy heads…….

Several more clients come in for sore throats, scratches, tummy aches, whatever.  I deal with them, write it down for Rocio and send them on their way.

A kid comes in with a pretty big abrasion to his knee following a crash on the blacktop.  No problem. I assess, clean him up and bandaid him.  I ask him his name for Rocio’s paperwork and he says “Phillips”.  I reply…”no, not my name.  Your name”.  He stares blankly at me for a minute and says “Phillips” again.  I’m starting to think we have a communication barrier.  I laugh and go “yeah that’s me, but who are you?”   “Um….the art teacher’s kid.  <first name> Phillips.”

Oh.  This is awkward.

To be clear, I’m not paying your co-pay if you have to go to the ER later.  Got it?  He leaves….puzzled and a little disconcerted.

*******

KG is having Cinco de Mayo parties. But they are like ALL OUT.  The teachers are dressed up for it, there are themed snacks….

And it was all fun and games, until they pulled out a piñata.

I am now putting the brakes on.  “Uh….we’re not actually doing that, right?”.  The teachers look at it, and each other, and then me.  No.  No we’re not going to do that.  Good because a bunch of sugar-hopped kindergarteners swinging a stick, blindfolded, is a sure way to get us on TV with a multi-unit EMS response. 

So instead, the parents just throw the candy out of the piñata to the kids.

Within minutes, the noise level is an 11 out of 10.  I am outta here.

******

At the very end of the day, I dispatch the admins to go talk to a kid that I think just said something concerning, and only they can handle it at that level.

They were both dealing with another kid in the office, in a pretty intense situation.  I walk in, stop them, apologize, but tell them “I need you to go do this *now*”.

So they do.

But that leaves this kid, in the middle of a very profound discussion, alone in the office. 

I ask the A/P; “while y’all deal with this, do you want me to go set that kid in your office free?”  Yes, she says….we won’t have time to do anything else with her.

So I go back to the A/P’s office to send her back into the wild.  I tell her “just go back to class”, and turn to leave.  It’s dismissal time, which is nuts, plus I just assigned the bosses to what I think might be a *big* problem, so I’m focused outside this room…..and away from this girl.

When I tell her to leave, she starts balling.  Crying hard.  I turn back around, absently pat her shoulder, and say “you’re fine, go on back to class”. 

I head toward the door again, and she says, sobbing and choking, “Please tell Ms. Sepulvado {a bunch of stuff}”. 

My hand is on the door handle, to leave the room.  And her. 

I freeze.

I realize; this requires my actual attention. 

I turn back to her, and hug her.  For a long time.  She’s crying openly.  I have no idea what the discussion has been about, or what the situation is here.  I’m totally flying blind.

After a few minutes of that, and generic, pretty empty consolation from me, I tell her “go in the bathroom and splash a little water on your face and wipe off.  It helps”.  She does, and comes back in.  “Big deep breath….bad air out, good air in….”. She does. 

“OK now?”.  She nods.  “You sure, really?  I can stay if you need”. “I’m ok, thank you” she says. 

And goes to get her stuff, to go home.

It was a moment of connection, without context.  I just…responded…without knowing what I’m responding to. 

Sometimes, with hurt or vulnerable people, that’s all you can do.  And, sometimes, it works OK.

*******

Remember my discussion with y’all about vigilance last week?  Well, here’s another example.

Right after the above exchange with this poor girl, and while I’m still not 100% sure that the other situation is completely resolved, the kids are all now heading out of the building.

Dismissal in any school looks like D-Day.  It is intense and busy, and a little risky. 

I usually stand in the center of the front hallways, where I can see down both those main halls plus out front.  I get there late today. 

We are mid-kid-flow; there are still about 100 kids coming down the right hallway toward me, where they will split into three different rivers.  At the very, far end of that hall, I see two adult men enter the doorway. 

That door is normally locked, so the only way in is if you have a key, which means you work here. 

But, occasionally…..especially at dismissal….doors are unlocked or are held open.  So there is a *tiny* risk.  And at this distance, I can’t see the guys clearly.  I don’t know if they are ours or not.

So off I go. 

I move quickly and determinedly through the exiting kids, like a salmon swimming upstream.  As I get to within 50 feet of the guys, they tuck off into a room we use as a book storage and IT space.  I get to that door, and it’s locked. 

I bang on it.  After a few seconds, one of them appears.  He’s ours.  An IT guy.  I know him.  I tell him “saw you come in that far door, but couldn’t be sure it was you”.  He says “yeah, I get that.  Glad you checked”.

And that’s how we all need to react if someone challenges us in a school, or asks for our ID when we go to pickup our kid.  “Glad you checked.  Keep doing that”. 

*********

At the end of the day, I always go around and check with the key folks before I leave.  The counselor, the bosses, the office gals and the nurse.

When I stick my head in on the nurse, just to make sure she’s ok and doesn’t need anything before I head out, the teacher with the “itchy head” kids is sitting there on the exam table.

Getting her scalp checked.

She looks up, while Rocio scrubs through her hair with a Q-tip, and just pats the spot on the table next to her.

<sigh>. Yep.

I sit down by her and wait my turn. 

So that’s how I ended my day.