The end of January

I occurs to me it's about time for my monthly post. I really think about posting more often, it just doesn't happen obviously. The first few weeks of the new year started out poorly. The rundown of 2 weeks ago is as follows

Mon.-F. comes in with the knuckles on his right hand bleeding and one broken-fight with his mother's boyfriend. No nurse so I spent the day bandaging. He has since been to a clinic but they are still pussing. (I also felt like a doctor because KGB. hurt his elbow and his ace bandage keeps coming off--at one point F. hit KGBs arm and KGB hits Fs finger, it is amazing how whiny 11th grade boys can be)

Tues. I'm in the middle of teaching my ninth graders when S. comes in and whispers to me that she thinks I'd want to know that Isiah (one of my twins from 2 years ago) was killed in a car accident. I had to just go back to teaching. I hear later in the day that my student L. has lost her 5 month old baby.

Wed. S. is missing from class but is marked present on the attendance sheet, we get a note from the school social worker--she is down with him. Her mom had done something to her hands, they were bruised and she couldn't use them and had to keep ice on them-- This child has a good grade in the class--she is never a problem.

Thurs. First period K. is absent-her family is very involved and we have been in close contact so we email her aunt who emails back to say call immediately. We find out K. is missing-runaway and if we see her or hear anything we are to call immediately.

Fri- four boys are accused of rape by a girl, all the boys are special ed. I have taught 3 of them, one is on my case load. So I got to spend the day writing manifest determinations to decide if this was caused by their disabilities. Because what I want to do is have to describe rape incidents on forms. You should have heard S. yelling "why do I get all the rapists" (she has the one from last year who is out of jail now as well as the new four)

Not so fun. This week has gone much better. K. came back home. KGB is fine. F still has a broken finger but attempted to do work for the first time this semester. I think we are finally getting somewhere with teaching how to write a research paper. Today someone asked if they could just copy and paste from their sources and the whole class yelled, "That's plagiarism!" I've taught them something! Yesterday's snow day was a wonderful mental health day. I just reread the post, it sounds depressing. Really, this week has been better. I'm getting a new classroom. It is huge, it has air conditioners. Did I mention it's HUGE? They can't put my Promethean board and projector in my current class because of the leaky pipes. I'm so excited for the Promethean board. I'm wiggling just thinking about it! I'll put up pictures of my new room when I get moved. The pics will be huge!