Thanksgiving Thank God!

Thanksgiving break a few weeks ago was a much needed break. However, DBHS was the ONLY school in session in the Kansas City metro on the Wednesday before break started. When I was in high school in Iowa we always went on Wednesday and Missouri does lots of things differently when it comes to breaks, but last Wednesday I ended up seeing a total of 11 students for the entire day. It started out normal the day before a break, with late buses, no students going to class and of course the art teacher and I have already given in to laziness and decided to watch a movie allllll day.


I'm on a committee at work called SIT which primarily deals with fixing issues relating to students; updating our pink sheets which are for write ups (and contain such previous things as writing up a student for murder/homicide), building case files against students with repeat offenses in an effort to get them removed from school and our latest task of making a sexual harassment policy.

Two weeks ago one of our teachers was verbally harassed by a student who came into her room, after being kicked out of his class, in a search for his cell phone. After asking the student to leave the teacher was bombarded with a horrible slur of profane comments remarking on of all things her female body parts. The teacher clearly upset as anyone should be left for the day and in the meantime has consulted a lawyer about pressing charges against the student for sexual harassment. Her lawyer is encouraging her to do this and also speak to the administration about what can be done to the student at the school level. After hearing how her conversation went with them I was appalled to learn that the student, who the teacher wants kicked out and he should be, got nothing more than a five day suspension.

Normally I do try extremely hard to mind my own business and not get involved with issues involving students I don't have or am not directly related to with the classroom or school environment. Lately however I've lost my cool.

I recently found out that I suffer from stress migraines, alllll of which are related to work. I've even had to speak with one assistant principal about the possibility of not being able to finish out my contract year because the headaches and stress of this school are so much I've basically used all of my sick days to stay at home crying in pain, unable to walk my dog or even get out of bed.

This current issue literally pushed me over the edge. I am determined to help in turning this school around. It may very well kill me, but to keep a student after severe sexual harassment charges against a teacher is INSANE!

The reason they won't get rid of him by the way..... we get lots of money for having a certain number of students in attendance every day and the admin. was afraid kicking him out would affect this number and thus cash flow. The student...... doesn't even go to class when he's here. I should know, because I had him last semester and he was barely there.