Who is the Bully?

You may recall that this past January there was a troublesome suicide in which a 15-year-old ninth grader hanged herself because, as the media portrayed it at the time, she had been the subject of terrible bullying and abuse at the hands of a half-dozen of her peers - The Hadley Six.  The young girl, Phoebe Prince, had recently moved from Ireland to South Hadley Massachusetts.  Immediately after her suicide, several students were the focus of accusations claiming their bullying had directly led to Phoebe taking her life.  A(n over) zealous District Attorney, Elizabeth Scheibel, decided to charge six students with various charges relating to the tragic incident.

http://www.slate.com/id/2260952/entry/2260953/

I clearly remember discussing this with my co-workers at school.  The consensus was that this was a witch hunt. The DA was trying to win points with the community by sacrificing teenagers who may have bullied Phoebe.  The first indication to me that the whole story was not being told was that rarely enforced statutory rape laws were being used to charge the two young men involved.  In Massachusetts any sex under 16 is statutory rape.  A 17 year old and an 18 year old have been charged for allegedly having sex with the 15 year old Phoebe.  The law here was not the focus.  If it were, there would be a lot more students in trouble.  Instead, the DA is citing an infrequently used statute for leverage in her campaign.  The DA's attempt to prosecute the students for criminal homicide in Phoebe's death is also rarely used because it is rarely successful.

In her three part article "What Really Happened to Phoebe Prince?", Emily Bazelon masterfully accomplishes what rarely happens in journalism today.  She has spent the time and put forth the effort to dig into the facts of this under reported travesty.  Emily Bazelon presents a much truer explanation of what led up to Phoebe Prince's untimely death and examines how the over use of the legal system can freeze a community and prevent any effectual recovery from a tragedy like Phoebe's.  It is a longer piece then most people surfing the internet would take the time to read, but it is worth the extra time.  There are also a few links to other media or information that break up the reading.

Of interest beyond the article is the comments section.  Posts a-plenty and with extra hot sauce - flaming!  People have strong opinions about this article and the case it covers.  I must say though, I doubt more than half the people commenting actually read the whole article and did a little extra research on their own.

My favorite quote from the article is from Alan Dershowitz with regards to trying to charge the defendants with a civil rights violation with bodily injury - "That's a real stretch.  People want to think that there's always legal accountability where there should be moral accountability.  But in the criminal context, you should always err against overextending the law."

http://www.slate.com/id/2260952/entry/2260953/

Errors and Corrections

Friend Jason Kramer, who happens to be a pharmacist and e-friendly small business owner (two links in there), corrected my error of thinking Adderall was not a C-II drug.  It is.  Good news(?), Zyprexa is not and it costs more than Adderall - making it an even bigger waste of money!  Sweeter.

You may want to go back and re-read the revised post (or not).  Argument is still the same.

Thank you Jason.

A bitter pill to swallow

The amount of money wasted on medicine for foster kids is amazing.  Sometimes it seems I destroy almost as many pills as I administer.

Here is an example.  Child goes to med clinic.  Dr. prescribes a certain med.  For this example, lets say 10 mg Adderall XR Zyprexa.  He writes out a 30 day prescription with two refills.  The Dr. also puts the child on a schedule II drug, which  can only be scheduled out for thirty days and cannot be refilled without another appointment.  (This also helps feed the coffers of the Doctors who do these med clinics)  I go and fill both prescriptions for the first thirty days.  Someone screws up and doesn't schedule the next med clinic within 30 days.  (This happens more often than it should as well)  I run out of the schedule II drug but do refill the Adderall XR Zyprexa, which has refills.  Three days into the 30 pills of the refill, we get into see the doctor for the schedule II drug.  While talking to the child, the child mentions to the doctor that he doesn't like the way the Adderall Zyprexa makes him "feel".  In turn, the doctor decides to take the child off of the Zyprexa and put him on something else.  I end up with 27 capsules of Zyprexa.

Thirty 10 mg capsules of Zyprexa costs around $475.  (http://tiny.cc/p2ti2) What am I to do with them?  I have to destroy them.  Who pays for the wasted meds?  You do!  All kids in foster care in PA receive their health care through Medical Assistance, which is funded with your tax dollars.  Sweet.

(Friend Jason Kramer, who happens to be a pharmacist and e-friendly small business owner (two links in there), corrected my error of thinking Adderall was not a C-II drug.  It is.  Good news(?), Zyprexa is not and it costs more than Adderall - making it an even bigger waste of money!  Sweeter.)

Take A Pill!

It is no secret that I am not a fan of behavioral meds; especially when it involves kids I have in my home or at school.  It's not that I am totally against their use.  My father, depending on which doctor you ask, is either schizophrenic or manic depressive.  You wouldn't know it.  When he is on his medication he is as "normal" as the next person.  But get him off his meds . . . 


I was classified as a hyperkinetic child when I was in elementary school.  My parents nor my teachers (I just used "nor") gave me pills.  And, as much as I would like to say they did, they didn't apply a 2x4 or a paddle.  I did miss quite a few recesses.  There were some early bedtimes.  I was allowed to pace back and forth as I read books in fifth grade.  And I survived school.  


Most of the students I get that are labeled ADD/ADHD do just fine if they are given a little extra structure and, at times, leeway.  Same with foster children.  I've had kids, Thomas for instance, who have shown up on my doorsteps so doped up that they are doing a damn good impersonation of a zombie, except they can't even work up enough energy to growl "Brains".

Safe Schools

I'm not sure how I've avoided venting on this issue for so long. I probably feared that I might offend someone or violate some protocol or requirement. Now that school is almost over for the year and after reading about another incident in another Alternative Ed. Program, I've decided to vent. I will avoid mentioning specifics myself and instead will let the news articles stand (mostly) on their own. Then I will gripe about the overall inefficiency of "The System" in regards to these events.

Most recently, students in my class mentioned that they heard a "teacher" at "Five Star" had been fired for beating a student. I immediately assessed this at about 5% chance of being accurate (or 95% BS). Googled it. Found --

Cops: Student choked teacher

By Amanda O’Rourke
The Daily Item

SUNBURY — A Winfield teenager faces assault charges after he allegedly choked a teacher at a city school Wednesday morning.

This is local news. Not something happening in the big city or on the west coast. Granted, Five Star is an alternative ed. program similar to the PATH AEP where I work. We get troubled kids with lots of anger issues. Still, it is not expected that they will just attack teachers. Why is this happening? And what is to be done?

Our program has had a similar incident.

Cops: Mom kicks man's face
Middleburg woman attacks son's teacher

By Wayne Laepple
The Daily Item

MILTON -- A Middleburg woman kicked a fallen teacher in the head and face, and pulled his hair, after her student son had gotten into trouble over a cell phone, Milton police said.

Obviously, I was there. The story is not entirely accurate. I didn't get kicked. Mr. Matt did. We did restrain the youth. No one was hurt. From the PATH end, we acted very professionally.

The question, again, is "how have we gotten to the point were students and parents have no qualm with assaulting teachers"? I have heard that Five Star had an incident about two weeks after mine that involved a parent. And if you google "student attacks teacher" you'll get (drum roll please) thirty-four million hits. Why?

Our judicial system, which is suppose to provide an expeditious and timely trial, is bogged down. In my case, the assault happened in mid-February. The preliminary hearing is scheduled for the 10th of July. I suspect that the result of that hearing will push the trial back into October. By the time anything is resolved . . .

I'd like to blame national apathy. Perhaps this trend is due to a swing back towards moral relativism. My students often justify their behavior by claiming that they don't feel like they have to treat us (the teachers) with respect because we don't treat them with respect. Maybe the confusion is in understanding what "Respect" is?

(TBC)

messages

This is one of those serendipitous moments that lets me know that God does try to give us messages. I recently posted a poem by Darrell Scott.

Yesterday, my boss brought back information about our schools re-authorization process. Although we are a private alternative educational placement, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Education still 'approves' our program.

Start with an insane list of data. Insane because we must go back three years into our old records and pull out information that we were never tracking because the decision to track this information was just made - oh, and by the way, we are going to so poorly phrase the directions for data collection that most of the information is going to be useless because the different programs collecting it are going to record it in different ways. For example --

"C. Average Daily Attendance for AEDY student population at every grade level."

What? How do you calculate this? From the FAQ --

Q: For data reporting purposes, how should AEDY programs determine “Average Daily Attendance?”

A: Average Daily Attendance should be calculated by taking the daily attendance of your student population by grade level (# of students you have in school that day by grade level) and dividing by the daily membership (# of students your AEDY program serves by grade level, even if they are absent that day).

That looks like the formula for a percentage. Not an average!!!

How about these two items.

M. Of the number of students in column B, how many at every grade level passed all 4 core content subjects (science, math, English, and social studies) while in your program?

N. Of number of students in column B, how many at every grade level passed at least 3 of 4 core content subjects (science, math, English, and social studies) while in your program?

Do I recount the students who passed 4 core content subjects for item N? They did pass at least 3 of 4 core content subjects. What if someone else doesn't? Then the data collected is useless. I do not have a problem collecting and submitting data if it is a useful exercise. This is going to be a very time consuming and useless exercise.

AND NOW THE KICKER -- Going back to my original thought. Darrell Scott wrote this poem which I read in the intro to Chuck Norris' autobiography. I post it on my blog. Next day I start reviewing this packet of information regarding the application for our school. The first page I randomly flip to when I get the packet - the first item my eyes fall upon is as follows --

(3) A private alternative education institution shall: . . .(III) Be nonsectarian in all operations and shall not provide any religious instruction, nor shall it display religious objects and symbols on the premises of the institution.

No God - in any form - allowed.

(FYI - 2008/09 AEDY Guidelines)

Darrell Scott Poem

I finished reading "Against All Odds - My Story" by Chuck Norris. Of course, it was about Chuck Norris. The first item in the book is dedication to Rachel Joy Scott. Rachel was one of the victims of the Columbine shooting. (Rachel Scott Dedication Site).

Her father, Darrell Scott, wrote a poem that Chuck Norris included in the opening of his book. With school starting in just a week, I though it would be appropriate to post it.

Your laws ignore our deepest needs
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage.
You've outlawed simple prayer.

Now gunshots fill our classrooms.
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere.
And ask the question "WHY"?

You regulate restrictive laws.
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand.
That God is what we need!

Return to posting

I have not been posting. The three or four of you who actually continue to check my blog already know what happened. For the few stragglers who stumble across my little project, I now offer an explanation for the gap between this and my past posting.

In the first week of November I was assaulted with a storm of personal crisis. In the span of five days I was informed by the IRS that my 2007 taxes may have been wrong, was accused of sexually molesting three of my past foster kids, found out that my mom’s cancer had returned, and was puked on by a kid in swimming lessons.

Getting puked on wasn’t all that bad.

Everything else stressed me out pretty bad. I just couldn’t find the mental calm to type anything worthwhile. It wasn’t that I require a lot of serenity to write; it was that my mind was that chaotic. I was reduced to reading Anime’. I couldn’t concentrate enough to read a novel or anything longer than an article in a newspaper.

It took almost forty days to resolve the allegations against me. As a result of the length of the investigation I lost a foster kid I really enjoyed having in my home and had thoughts of adopting. The whole experience has really soured my outlook on being a foster parent. It has also enlightened me (further) on how screwed our State’s Child Welfare system is.

Now that my life is more stable, I will be writing further on topics relating to my recent experiences. Be patient. I will try not to rant.

That’s all for now. More to come.