Lost and Found
A few of you out there have let me know that you're interested in how the Jerrod story plays out. Well, yesterday I got him back. He missed two days due to this scheduling kerfuffle but he's back. It turns out that what drove the whole removal process in the first place was nothing more or less than a narrow adherence to policy. The adults involved were fixated on the math requirement to the exclusion of all other factors.
Had I said nothing, nothing would have happened. Had I merely inquired, I suspect nothing would have happened. In a system in which everyone feels as though they have more on their plate than they can really handle, you don't get anywhere sometimes without getting their attention. If you can succeed in doing that, your chances improve dramatically since in my experience at least, people in this business generally want to do right by kids. It's just that they also seem to feel that they need to move on the next pressing thing. It's interesting to me how we (and I do include myself in this category) are sometimes prone to conflate the institutional demands in play at any given moment with the actual needs of the children...as if by narrowly focusing on our responsiblities we can rest assured that we are therefore also doing what is best for kids.
In the end, what I'll call Team Jerrod agreed that perhaps other factors ought to be weighed more heavily, but it required even more schedule shifting. Amazingly, the parent of this kid was completely unaware of any of the schedule changes from the very beginning- sort of a glaring absence on the team. Jerrod had to drop Art - this made him happy, and he had to drop PE -this disappointed him a little. They gave him the choice and he came back. The class welcomed him back enthusiastically, though a few of them hadn't realized his absence had been anything more serious than a cold or something.
Now of course, I have to do my level best to see that the amiable Jerrod has a successful term in French. Lucky for him I have a teacher's aide during that class who has taken three years of French. With her tutoring Jerrod from time to time, I hope we can make up for the lost class time and maybe even instill a study ethic.
K
Had I said nothing, nothing would have happened. Had I merely inquired, I suspect nothing would have happened. In a system in which everyone feels as though they have more on their plate than they can really handle, you don't get anywhere sometimes without getting their attention. If you can succeed in doing that, your chances improve dramatically since in my experience at least, people in this business generally want to do right by kids. It's just that they also seem to feel that they need to move on the next pressing thing. It's interesting to me how we (and I do include myself in this category) are sometimes prone to conflate the institutional demands in play at any given moment with the actual needs of the children...as if by narrowly focusing on our responsiblities we can rest assured that we are therefore also doing what is best for kids.
In the end, what I'll call Team Jerrod agreed that perhaps other factors ought to be weighed more heavily, but it required even more schedule shifting. Amazingly, the parent of this kid was completely unaware of any of the schedule changes from the very beginning- sort of a glaring absence on the team. Jerrod had to drop Art - this made him happy, and he had to drop PE -this disappointed him a little. They gave him the choice and he came back. The class welcomed him back enthusiastically, though a few of them hadn't realized his absence had been anything more serious than a cold or something.
Now of course, I have to do my level best to see that the amiable Jerrod has a successful term in French. Lucky for him I have a teacher's aide during that class who has taken three years of French. With her tutoring Jerrod from time to time, I hope we can make up for the lost class time and maybe even instill a study ethic.
K
posted by K at 6:30 AM
2 Comments:
Yay! The world is a better place when the Jarrods are taken care of. Thanks for keeping us in the loop!
Hurray! Excellent work, Mr. C.
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