Part of working at a Title 1 school is understanding that there is a higher transient rate than that of our non-Title 1 neighboring schools. This often comes in the form of enrolling many new students at the beginning of the year and again after Winter Break.
New faces create a mix of excitement, anxiety, stress and curiosity in both teachers and students (and principals). Often, after scrambling to gather supplies, textbooks and a desk, our new friends settle in quickly, being dragged around the campus by an eager peer, thrilled to be the resident expert on the place.
The flip side of this is that we often have students leave us, some with a few weeks notice and some with no notice at all. There are students we have grown close to who break our hearts when they leave. There are some students that leave just as quickly as they came, without us having the opportunity to build a relationship with them. Then there are those complicated students, those who ask for love in the most unloving of ways. They come, they shake things up, they create stress, they force us to reflect and try new things, and as soon as we start making headway into building trust and a relationship, they are gone.
This recently happened to teachers and staff on our site and has left a hole that is almost tangible. We had two siblings join us a few weeks after the school year had started. The younger sibling started out her time hiding under desks, refusing to come out from under desks, not speaking to her teacher and refusing to do any work. Her older brother did not hide under desks, but instead argued and displayed physical aggression towards his peers daily. Our relationship was their mother was, at first, tense at best. As a staff, we had our work cut out for us.
As we helped this family adjust, there were many tears, emails, phone calls, meetings, discussions and strategies between our school staff. Through restorative circles, learning through play and placing low demands as a way to build relationships and celebrate success starting at their level, we were able to quickly get our younger student settled in. She began trusting her teacher, completing some work, and began building relationships with her peers.
Her older brother proved to be more of a challenge. We worked to have restorative conversations with this student and his peers as often as what seemed to be after every recess. He was sensitive and quick to anger, proving extremely untrusting of the adults on our site. He ran. A lot. We followed him around campus. Often. It seems as though we had a "strategy of the day" we would try with him, holding our breath and crossing our fingers, waiting to see what might "stick." There were teachers and staff everyone rooting for this guy, checking in on him and offering positive words of encouragement.
Right before Winter Break, we had a HUGE break through. One of my staff members who is passionate and so knowledgeable about shaping student behavior had our student on a behavior contract in which he set goals every day, reflected on his goals throughout the day and received a HUGE reward at end of every day. Finally...FINALLY...we had some traction going! He actually smiled - SMILED - at people - MULTIPLE PEOPLE!!!!
As far as the kids' mom, just before the Break, we were able to connect her with a resource to receive a food basket, gifts, and clothing for her and her kids as we went out for the 2 weeks. She actually thanked us for being so supportive and for providing these resources. Finally...we had made traction with mom, too! We were winning, and I mean #winning. It was a great feeling to go out to Break, knowing we had made some good progress with our kids and their mom.
And then we came back from Break. The kids weren't there the first day back. Weird, but understandable. Most
Finally...a response that I could not have predicted would sting my heart. Relocated. Moved in with family in the Bay Area. No warning, no planning, that was it. Gone. How can something we worked so hard on just vanish like that? It didn't make sense.As I reflect on this, I can't help but think of the expression to the effect of "People come into our lives for a reason." I have to think this way, otherwise things just don't make sense. If this is the case, why did they come into our lives? When I look at it through different lenses, I can only see that there were reasons why: to teach other students acceptance and tolerance, to help my staff hone "restorative circle" practices, to build tighter bonds amongst my staff, to remind us to never give up on kids, to help me guide and coach my staff in implementing possible strategies, to support collaboration amongst staff, to remind us the value of building relationships with family, to remind us that things can change in an instant...
One day, could be tomorrow, in a month or next year, we will have another family join us who might need some extra work. They may stay for a month or two, or stay with us forever. No matter what our future as a site might bring, these two kids and their mom have left footprints in the sand of our hearts, memories and school site.
I am hopeful these footprints will remain long enough for us to remember and carry the lessons we learned when these two kids were once ours.
Quote Source: https://storage.pixteller.com/designs/designs-images/2014-11-27/img_43015809cf91593c1.jpg
Quote Source: https://cdn.lifehack.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/368aa42ff82817011a00c23c078ffc68.jpg
Footprint Source: https://mylittlereviewcorner.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/footprints-in-the-sand.jpg?w=300
