Chapter Fourteen: Meet the Parents

Chapter 14: Meet the Parents

Every morning I get up on my soapbox to preach the rewards of parent communication, reminding and begging my teachers to call parents weekly and send notes home daily. Obviously I need to role model this behavior. It isn’t always easy. I play an endless game of phone tag trying to return calls from parents who can only be reached for a short time at any given phone number. They call on break from their jobs at the Waffle House or the dry cleaners or McDonalds. When I call back, break is over and they aren’t allowed to come to take a phone call. I call back a few days later and they’re busy or it’s their day off or, not infrequently, they no longer work there. Parents call from a neighbor’s house, but by the time I get the message, they’ve gone. I am persistent even though I know when I do reach the parent, I’ll be called names, cursed at and threatened. Guilty confession: sometimes I misplace the phone messages.

In some ways it is easier to profile the typical Prospect parent than it is to describe the average student. Typically the parents of Prospect children are not cooperative and have anger control problems themselves. Most of these families are poor (over 85% of our children are eligible for free or reduced price lunch) and they lack the resources and skills to work effectively with the public school as a team to help their child. With few exceptions, discussions with Prospect parents are difficult and unpleasant at best. The attitude of these parents explains in a large part why the public school principals gave up and transferred these children to me.

Parents communicate with me not only by phone; they frequently drop by. Often when I enter my office, I find parents waiting there, in fact, I’ve never had a parent call to schedule a meeting with me, they just walk in. I’ve arrived at 7:00 a.m. to find a mother sitting on the stoop outside my office; I’ve stayed late and been startled by a child’s guardian pounding on the door to my portable at 8:30 p.m. Parents come to the school the way I go to the supermarket. I never phone Publix to tell them to expect me; I go when I’m hungry. It isn’t hunger that motivates my students’ parents to come see me, though. They come when they’re upset; and so many of them are prime candidates for anger control classes.

Prospect parents are angry because they are working but can’t pay their bills; they have sick children but can’t afford to take them to the doctor; they have a car but no money for gas; they have a home, but the water gushes in when it rains. Prospect parents are angry, but at whom? They don’t blame the economy, the government or the president. They don’t think their poverty and anger have been impacted by changes in Washington or Tallahassee. The fact that their suffering is constant over time and changes in political leadership, adds to their apathy about the democratic process and thus why voting and elections don’t make a difference. They are so far outside any “target audience” few candidates speak to, or for, them. Instead they focus their anger closer to home. They are angry at their bosses (but when they express it they lose yet another job) their children, their lovers and themselves, they are also angry at me.

Luke’s Mom

Luke’s mother opens the door on the portable with such force the knob slams into the trailer’s siding and leaves a dent. I extend my hand in greeting, but she ignores it; angry sweat drips from her upper lip. My last encounter with her involved her son’s hoop earrings. Now she is upset because we told her we must meet with her and her son to discuss his behavior. Every third word out of her mouth is profane. Luke’s mother compares me, unfavorably, to my predecessor, Mel and like my staff, it seems she hated me before she met me. Now she starts to rant telling me that I am running this school like a prison camp and no wonder all my teachers are quitting. She says if she were loaded like me she could have gone to college and then she would be a much better principal than I am. She is loud and gesturing with her finger uncomfortably near my face. She tells me she can’t make any meeting at any time. I offer to hold the meeting early, before school, or late in the evening. She tells me no time slot works for her; she leaves for work at McDonalds at 4:30 a.m. and gets home at midnight after closing and she does this six days a week. I suggest we meet right now. No, she is on break off from McDonalds and she came here to give me a piece of her mind. I let her vent. I mention the good things about Luke. I say it must be difficult to be a single parent. She finally finds a time to come meet with us next week.

Thoughts of Luke’s mother stay with me. This woman works all those hours, at minimum wage, to support herself, Luke and Luke’s older brother. She wants Luke not just to have the basics, but to have the designer tinted glasses and gold hoop earrings. She is saving now to buy him the newest Play Station for Christmas. But she is never home and Luke needs her more than he needs the play station. I do not say this to her. I don’t trust the validity of my middle class point of view as it applies to her life. I also don’t want her to start cursing at me again.

Connor, his mother and his father

Connor, a thirteen-year-old white boy, is a new student. He is incredibly articulate and polite. His father tells us he was in the gifted program in public school. His reading test scores are in the 12th grade range. Connor has no problem being courteous and appropriate with adults. Connor’s problem is with his peers. He sees conspiracies where there are none. I meet with Connor and his parents in my office. Connor tells me, “I’m not getting along with other kids. I guess I just don’t try hard enough to get along.” Connor’s last report card was all F’s; his behavior has been so disruptive he has been suspended five times in four months and when he is in school, he is usually in the discipline office. Connor has been kicked off the public school bus for the entire school year. I wonder how long he’ll last on our bus.

I listen to Connor’s parents talk about their son. Connor has a counselor and is taking anger control classes. He loves to ride his mountain bike. He has a sister in college and a brother in jail. Connor takes medication for ADHD; he was taking Adderall but now he takes Metadate. Connor’s parents aren’t convinced that ADHD is the cause of his school problems. I look and listen to this family but something is amiss; this equation doesn’t balance. After our meeting I walk Connor and his parents to the door. Connor and his father hurry outside. Connor’s mother lingers, then turns to thank me. As she starts to walk out the door she adds “Connor and his father both have problems with anger.”

Robyn, her Dad and her Step-mother

Some parents I never meet, but I know them through their notes, phone calls and child’s comments. “My mother is a drug addict and a crack whore so I can’t live with her”, Robyn explains. Robyn lives with her father, stepmother and six “other people” in a single-wide trailer. The “other people” are a combination of siblings and step-siblings. Robyn is a new student, still in orientation. She is a thirteen year old white girl with a round, freckled face and a shy smile. Robyn isn’t used to homework and complains that she can’t find a quiet place to do the work. Stephanie, the orientation leader, sends home a note home asking Dad for his help regarding Robyn and her homework problem. Dad writes back to Stephanie saying he doesn’t want Stephanie or anyone else telling him how to raise his daughter and any problems Robyn has with homework are because Robyn is the problem. He writes he has other children and none of them have these problems. The note from Dad is followed up by a phone call from Robyn’s stepmother. She tells me Robyn hates her and is trying to break up the marriage and she is just this far from throwing her out and Robyn is a little whore just like her mother. Robyn tells me her father is talking about making her live with her grandparents in Cincinnati. She thinks maybe she would like that but she would miss her dad. “I love my Dad”, she confesses.


Renzo and his Mom

Renzo, a fourteen-year white old boy, is absent more than he is present. Sometimes Renzo lives with his father and stepmother, but mostly he lives with his mother. When he is living with his mother, he frequently misses school or is at least very late. Today he is late. When I see Mom dropping him off, I suggest we talk. Mom rubs his head and comments on his good looks. She asks me whether I agree Renzo looks like an Italian movie star with his olive skin, wavy black hair and sweet smile. Renzo’s behavior is not quite so attractive.

Renzo often refuses to do any work and curses at teachers - his current favorite is “I don’t have to do nothing you say, bitch.” He picks fights with other students; he is short and when peers mention it, he is quick with his fists. Renzo is bright but academically behind from missing so much school. He is also very protective of his mother. The tough bully walks across campus holding his mother’s hand and saying goodbye with hugs and kisses. With Renzo safely in class, Renzo’s mom sits in my office crying. Between tears she tells me she is undergoing Chemotherapy and is going to die and she knows she should send Renzo to school but she misses him so and she wants to spend as much time as possible with him before she dies. And no, she hasn’t told him she is dying. She just can’t bring herself to say the words.

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Lindy’s mother without Lindy

She is there when I arrive. She has been waiting in the dark before dawn to talk to the principal. I unlock the door and invite her in. Lindy’s mother is a very thin white woman with ragged blond hair. Her face is bruised and her left ear is covered in a thick white bandage. I’ve never seen her before. She introduces herself as Mary. She wants to do the paperwork to enroll Lindy, but he won’t be able to start for a few weeks because he is in jail.

Last night Lindy beat her up and burst her eardrum. Remembering, her eyes start to tear. I write down a phone number for the domestic abuse hotline but she waves me away. “It was my fault really. He was beatin’ so bad on my baby, his stepbrother, and I couldn’t stop him, so I started to beat on him so he’d get off and beat on me instead of my baby. It got real loud and someone called the sheriff. When the deputies came I let them take him. I know you’re thinking I’m a real bad mother.”

Harmony’s Grandmother

Harmony, a fourteen-year-old white girl, and her grandmother, with whom she lives, are here to see me because Rusty, my counselor, threatened truancy court. I barely know what Harmony looks like. I know that last year she had major truancy problems and over the summer Rusty met with Harmony and her grandmother. At that time, Rusty explained that Harmony must come to school every day, not only to learn but as a condition of her probation. Harmony and Grandma understand and Harmony does come to school every day, for the first week of school. Then she begins to play games.

The bus driver reports Harmony has been hiding at the bus stop or bounding away when the bus arrives. This is really frustrating for the driver since Harmony lives an hour out of the way. The bus has to travel thirty minutes north on a dirt road to get to the remote neighborhood known as “Sheep’s Creek” and then thirty minutes back to the main road. The driver has made several calls to Grandma. Grandma tells the driver she sends Harmony out to the bus stop on time, she can’t vouch for what happens next. Sheeps Creek is heavily wooded; Harmony has no trouble making herself invisible among the trees and shrubs. Harmony attends now and then but in two months, she has been here fewer than ten days. Her probation officer tells me he can’t understand why: “Harmony lives with her Grandmother in a single-wide trailer in the woods. There is nothing to do and no one to do it with all day.” The probation officer assumes a child would rather be in school than stuck in Sheep’s Creek. Apparently Harmony does not agree. Grandma and Harmony are now in my office.

Grandma doesn’t have a car; a neighbor has driven them. We start to talk about what is keeping Harmony from attending when Grandma suddenly blurts out, “Harmony don’t know this but I’m sick. They found tumors in both my lungs. They say I got to have radiation chemotherapy.” Grandma stops, she chokes on her words and puts her face in her hands. Harmony, tears flowing down her face, reaches up and takes her Grandmother’s withered, weathered, hand. Grandma composes herself and continues. “Harmony’s real mother lives in a trailer down the road. Sometimes Harmony brings her casseroles but her Mama don’t want nothing to do with her. If I can’t care for Harmony I don’t know where they’ll send her.”

Grandma, Harmony and I talk. By the time they leave I have given permission for Harmony to miss school next Tuesday to go to the doctor with Grandma so she can ask the doctor questions. Grandma and Harmony promise she’ll attend more often in the future.

I am totally drained. Talking to angry or unhappy parents and grandparents is not my favorite part of the job. One of the best parts of my job is talking with and listening to students, but I don’t seem to be able to find the time to do this often enough. Rosie, one of my teachers, recently asked whether I miss teaching. Perhaps this was in response to me jumping in and taking over one of her lessons! While I like being a principal, I do miss teaching, but even when I was a teacher I lamented my inability to spend more time talking one-on-one with my students. Years ago I read extensively about British Infant Schools (elementary schools) and how the Head (principal) was seen not just as an administrator but as a master teacher who would spend up to half her days teaching classes as a role model for her teachers. This is the kind of principal I want to be, but paperwork, parents and constant crises keep thwarting my efforts.

Before I leave the phone rings: it is Harmony’s probation officer. He has decided to move Harmony to ESAK, the Ebencorp-run alternative high school in town. As a fourteen year old, she can enter their “pre-GED & job training” program even if she is technically a middle school student. I disagree with his decision and start to argue but he tells me I had my chance and blew it: Harmony missed too much school. He is moving her effective immediately. Goodbye Harmony.

If only there weren’t so many of them, or if there were more of me. I should be calling agencies in Herald County to find an organization that has grief counseling for children with dying parents – Renzo and Harmony could attend. Well, if they could get there. I should get a social worker or counselor to follow-up with Lindy’s mother and Robyn’s father and step-mother. But I don’t. I meet with parents, I listen, I take notes, I make suggestions, then they leave and the walkie-talkie calls me and while the encounters are not forgotten, I never seem to have the time, to make the time, to follow up.