Chapter Forty-Seven: And now for something completely different

Chapter 47: And Now for Something Completely Different

It is difficult to stay ahead of the students. When I think I have sampled every dish on the menu, the students add a chef’s surprise. Sometimes I feel they actually plot schemes with the goal of making me and my staff crazy. I know such paranoia isn’t justified, which isn’t to say the students aren’t plotting, just that their objective isn’t to make the staff insane. If that happens, as it often does, it is just icing on the cake as far as my students are concerned. My two new challenges for 2003 are: AWOL and Extortion.

The AWOL problem seems ordinary at first. The walkie-talkie crackles with RitaMae relaying the news that Victor is AWOL. Victor, the gifted Hispanic thirteen-year-old who has been relegated to last place in RitaMae’s “favorite student club” often bolts from the classroom. I listen for Rosie or Rusty to confirm they see Victor and they are intercepting. But instead I soon hear Stone saying Arthur is also AWOL. If Neeley had been semi-alert he might have noticed Curtis was AWOL as well. Arthur and Curtis are both thirteen-year-old white boys. Curtis has been arrested several times and has spent time in two “programs” with no positive impact on his behavior. He isn’t nearly as sharp as Victor, but far more conniving. Arthur, on the other hand, is completely out to lunch. Arthur plays football and is tall and big and tough and strong but he appears to live on another planet. Actually he lives with his mother and grandmother – Lynne calls them the clown ladies. They both shave their eyebrows then paint them on in, well a clown-like fashion. So Victor-the brains, Curtis-Dr.Evil and Arthur-son-of-clowns are all AWOL. Coincidence? I think not.

Staff members who aren’t teaching are soon searching the campus for the missing boys (at this point we only know about Victor and Arthur since Neeley still hasn’t realized Curtis is missing). Lynne radios that I have a phone call. It is the front-end manager of Albertson’s grocery store. He tells me he caught three of our students wandering the store with two pounds of ground beef and a box of cheese crackers stuffed in their navy blue uniform shirts. The Deputy on Duty jumps in his squad car to pick up our AWOL boys.

Victor, Curtis and Arthur walked over three miles to get to Albertsons. They tell the Deputy they planned to climb on top of the roof of Scotty’s Hardware. It is unclear what they planned to do there and whether it involved the raw meat. RitaMae is certain Victor, her least favorite student, was the ringleader. The Deputy lectures, but doesn’t arrest the three boys.

The following day, Victor and Arthur are again reported as AWOL along with Mimi. Mimi is often AWOL so initially her departure from class doesn’t raise any red flags.

Mimi, a gifted thirteen-year-old white girl, was recently placed in a foster home. At the end of last semester her mother decided Mimi had done so well in school they should celebrate. Their celebration included going to parties at the homes of friends where Mimi and her mother smoked marijuana and drank alcohol together: mother-daughter bonding. In the wee hours of the morning, as they were making their way back home, Mimi walking, Mom on a bike, a Deputy drove up and told Mom to get off the bike. He said her repeated swerving into the middle of the road was liable to cause an accident. Mimi’s mother became belligerent and began to argue with the officer. She punctuated her verbal abuse by throwing a punch at him. The Deputy started to arrest her and she tried to fight him off. Assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, public drunkenness, I think there was even a possession charge. On top of that Mimi’s mother was already on probation for a previous drug charge. She was arrested, convicted, sentenced and is currently serving time in prison. Mimi likes to say her mother was arrested for BUI – biking under the influence.

Mimi is allowed to phone her mother every Sunday. Sometimes when she phones, her mother asks all about Mimi’s life and tells her she loves her, she misses her and she can’t wait until they are together again. But more than half the time when Mimi phones, her mother tells her she is no good as a mother, wishes she never had Mimi, doesn’t plan to get Mimi out of foster care when she is released from prison, doesn’t want to see Mimi again and then hangs up on her. On Monday mornings when Mimi gets off the bus, it is immediately apparent which sort of phone call she had with her mother the day before. In fact the tenor of these phone calls usually determines how Mimi will behave for most, if not all, of the week. Mimi’s bad weeks have caused a major rift between her teacher, RitaMae and counselor Rosie.

RitaMae takes extra time to design lessons and assignments that will challenge the gifted Mimi, and when Mimi is stable and having a good week, RitaMae is quick to acknowledge and praise her behavior and school work. But when Mimi is not having a good week and focuses her energy and powers on being vulgar, disruptive and in a word, bad, RitaMae has zero tolerance, insists Rosie remove Mimi and wants Mimi punished.

If Rosie has a favorite student, it is Mimi. Rosie finds it hard to discipline Mimi and of course Mimi is never as awful around Rosie as she is in RitaMae’s class. Rosie feels RitaMae should have some compassion for Mimi and try to understand her situation and cut her some slack on her “off” days. RitaMae, who grew up in a poor, dysfunctional family and overcame adversity though personal determination, believes Rosie is not doing Mimi any favors by coddling her. Both RitaMae and Rosie frequently share with me their frustrations about each other. Mimi sees it all, hears it all and revels in the discord. Sometimes before RitaMae gets on the walkie-talkie requesting a counselor to remove Mimi, Mimi bolts from the classroom in search of Rosie. Thus on this day, when RitaMae reports Mimi is AWOL, we assume that Mimi has done her usual and is hunting down Rosie.

Tashanna, one of our eagle-eyed bus drivers, breaks the story. She was gassing up her bus when she spotted Mimi, Victor and Arthur about a mile from school sprinting down 35th street. She thinks they might be headed for a nearby park. Lynne and I jump in my car and find them just past Publix. When they see me I expect them to run, but they hop in the car with Mimi punching her fist in the air shouting, “BUSTED!” As we drive back to school they are silent except when Mimi asks how long we were looking for them and Victor asks to open the window. Later in the cafeteria, I overhear the three runaways telling their classmates they were going to run when we pulled up, “but since Ms. Smee won that medal for running that race we didn’t have a chance.” The “medal” to which they refer, is hanging my office and I did get it in a race, but it was for simply finishing the Marathon, not for achieving any particular speed. However I see no point in correcting this misconception. On my way home I find the three “runners” left some contraband in my car: two lighters and half package of cigarettes.

Up until now, when students went AWOL, they left their classrooms but they didn’t leave the school grounds. This off-campus AWOL is a new twist and like the water balloons and elastics it quickly becomes a hot fad. I’m frustrated and perplexed. What is the protocol? What is my responsibility? This wasn’t in the education classes I took. I know about truants, not runaways. Word travels quickly and soon Prospect students and staff are buzzing about “the great escape.” Day after day more of them leave, three or four at a time. They head toward the grocery store, the park, the woods, away. Do I call the police? Should I send our Deputy to chase after them? Do I call their parents? Should I chase them in my car? At first teachers don’t even notice that several of their students are missing – that is troubling in itself. But after I discuss the problem in our morning meeting, teachers are more aware, but are now in panic mode, shouting into their walkie-talkies the names of the children who are running away.

Ironically, the Mime quickly becomes the prime example of how not to use the walkie-talkies. Her piercing voice, bordering on hysteria, announces every actual and possible AWOL. Since all staff members wear a walkie-talkie and they all operate on one frequency, any transmission is equivalent to a PA announcement: the whole school hears every missing student alarm. Like fleas on rats, this causes the AWOL epidemic to spread rapidly. Kids are running around campus hiding behind trees pretending to have run off campus. It is complete chaos. I cancel Activity Period until we get a handle on the situation.

When Victor runs away for the third time in a week, the Deputy sees him leave and shouts for him to stop, but Victor keeps running and the Deputy has to chase him down. Sweaty and angry, the Deputy decides to arrest Victor. He is in the process of filling out the paperwork when the walkie-talkie buzzes that Glenn is running. (Glenn is the small, academically challenged middle schooler who was in Midge’s elementary classroom for a while.) The overwrought Deputy decides to arrest Glenn with Victor. He handcuffs Glenn to the table leg while he finishes up the paperwork. Glenn tells the Deputy he ran because he heard that if you run and get arrested you get sent to a Youth Camp. Apparently poor confused Glenn thinks these “youth camps” are like summer camp rather than a prison camp.

At our 4:00-5:00 meeting the staff is really hostile and negative. I promise we’ll get a handle on these AWOL’s and suggest we start the meeting with everyone mentioning something that has worked well for them. Amazingly this works and my staff becomes a little more enthusiastic and positive. We brainstorm solutions to the AWOL problem. Stone wants us to use a code on the walkie-talkie and shows me a code sheet he has developed based on codes he used in Vietnam. I commend his effort, but his scheme is so complex the staff would need to consult decoder sheets before every broadcast. The team decides to use a simple code, instead of saying AWOL we’ll say, “Put so and so on the list.”

This procedure backfires almost immediately as some teachers, okay mostly the Mime, first scream about the runaway then use the code thus nullifying the code. The Mime shouts “URGENT URGENT Curtis is AWOL and running for the road, I mean, I mean PUT CURTIS ON THE LIST.” My students catch on immediately: “put on list” = AWOL.

Shasta has a better idea and I immediately approve it and kick myself for not taking action sooner: we order head sets for everyone. Even before the AWOL crisis, I’d been uncomfortable with students hearing and knowing about every walkie-talkie communication. “Walkie-talkie protocol” is on the agenda of our morning meetings at least once a week: Don’t talk about who needs meds, don’t use foul language, don’t use sarcasm. Stone has frequently been guilty of this last offense: “If someone doesn’t come remove Arthur from my class I’m going to dip him in honey and tie him to an ant hill.” More than once, parents and other visitors to our school have heard Stone’s “colorful” broadcasts and I’ve had to speak to him on this topic. As a team, we’ve talked about headphones before but so many teachers were opposed and I was insisting they do so many other things to which they were opposed, I decided to back down on this, but now the time has come to enforce the wearing of headsets. Everyone complies except RitaMae and Midge. RitaMae says she finds it distracting and Midge says can’t wear her walkie-talkie due to her obesity.

Looking back it is amazing how easy it was to solve the off-campus AWOL problem. After the headsets we don’t have another occurrence. I resolve to work hard on looking at trees rather than getting lost in the forest.

The AWOL problem was very visible, unlike the extortion ring.

Right or wrong, in public schools, teachers and principals know who the “good kids” are and who are the “usual suspects.” Clearly this prejudging is unfair and often leads to incorrect conclusions, but at Prospect where all the children are “bad”; trying to separate the wheat from the chaff is impossible. Case in point: five boys, some of whom turn out to be extortionists, while others are their victims.

Exhibit A: Manny, a student in Midge’s elementary classroom. He is the tiniest Prospect student and features an x-rated mouth. His repeated vulgarity and violence have caused him to be kicked off the volleyball team and he spends as much time sitting in the corner of the counselor’s office as he does in the classroom.

Exhibit B: Shandon, the boy with the overprotective mother who wouldn’t let him ride the bus after the false masturbating incident.

Exhibit C: Bernard, a thirteen-year-old black boy who isn’t new to Prospect but this rail thin child is often absent due to a serious medical condition requiring frequent hospitalizations. Bernard is on a list for a heart transplant. He lives with his mother, who holds a secretarial position in the local public schools, and with her boyfriend. Bernard’s bus driver reports that she wonders whether Mom’s boyfriend is abusive since the driver overheard Bernard telling his peers he needs to work out more so that “next time” he can stop his mother’s boyfriend. Bernard was recently involved in a minor shoving match which I broke up. I took Bernard and the other offender to my office and had them write down what happened. Bernard’s ability to express himself in writing was shockingly poor. Beautiful penmanship, but the spelling, sentence structure and organization were on a second grade level.

On a barely related matter, when Bernard was in the hospital recently, Jordan asked his class to make cards for him. Jordan shared the cards with me before mailing them to the hospital. Claymont, whose grandfather died when he was arrested wrote: “Get well my African Brother.” Tyryona who is now living with an optimistic cousin wrote: “I’m praying for you.” Karla, whose mother lives with the Rainbow People in The Forest, created a card with a beautifully drawn woodland scene on the front, inside she wrote a poem: “when you’re feeling down, look around at the shrooms on the ground.” Jevon, the elementary child who brags about his ability to pick pockets, was visiting Jordan’s room so he made a card too. He wrote: “Smoke Weed Forever.” Jordan did not send Karla and Jevon’s cards to the hospital . . . .

Exhibit D: Ethan, in the Mime’s class. Ethan is a white twelve-year-old boy living with both biological parents who are concerned and upset about his behavior, but at a loss as to what should be done. We’ve called them in twice in three weeks. First Ethan was observed masturbating on the bus. Unlike the “false masturbation with hand cream” incident in which Ethan was not involved, it appears this was the real thing and that Ethan was performing the act with pride to a very attentive audience. The second time we held a conference with Ethan’s parents was when he took the Mime’s water bottle during class, spit in it and returned it to her desk. Ethan and the class waited patiently until The Mime took a sip then several students felt duty bound to inform her of the saliva. The always emotional Mime began sobbing and gagging, tried to use the walkie-talkie but was unintelligible and ended up running from her classroom (AWOL teacher!). She headed straight for my office where she informed me she would have to go home for the rest of the day because she was wracked by “dry heaves” every time she thought about what Ethan did. She thought about it a lot.

Final exhibit: Garrett, a new student. Garrett is a tall, muscular fourteen-year-old black boy. I’ve seen him play football on Saturdays at Berke Jungers field, but unlike the rest of my student athletes, he is not interested in discussing this with me. When he first started at Prospect he wore an expensive jacket every day even when it was hot. I took him aside, explained the uniform policy, making the apt analogy to football, and told him if he wore the jacket again I would confiscate it. He did, I did. He was very angry and later that day he went AWOL, came to my office and stood over my desk demanding his jacket. I re-explained the policy: I will only release confiscated items to a parent or guardian. Garrett clenched his fists and narrowed his eyes. I ignored him and returned to my work. I feigned surprise when I looked up a few minutes later and saw him still standing there. I told him he was dismissed and free to return to class. He did.

Manny, Shandon, Bernard, Ethan, Garrett and the extortion ring….

The Mime’s homeroom had just changed classes and as the students entered Sam’s room for math, Sam caught a glimpse of a $10 bill in Ethan’s hand. Money is contraband at Prospect. The only time students are permitted to carry cash is when they need it to buy meals and even then they can possess only enough for the day’s meals. Since most Prospect students are eligible for free meals, there are few who can legitimately claim their cash is for lunch. Sam called Ethan up to his desk and quietly asked for the money, reminding Ethan the cash will be locked up and will be returned only to a parent. Ethan jams the ten dollar bill into the pocket of his shorts and refuses to hand it to Sam. Sam insists and Ethan refuses. Sam radios for a counselor.

Rusty takes Ethan to his office but Ethan won’t talk or give up the money. When Rusty picks up the phone to call Ethan’s parents, Ethan starts to cry. He can’t give Rusty the money or he’ll get beaten up. Ethan refuses to elaborate. Rusty takes the money and in our morning meeting he suggests teachers make “extortion” a vocabulary word and see where class discussions lead. Transportation coordinator Shasta also asks the bus drivers to keep their ears open. Almost immediately the students start to snitch on each other and as usual, confusion reigns. In Midge’s class, after learning the word “extortion”, little Frankie says, “Hey Manny does that.” But a hard look from Manny stops Frankie mid-sentence. Several students request to speak with Rusty and Rosie. They are afraid to say much, but they suggest the counselors question Shandon and Bernard.

It takes many tips and several days but we finally sort out the facts and learn that Sweet Shandon was intimidating Ethan-the-spitter, demanding more and more money each week or else he, Shandon, would be unable to protect Ethan from Garrett. Meanwhile our sickly Bernard had been similarly extorting funds from elementary student, Manny-the-mouth. Shandon and Bernard paid a percentage to Garrett.

Manny’s mother is furious and curses at me for running such an unsafe school where her son feels he must pay to avoid getting hurt. Ethan’s parents are relieved that this time Ethan is a victim rather than an instigator and they thank us for solving the mystery of the money that has been disappearing from their wallets and purses. Shandon and Bernard’s mothers are shocked and upset, but realize, now that we mention it, that they have seen their sons with a lot of cash recently. Bernard’s mother cries. Shandon’s mother says she has never hit him but feels it might be time to start. Garrett’s mother withdraws him from Prospect and returns him to public school. He makes sure she picks up his confiscated jacket before leaving.

Rusty and Rosie believe many more children besides Ethan and Manny were paying for protection, but they are too afraid to come forward. My counselors do, however, feel confident that Garrett, Bernard and Shandon complete the extortion ring.

I can add to my list of appraisal accomplishments: put an end to off campus runaways and broke up an extortion ring.