The Perils of Public Education

[omorka]

So, I'm giving my kids the district-mandated TAKS practice test. (Yuck.) I'm also catching the drips for Coach D and DD - they only have four to six kids per class taking the test, so I'm taking theirs so they can go ahead and teach. Not that I enjoy giving up a day of instructional time. Especially not when the kids only have to make 45% correct to pass this year. That may be a tough call for the kids who have been handed up through teachers who stood at the front of the class, gave out a worksheet a day, lamented the low level of kids these days, and passed them on without learning anything, but my kids have a few brain cells to rub together, thank you. Calling 45% passing is an insult and they know it, even if the test is harder than it was. But better one teacher loses a day of instructional time than that three teachers do, and better it be the one who's farthest ahead (and has more juniors anyway).

About five of DD's kids are in my classroom. About 45 minutes into the test, the usual noises begin coming from the special ed room next to mine, which houses five severely disabled kids (it's the semi-verbal to non-verbal group, to give you an idea of how severe a disability we're talking about here). DD's kids begin looking at each other and getting nervous. My kids look up, look at each other, look at me, sigh, and get back to the test.

The noises get louder. DD's kids look really disturbed. My kids doggedly ignore it.

There's a loud clunk from that room. Everyone looks up. This is still within normal parameters for that class. There are at least two kids making noise, one of them his usual upset-noises and the other seemingly agitated by the first kid - maybe it's three.

Then Mrs. C starts yelling.

Mrs. C never yells. She has the calmest demeanor in the whole school. That's why she works with these kids. I hear their door open.

I stick my head out in the hallway. One of the paraprofessionals is leading the kid who sometimes runs out of the classroom across the hallway; he's making inarticulate noises of protest and kicking everything he can get his feet near. She sees me in the doorway and says "Ms. R, could you please call security for us?"

"You need an AP down here?"

"Yes, please." She wrangles him into the empty room next to the content mastery room and closes the door behind her as he kicks a coffee can, the doorjamb, the doorstop, and the desks in the room.

I jump back into my room and dial our secretary. She says she'll get someone right there.

About half a minute later, I hear a radio in the hallway. I duck out again to make sure the situation is taken care of. It's not an AP; it's the secretary herself. She's trying to get an AP on the radio and simultaneously trying to see if she can assist. I hear Mrs. C ask her if they can send the nurse down to the room as well.

Finally one of the hall monitors shows up, followed by the nurse's aide, followed by a real AP. As they arrive, I finally hear why they needed me to call security (and why they needed the nurse); the kid who went berserk ripped the phone off the wall and hit Mrs. C in the mouth with it. (I found out later, reading a short e-mailed version of her incident report, that the kid also hit the other para and one of the other students, although apparently not with the phone. The kid was suspended for the remainder of the day; the kid's mom had to come pick him up.)

I return to my kids, who, upon seeing the APs arrive, have gone back to their testing. In trying to help, I have left testing kids unmonitored for more than 30 seconds. I now have to fill out a testing irregularity report. On the bright side, I figure a student assaulting a teacher with school equipment is serious enough that TEA would understand; I probably wouldn't have gotten cited for it if this were a real testing situation.

Most of my kids don't finish, naturally enough.

I wonder what would have happened if this were a real TAKS test . . .