The Package

For some reason my latest case feels like an episode of "Alias". And I'm not sure if they used the term "the package" on the show, but it has that feel. You await the arrival of something monumental, something that you've discussed, yet have never met. The stories you hear are ominous, yet you need to be prepared and professional, and most of all warm and welcoming. so when it was decided that Alejandro* would indeed attend my school, we had a lot of information to consider and yet we didn't have the privilege of knowing anyone who had actually met the child. This is a kid who only attended school for 4 days last year before he was suspended from school and put on homebound for the rest of the year. They had a PPT at the end of the year to suggest a psychiatric evaluation. it was determined that some of his issues were caused by the fact that he spoke no English and was placed into an all-English classroom. My school district doesn't have any bilingual schools, so he was participating in his former school's English Language Learner's program (all 4 days that he attended). Anyway, based on everything that happened last year, including running away from the school which required the police to come and apprehend him and threatening kindergartners on the playground, my principal was reluctant to have this kid start school in my building. We were trying to determine what would be an appropriate placement. My district decided that it would be in my school with a part-time bilingual aide.

Well, once we realized we would be getting this kid, we had to make sure everything was ready. But we didn't know what to expect. The kid was receiving therapy over the summer, so we could possibly see a transformed child, or the same angry threatening child that the other school saw last April. We spent so much time planning and fretting over this, that it was actually an odd relief once he arrived.

Alejandro arrived in the morning with his mother. Both of them spoke only a few English words. My Spanish is really rusty, having studied it in college over a decade ago. I struggled to communicate some basic ideas, but I think that the mother appreciated my struggle in Spanish. I'd like to think that she knew I empathized with her struggles in English. I talked to Alejandro a little bit. By talk, I mean that I asked him questions that I could remember from exercises in Spanish. Te gusta deportes? I gave myself a vocabulary refresher by pointing and labeling objects in the room to his approval. It was interesting, because there were a few words that he didn't know and his mother had to correct him. Alejandro's aide arrived and they went to class. I was on call for most of the day, which meant that someone had to know where I was at all times. My principal decided that she would hang out in the hallway near Alejandro's class, just in case she needed to intervene. We were on full alert for the day. His first day went without incident. I was glad that he had a good first day. We know that this may be the honeymoon period so we are keeping our fingers crossed and thinking positive thoughts. I must be rubbing off on everyone, because the first thing out of the special ed teacher and the principal's mouths that morning were "I'm going to think positively about this" More converts to positivity.

BBC
*of course Alejandro is not his real name, silly.