police

today the police came to put handcuffs on one of my 9th grade boys and took him away. i did not see this but a heard a variety of versions of this and the events that led up to it. i will tell you what i know, but it's pretty sketchy. you see, my school administration believes that no news is good news and the less we know about dangers in the building, the safer we are. children are prone to exaggeration when violence is involved. so are adults. they're no help, either.

remember back when i said that generally when 9th grade boys get in trouble, it's' not for stabbing or something big? well, sometimes it is. here's what i know. one of my 9th grade boys (in fact, one you've met in previous posts) and another boy brought something to school. it might have been a slingshot but was more likely a bb gun. at some point the boys and their weapon interacted with the face of a third boy. this all happened before 10am because my student didn't arrive to class at all and everyone was pretty quiet about why. they were scared. good. they should be. the third boy may have been hit near the eye or may have lost an eye completely depending on who you believe. he was taken away in an ambulance most likely. i am sure this is not how the boys expected things to turn out. none of them is very coordinated. my 9th grader's handwriting looks like a drunk first grader's. he could not hit someone in the eye with a bb if he held the gun against someone's closed eyelid. this just makes the whole thing that much more stupid and annoying.

i don't think anyone is going to address any of the issues here. my school's administration has not yet discussed the situation with the staff or students in an attempt to foster healthy communication. the child's parents will not discuss what happened with him, just like they refused to talk with him about the fact that he steals from other children and plagiarizes all his written work. i worry that all this lack of focus will allow the child to be hurt next time he does something stupid. i do not worry about him becoming a career criminal. that would require his parents sitting down with him and talking with him about how he needs to improve his motor skills. and that just isn't going to happen.