The Line, the Hitch and the Ward’s Hope
(or, how school and district policy can closet students’ dreams)
Gordon “T.J.” McConnell
February 6, 2009
During my first month as a teaching intern I was taught about the line. “Make sure you create a line,” I was told. “Don’t let your students cross the line, and for goodness sake, don’t you ever cross the line either.” Though I was certainly aware that some sort of distinction between teacher and student was clearly necessary, the dire prognoses associated with failing to draw this line in sweeping bold strokes seemed at odds with certain ideas that my progressive teacher education program was promoting. What happened to the concept of partnering with students in their learning if my stance was really supposed to position them as privates to my lieutenant? The line that I continued hearing about was meant to represent an authoritative border between teacher and student; a delineation between the leader and the led. However, there was no mistaking that my primary strength as a burgeoning teacher centered on building personal relationships with my students and showing them that I truly believed in their abilities. Within the first semester of my internship year I wondered if at some point this conflict might somehow become the focal point of a defining moment in my teaching career. What I failed to consider was that even if I eventually felt ethically obligated to challenge the line, my advocacy for students could only help a struggling kid as far as certain archaic policies and laws would permit.
I met Svane one day in August of 2007 when she and her parents came into the high school for a give and take as to whether she would be a good candidate for the Upper Level Individualized Team (ULIT) on which I teach. Despite frequent student and parental confusion (often they think the program is either a special education offshoot or a straight-to-graduation “Adult-Ed” type option), ULIT exists as an open-scheduled alternative to our high school’s typical eighty minute block schedule. The standards that students on ULIT are held accountable to are exactly the same as the standards any other student in the high school must meet. The difference really exists in our flexible scheduling, and our ability to create much more “face time” between students and teachers. Students who are involved in internships, are enrolled in a technical program with a neighboring high school, who find that the eighty minute block schedule does not work for them, or who simply desire an environment that will allow them to have more one on one time with their teachers, are all potential fits for the program. Basically, ULIT is an option for any student in a situation where the school’s regular schedule or system causes a conflict, either temporal or otherwise, with a student’s ability to meet graduation requirements. “On-Team” ULIT offers a student the chance to take any of the core curriculum classes offered in our course of studies (including math, science, English and social studies courses… and then some) at whatever time of day their schedule allows. Svane had just moved north from Georgia and was, credit-wise, scheduled to be a high school senior. However, the graduation requirements at the high school where I teach were greater than what Svane would have been held to at the school she’d left in Georgia. In fact, in order to graduate from the school where I teach, she was going to need to cram more classes into her schedule than our eighty minute block schedule would allow; hence her interview with me and the two other ULIT teachers.
To be sure, I work in what has been recognized as one of the more progressive schools in our state, the ULIT program being just one of many initiatives instituted by the school over its short tenure. Just a decade ago when the school was brought into being, its founders sought to give rise to a truly student-centered approach to teaching and learning. They adopted the principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools as their gospel and had every intention of taking the cutting-edge research of the progressive education community and putting it into every aspect of the school’s practice and operation from the start. Standards-based grading, which would track a student’s accomplishments rather than their average performance over the course of a unit (or versus one another) would be the first of many equity-based tenets to be adopted by the school’s leaders. Other mandates included “student-loads” of eighty or fewer kids so that teachers could truly focus on the students in their classrooms; increased planning time for teachers in hopes of allowing us to design more valid and reliable learning experiences and assessments for our students; mandated professional development days that would allow educators to tap the most current strategies; advisories availing every student of an adult advocate in the building other than their guidance counselor to help plug the holes that allow students who cannot self-advocate to fall through the cracks; student involvement in community initiatives to help enlighten the local population as to how beneficial these ideas would be in action… and the list went on. As an intern I immediately felt impassioned with the lengths to which this school would go to ensure an equitable education for any student enrolled in its fold. Clearly, by some unbelievable stroke of luck, I had happened upon a school that really put students first; that took the most current research to heart and was attempting to enact it; and, that would allow me to challenge the line in pursuit of my students’ best interests.
Ah, but there was a hitch. As it turns out, no matter how much equity is woven into a school’s fabric, policy is policy—law is law. As Svane’s case unfolded, I became rapidly aware that no matter how progressive a school’s philosophy might be, rules from higher up can trump common sense as to what is best for certain students. In a nutshell, I saw a school whose basis for existence seemed to be student advocacy and equity, unfairly risk throwing away the future of one of its students because existing policies and laws put its self-preservation in peril, despite the clear needs of a desperately struggling girl.
As my ULIT colleagues and I sat with Svane and her parents on that muggy August day, it became apparent that Svane was a good candidate for the program. Though unusual that we’d be suddenly faced with seeing a nineteen year old senior through a whopping ten credit year, Svane stated that she was driven to succeed and that her goal of becoming a radiologist was at the forefront of her motivation to graduate on time with the class of 2008. Besides, given her graduation requirements, ULIT was pretty much her only option if she wanted to graduate the following June. Looking back, the only hint of problems to come revolved around the non-academic questions we asked. When it came to queries about her interests outside of school, Svane became deferential to her father—almost as if what she did with her free time were really up to him. At one point, eyes down, and looking slightly askance of her father’s focused gaze she said, “I sort of got distracted by my friends in Georgia.” The words hadn’t fully exited her mouth when her father ensured us that this would not be the case this year. I remember immediately wondering whether this girl, who seemed to hide her extraordinarily pretty face behind gobs of painstakingly applied makeup, was to be the next ULIT wild-child; whether there was something to her apparent inability to look her father in the eye; whether the help she would need throughout the year was really only based on getting her from point “A” to graduation in just over nine months. Turns out the answer was D: All of the above.
Svane’s year on ULIT started out positively enough. Despite the fact that high school girls can be awfully cruel to the pretty new girl, she became fast friends with a group of proudly non-conformist girls who shunned the general social structure of the high school “haves” and “have-nots.” In addition, she’d started dating one of the girl’s brothers. Overall, she appeared happy and well adjusted. Social life… Check. Academically, though she was not an extremely “high-achieving” student, her drive to do the work necessary to achieve her goals was evident—and she reached our first set of status reports passing all of her many classes. Progress toward graduation… Check. Moreover, she’d made quick use of the one on one time with teachers availed to her as a member of ULIT. Ultimately these relationships allow ULIT teachers to get to know our kids more deeply than “off-team” familiarity allows. One might say that the line becomes more blurred on ULIT; a good thing for kids whose families do not offer the support they need to succeed. Utilizing ULIT to her advantage… Check. However, despite the outward appearance that all was well, there are only so many arenas we teachers are able to witness and take account of on a daily basis. Svane had happily transitioned into a supportive social group at school, was making academic headway toward donning a cap and gown and had begun the school year as a model for ULIT success. In the meantime, her precarious family life was falling apart… again.
Somewhere toward the end of first semester—maybe it was the beginning of second semester (that midwinter stretch can wreak havoc with a teacher’s perception of time)—Svane began stringing together noticeable stretches of “absences” and “tardies.” When she did show up, she looked worn out and unkempt—the excessive makeup streaked in places where it normally held to the contours of her face. Further, her ability to meet deadlines was slowly fading away, and what work she did hand in was of markedly diminished quality. After a couple of conversations with my ULIT colleagues confirmed that they were seeing the same pattern, I determined that I would have a talk with her.
Later that day I called her over to my desk. “Svane, is everything alright?” I asked. Her response was the most overwhelming and heart-wrenching burst of sobs I have ever witnessed from a student.
“My parents kicked me out a few weeks ago, so I’ve been living with Allie,” Svane managed between tears. Allie was the girl whose brother Svane was dating. “Allie never gets up on time and she’s my ride to school. She doesn’t understand that with all of these classes I have to get to school or else I’m going to fail…”
“Isn’t Allie getting in trouble too?”
“She has senior privileges so she doesn’t have to be here until B-Block.”
Some friend I thought. “Couldn’t you take the bus?”
“The bus that stops near Allie’s house isn’t my bus. They won’t let me on,” she sniffled.
“Maybe we can work something out so that you can take a different bus.” I offered.
“I already asked Mr. Fournier (our Dean of Students),” she said. “He said I need to get my parents’ signatures, but my Dad won’t talk to me and my Mom is afraid to.”
“Afraid?”
“It’s a long story,” she said, turning her glance down and away.
“This doesn’t seem right,” I said. “Let me try to sort this out with Mr. Fournier and we’ll touch base at the end of the day.”
“But she’s nineteen years old.” I said. “Can’t we just stick her on a different bus?”
“No,” I was told. “Unless we get a signature our hands are tied.”
I was baffled. How complicated could it be? Just tell the bus driver to pick her up. Weren’t some rules a little less “ruley” than others?
I remembered a situation from a couple years before when a senior who was failing several classes was suddenly diagnosed with “executive functioning disorder,” after continually falling short with regard to deadlines. This finding caused the balance of his teachers to roll their eyes, as they’d all have felt a better label for his condition would have been “general laziness.” But this particular student had been the son of a lawyer and prominent school board member who was not about to see his son blow it during his senior year. “This failure can’t possibly be my son’s fault!” he ranted. “There must be some other explanation!” Three weeks and several tests later, the executive functioning disorder diagnosis became official, and he was given an open deadline schedule for the rest of the year. Who knows? Maybe he was suffering from such an affliction, but would it ever have been diagnosed if his father hadn’t borne some clout in the district? Would Svane’s bus situation even be a situation if she was the child of a well-known local family rather than a nineteen year old transplant from Georgia? I suspected not, but that was the end of the conversation with Mr. Fournier, and the beginning of my disillusionment and despair over the apparent chasm between policy and common sense.
The next time I saw Svane I shrugged my shoulders. “I talked to Mr. Fournier. Guess you’re right about the bus,” I said. She nodded. “Well, I’m willing to create some stretchy deadlines if that’ll help you to get more work done. I imagine the other ULIT teachers will do the same. Plus you can e-mail us work when you can’t get into school.” She nodded again, but tears built up in her eyes and a streak of mascara rolled down her cheek.
“But they keep giving me detentions for my “tardies” and “skips,” and now I can’t ever get to my job on time.” I hadn’t even known she had a job. “I have like ten detentions right now, and every time I’m late or not here they give me another one. So now I’m always late to work and if I get fired I’ll never have any money for food.”
My face suddenly strained as though I were deciphering a quantum physics equation. “Don’t they know your situation?” I asked. This was even more baffling than the bus scenario.
“Yeah, but because my parents aren’t calling anything in everything is “unexcused.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’ve been kicked out of your house, you can’t get to school on time because the friend you’re living with won’t get up early enough and you aren’t allowed on the bus that makes pick-ups at her stop, you need to work just to feed yourself and you’re getting detentions because you’re late?”
“Yup.”
I shook my head. “That’s messed up.”
She nodded.
Over the next couple of weeks Svane’s attendance was very sporadic, and the decline in the quality and quantity of work she turned in continued its downward spiral. When she was in school I tried to give her whatever space she needed while offering to help in whatever ways I could at the same time. Then one day, probably in March, I was called to the school social worker’s office.
“She’s crashing,” he whispered to me outside his office door. “Total crisis mode, and she mentioned you as the one adult in the building that she really trusts. Can you go into my office and talk to her? I’ll be right outside the door.”
I walked in and Svane was convulsively crying. Her heaves were violent and looked physically painful. “I can’t live at Allie’s anymore. Brian broke up with me and her mother says I’m a bad influence.”
“Oh, Svane, I’m sorry.” I said. “Is there someplace you can go?”
“I can go to my Aunt’s, but it’s just outside the district and Mr. Fournier said I can’t keep going to school here if I’m living outside the district.” Her spasms continued. How can this be, I thought. She only has a couple months left! Can’t they just cut her some slack?
“Plus I started filling out all the FAFSA stuff (federal aid for college) and it said that since my parents still claim me as a dependant I need to send in their financial information.” It was as though she were a ward of the State without any of its “benefits.” “They won’t even talk to me, so now even if I graduate I won’t be able to go to college anyway,” more convulsive tears. Further, it seemed that all of her newfound friends had turned on her, blaming her for the breakup with Allie’s brother. Svane had virtually nowhere to turn for support, was becoming more convinced that graduation was no longer a reality, and was losing hope that it would be worth it anyway considering her financial position and the information she’d need to get any help from FAFSA. What killed me was that the lion’s share of what was standing in her way was bureaucratic red tape. Her goals and motivations were all in the right place, her willingness to put the work in was not in question, and yet a perfect storm of policy issues was foiling her every move.
I waited for what seemed like several minutes until a lull in her crying gave me an opening. “Svane, can I ask you something?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the story with your parents? Why did they kick you out? Why won’t they talk to you? Is this something you can talk about?”
Svane’s countenance turned to one of shame. Her focus turned to the carpeted floor and she began to quietly cry once again. “My father has some anger issues,” she said.
From there the flood gates opened. Between bouts of crying and numbed account, Svane told me that her father had begun to beat her regularly when she was only two years old. She told me that one of the beatings was so severe that she had been hospitalized for over a week and that it had resulted in a short prison term for her Dad. She told me that her mother feared her father so much that despite her yearning to help her daughter she felt paralyzed and unable to act. She also told me that what she really wanted was to have a regular family that cared about her, and that that was why she always went back to her parents despite the likelihood that her father would lash out again. She told me that she was scared because she didn’t know where to go, or if she could finish school, or if she’d ever get to go to college… or if anyone would even care. Now it was my eyes that welled up.
I decided that I would need to compromise the line. I just couldn’t stomach the unfairness that this girl was subject to. She was trying so hard to make it, but had so many strikes against her that the uphill battle she was waging must have seemed a sheer cliff. Further, even as she tried to do the right thing, at each step some policy seemed to thwart her fair and equitable chance to receive the education she so desperately wanted. I gave her my personal e-mail address and told her to contact me if ever and whenever she needed to. I gave her my cell and home phone numbers and told her to call if she ever needed help… money… a place to stay. I explained the situation to my wife so that if ever Svane called we’d be on the same page. Basically, I did all of the things that would make school administrators and guidance counselors cringe, but I did what I felt was right.
At the end of the conversation, when Svane was cried out but no less despondent, she said, “Even if I do graduate nobody will care. Nobody will come to see me walk across the stage.”
“I will,” I said.
She smiled, and I walked her out to the lobby. Her ride had texted her and she was leaving. As she did she said, “I just don’t want to do this anymore… any of it. I’m just so tired and I don’t think I can keep going.” Before I could even process the words, she was out the door.
Svane’s statement seemed so helpless, the messages so potentially frightening, that I immediately went to the guidance office to find her “alpha-split” counselor. Svane’s counselor, Ms. Graves, covered kids whose last names started with letters from “N” through “Z.” “Did she specifically say she was going to hurt herself?” Ms. Graves asked.
“Well, not exactly, but…” and I went on to recount the conversation I’d had moments earlier in the lobby. Ms. Graves began punching keys on her computer.
“I’m going to call her cell and see if she picks up. You go into Pete’s office (the school social worker) and tell him what she said.”
Thus began a long and stressful afternoon of my wondering whether I’d just allowed a suicidal teen aged girl to exit the building while she all but told me that she was going to end it.
Fortunately (and I feel the word doesn’t really do my relief justice), Svane was not actually suicidal. Ms. Graves was eventually able to reach her and ended the phone conversation confident that, although Svane was enormously down in the dumps, she had not reached a point at which she would physically harm herself. Ironically however, it was this threat of the mere possibility of suicide—a scare the likes of which apparently jars administrators enough that they’ll actually revert to a position in which common sense trumps policy—that finally got things rolling in a positive direction. Ms. Graves gave the low down to Mr. Fournier, who got the message loud and clear. “Yeah, maybe those detentions for her absences and tardiness are a bit harsh,” suddenly became his words of wisdom. “Maybe we could look into a ‘Superintendent’s Agreement’ and allow her to stay on for these last two months. See her through to graduation.”
The final two months of Svane’s high school career were not easy—for her or for any of her ULIT teachers. She had fallen behind significantly, in more classes than most students take in a year—let alone a semester, and all of us had to put in a great many hours to make her goal of graduating on time a reality. To that I say: So what? Not in a callous or cavalier way of course, but because that’s what I signed up for when I became a teacher. I feel it is my obligation to do whatever it takes to put all of my students in a position to achieve their goals. If that means extra hours, I’ll do it; if it means crossing the line, bring it on; if it means bending the rules to ensure that each of my students has a fair and equitable opportunity to their education, show me how. However, what I did not realize I’d also signed up for were the dealings I would encounter with regard to policy issues, laws, and even federal tax statutes that stand in the way of equity in education. How is a kid supposed to get a fair shake when the issue of what bus they take to school is more important than determining why they might need to switch buses? How can a student make progress toward their academic goals when the policies governing their eligibility in the district outweigh the common sense solution of just turning a blind eye while she finishes the last two and a half months of her high school career? Why does the federal government take the parents’ word over a child’s with regard to dependency filings? Why is it that such a situation had to reach a crescendo involving the fear of a potential suicide before someone determined that maybe reading these rules to a “T” was not in the best interest of the student at hand in this particular case? But most baffling, frustrating and frightening of all was this: If a school that built its entire reputation on being at the cutting edge of student equity could allow a situation like this to escalate to the point that it did, what is happening in other schools?
Ultimately, I still feel that the school where I teach does do a better job than most, and I truly believe that at the time they were dealing with Svane’s case, the administrators involved felt they were doing all they could given the policies at hand and the cards that had been dealt. So what is the answer? I certainly don’t know it. Do administrators need to be trained to bend rules for unique situations? Do policies need to be tailored to greater degrees in order to account for the variability of cases? Do teachers simply need to risk administrative disapproval (or worse) in order to ensure that somebody has their least supported students’ backs? What I do know is that Svane could easily have fallen through the cracks if I hadn’t crossed the line—but given the many obstacles she came up against even after the fact, she could easily have fallen through the cracks despite my efforts. In a nutshell, I was lucky I was dealing with such a persevering kid. Maybe I had something to do with her success story, but fairness and equity certainly didn’t.
On Saturday, June 8, 2008 I watched Svane walk across the stage to receive the diploma she’d so struggled to earn. In the end I know that at least her mother was in attendance. I’m really not sure whether she tried to patch things up with her father again or not. Later that night I got a text from an unfamiliar phone number. I’d forgotten that I’d given Svane my cell number some months before. The message, in all caps, read:
I’M FREE FROM HS FOREVER IT’S SO EXHILERATING! AHHH!
I was happy, honored really, that she’d thought to shoot me a line. Perhaps I’d actually made a difference. Still, I could not ignore the real message. In the end, Svane’s high school experience was one she felt she’d finally escaped from.
Study Questions:
- Are teachers ever morally or ethically obligated to violate school, district or even state policies?
- Are the policies enacted by schools, districts or even states designed with student equity in mind? If not, what is behind such policy?
- How would you have handled this situation?
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