My Son is Not a Discipline Problem, He's Mentally Ill for God's Sake

"He's not going to school anywhere. He's sitting home waiting." Uncle of a student who is supposed to go to another school but has been sitting home since September.

"They said they were going to send her back to her old school and I said there's no way she's going back there. She's home. Not doing school. She's supposed to do online school with Pathways but she's not doing it yet." Father whose daughter was so stressed out by her old school she all but completely refused to attend.  

"Nobody even told me they weren't letting kids return in the Fall, I heard it from a Parent Advocate who heard it somewhere else. This is very concerning since now we have to find him a new school." Parent who heard second hand that her son's program was being closed down. 

"My son is not a discipline problem he's mentally ill for God's sake." Parent of a WNYDT student who was reassigned to attend The Academy School. 

To be clear, 3 of the 4 parents I've spoken with from WNY Day treatment have told me their children are not doing any school work. This is Week 6.

When Buffalo Public Schools got it into their collective head to close down Western New York Day Treatment in June one has the sense that they knew it was a lame thing to do and nobody wanted to put their name on it. So nobody did. And nobody wanted to embrace the awkward and ugly task of informing parents that their children with documented mental health issues would no longer be attending a therapeutic day school either. BPS just let the chips fall and didn't look back. Maybe nobody wanted to own it because explaining that these kids were being kicked out of their therapeutic program to save money would be a bridge too far for the decision makers to explain to hostile parents. If it was the right and fiscally responsible thing to do it seems someone should have been willing to stand up and explain or defend it.  I called there once in late July and was told by the clerk that some guys from the service center came to take away the BPS refrigerator. But nobody ever did call to say Oh by the way we are closing down the program. 

Times of crisis are often used as a cover to shuffle funds, make unpopular cuts and generally do things you couldn't get away with under normal circumstances. No less a 5 star creep than Rahm Emanuel is on record as saying Never let a crisis go to waste. Hurricane Katrina served as a smokescreen to demolish low income housing and open up the real estate to gentrifying developers. The school system in New Orleans was swept aside and converted to charters by the ed for profit lobby. Before the smoke cleared from 9-11 we had The Patriot Act rammed through Congress with the claim that it would keep us safe. Later we learned of the infamous Section 215 that said libraries would have to turn over lists of books checked out by anyone the Feds deemed to be suspicious characters. "Roving wire taps" were easily obtained with just one approval from the notoriously permissive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and could be applied to your landline, laptop, cell phone, tablet, desktop, pager, ad nauseam. The Patriot Act at one point also included a provision that gave military recruiters the right to set up shop in high schools and try to sign up students for military service. Any school who balked could be in danger of losing funding. Follow up studies revealed not one terror plot was ever broken up using any of this data and nobody was any safer. Bureaucrats can always take advantage of a crisis to work their agenda. Whether that agenda does anyone else a damned bit of good remains to be seen. 

I add these digressions to illustrate how convenient a crisis can be for manipulating the usual orders of business. If WNY Day Treatment hadn't already endured a near death by a thousand cuts I probably wouldn't be so quick to make such connections. But a few years back someone did a head count and decided the program's census didn't justify three teachers. It was decided one teacher would have to go. Thus ended our middle school class. Then they came along a year later and cut the Math and Science position. A year later the Math and Science position was restored then cut again. If you wanted to see how much instability you could inflict on a bunch of kids who'd already been diagnosed with mental health issues you couldn't have devised a more devious scheme. 

Yet somewhere in all of this someone from City Hall was walking around with a clipboard looking at numbers telling themselves they were acting in the best interests of children. Isn't that the premise we all operate from when we sign up for a career in education?

In the 2019-2020 school year students enrolled in Western New York Day Treatment were taught English and Social Studies by me as well as CTE, Art and Phys. Ed. In Fall of 2019 parents were warned there would be no instruction in Math or Science possibly for the entire year. Parents thought enough of the program that they were willing to leave their children there even though they'd be missing 2 of their 4 academic subjects. Not one parent opted to remove their child. 

Assessing a program of this nature with a raw number count is a terribly myopic and truthfully cruel way to do business. The numbers are always in flux and rarely remain static for months on end. Kids go into the hospital or return to school or move just like they do in the big box high schools many of our students came from. When Covid closed schools in mid-March we had a class with 7 kids in it. It was only supposed to have 6 but the deal on the table was if we could get it up to 8 kids we could restore the Math/Science teacher's position.  Our liaison with New York State Office of Mental Health had about 4 more students she was planning to screen for entry into our group. We were that close when the lockdown hit. If we had to choose a mascot from mythology it would be a coin toss between Tantalus and Sisyphus. 

The class of 7 we had in March became a class of 4 in late June when one student aged out and two others were deemed ready to be placed back into the school population. To make such a big deal if that's what I'm doing over 4 kids might strike some as excessive. The fact of the situation is it would only be a group of 4 for a short period until some of the kids on the waiting list could be screened and added to the group. As I mentioned above, these groups are always in flux and using a raw number at a given point in time to assess the efficacy of such a program is wrong headed. It's also educationally invalid as it fails to accurately measure what it claims to measure. When you stick a pushpin on the chart in June and say Look! There aren't not enough bodies! before the waiting list can be screened to bring the census back up to where it was you're guilty of using an invalid measure. I also wonder where these counters were when the class had 7 kids in it instead of the state prescribed 6 kids? The damage a raw number headcount does can be calculated in the future kids who could have benefitted from this class not just the 4 kids 3 of whom are essentially on the couch with the remote or in their bedrooms with their laptops watching anime. Since 2008 dozens and dozens of kids have come through the door, made the adjustment, participated in the program and become well enough to move on, If it didn't work I wouldn't be defending it. 

We Came to Believe that a Power Greater than Ourselves Could Restore Us to Sanity

The excerpt below is taken from Time magazine July 23, 2020 approximately one month after Buffalo Public Schools made the inscrutable decision to close their remaining classroom at Western New York Day Treatment, a program for high school students with clinical mental health issues, the only program so designated in an urban district of 33,ooo kids. Yeah take a minute or two to let that all sink in before you read below what any human of measurable sentience could have predicted with heartbreaking accuracy.  

...Another variable is whether a child came into the crisis with pre-existing mental-health problems. In the U.S., 7.1% of children in the 3-to-17 age group have been diagnosed with anxiety, according to the CDC. An additional 3.2% in the same age group suffer from depression. Then there are the 7.4% with diagnosed behavior problems and the 9.4% with ADHD. Silver found that in the aftermath of 9/11, adolescents’ level of distress closely tracked whether or not they had a history of such conditions. Other experts expect to see that pattern repeated because of COVID-19.

“Children who were struggling before [the pandemic] are at higher risk now,” says psychologist Robin Gurwitch, a professor at Duke University Medical Center. “You have to be careful about kids who were already in mental-health services; we have to make sure services aren’t disrupted.”

I can't resist the temptation to reiterate Dr. Gurwitch's comment though. It's not so much prescient as turd in the punchbowl obvious:  

"Children who were struggling before the pandemic are at higher risk now." 

I'm not a Professor of Psychiatry at Duke but I think I might have been able to see how this was going to play out. For the life of me I'm stumped how people who've chosen the education and well being of children as their life's work  willed themselves not to see it. 

It may come as a shock to a few that I am less involved in a pitchfork and torches cum guillotine resolution than in helping the district restore itself to sanity. Back in June the outlook was dire. June? you're saying, so what's changed? Valid point. The only thing anyone seemed to know back then was that New York State was walking around with its pockets turned out bumming smokes and hitting people up for gas money. It was pretty clear that whatever budget cash schools were counting on was going to be a pipe dream. Cuts were coming. Something akin to panic mode took hold. Buildings closed. Class sizes of disabled kids went from 6 to 8. Someone used the phrase "staff rich" to justify closing down the only remaining classroom for Buffalo kids with legitimate mental health issues. Too many adults teaching too few kids costing the district too much money. Case closed. 

Through whatever lens one uses to separate egregious acts against children from the financial benefits these acts net, it could be said that closing this remaining class and kicking the kids in it back to the schools most of them barely attended before arriving at Day Treatment made good sense financially. Theoretically or financially it was the move to make. Unless of course this happens to be a district that claims to be steeped in trauma informed education. If you go to the BPS Home Page and search "Trauma Informed" an exhaustive list of resources fills the screen. Yet somehow a district that proudly speaks of being trauma informed in its practices managed to inflict more trauma on kids whose lives have already had too damned much of it. 

What makes me so sure anyone was traumatized by the closure of Western New York Day Treatment? I'll fill you in on the phone conversation I had with the Dad of one of my students the other night. A guy who moved heaven and hell to get his daughter into this place and admits to breaking down at the meeting when he learned they were going to accept her. It was not an easy conversation and there is no happy ending. It hurts like hell. Stay tuned. 

I Have to Take this It's Obscurity Returning My Call

  Remember this dude? 

This is none other than Larry Quinn former Buffalo Board of Education member pictured playing with his phone as a Buffalo high school student named Chronicle McClain was speaking of Board members who ignore speakers during the public input part of the board meetings by tapping pens and looking at their phones instead of hearing what the public has to say to them. Is there a name for doing the very thing someone accuses you of doing as he's accusing you of doing it? I think in the era of Covid we can call it Dysynchronicity and we'll give Lars a credit for it when they come to put it in the NED. Someone during the dark days of the dreaded Quinn Paladino and Sampson Board named him Lars and I swear it still makes me laugh to this day. Was it you Gibson? I think it might have been. 

Well it's been ten years give or take since Quinn and Golisano fired Johnny Mucks, let Ted Nolan skate, lost Chris Drury and Danny Briere then cashed in by selling the team to the Pegulas. Larry's upward failure was a Billy Fucillo sized huuuuuuge  payday - some wags claim he pocketed a couple of dozen million in the deal but that's just idle speculation, you know the kind we all love to traffic in about someone we don't like. Quinn's tenure as a board member probably matched his failure as the managing partner of an NHL team but the sendoff didn't involve millions or even a gold plated Casio G Shock. His departure from the Board of Ed probably carried more of the ignominy he deserved for losing the Coach of the Year the GM of the Century plus two of the top skaters in the league. So why dig this up now? Isn't there a statute of limitations on failed Board of Ed members? Funny you should ask but this past week Larry felt inspired to fire a little broadside at Buffalo teachers and their grizzled union boss Phil Rumore. It'd be one thing to just play that little management card guys like Larry always play when they try to weaponize the tensions over something like remote learning and turn parents against their kids' teachers. We've all seen it, they do it whenever a contract negotiation isn't going the way the district wants. Poison the waters with some suggestions that these teachers aren't being reasonable, that they seem to care more about buying another Tesla and vacationing in Cabo more than they care about little Trevor and Olivia's education. Remember a while back when East Aurora published some of the negotiations in the paper in an effort to demonize teachers with the greedy, lazy don't gaf about the kids card?  So Lars did what rich white guys like him are known to do. He threw some shade at teachers and their union President. The problem is HOW he did it. 

Here's the opening from his Another Voice piece in the Buffalo News:

"I spoke to a friend yesterday who is aligned with Phil Rumore and the teachers union. He initially told me the schools were closed because they are following the science. Halfway through the conversation he told me the real problem – more than 1,000 teachers were apparently threatening to go on strike if the Buffalo Public Schools opened."

He just had to play the Insider card with the rest of us peasants. You know the other day I was talking with one of my kind of people who actually hobnobs with lowbrows like Phil Rumore kind of vibe. And I know what the rest of you dopes think but let me share what really went down because it's only fair that guys of my stature should enlighten the rest of you rubes when I get the scoop through my well placed sources. Sources the rest of you lack. And when it's all boiled away the guy says with a straight face that 1,000 BTF members have conspired under cover of night to launch an illegal strike the first week of school. These would be people who lost sumer school jobs for the most part. And Home Instruction jobs too more than likely. Also people who are going to be faced with child care expenses should their own kids be put on remote learning. Come Fall a lot of these teachers will not be bringing in their coaching stipends either. A sad number of teachers wait tables for extra cash. They too will be out of luck. If you're missing the larger picture which by now I'm pretty sure you're not, BTF members would be hard pressed to sign up for an activity that will dock them two days pay for every day they strike when most of them have been without a paycheck since June. Anyone who's ever had the misfortune of cashing one of those Taylor Law deduction post-job action checks will tell you it's downright painful. And anyone in the current day late and dollar short state of America in Covid who thinks taking a two day hit for every day on the picket is a good move might not be smart enough to teach your kids. 

Quinn goes on to cite science about droplets and infection rates and quotes a like minded NY Times writer who claims dropout rates will soar if kids and teachers aren't forced back into poorly ventilated buildings lacking proper staffing, PPE, cleaning procedures and Covid testing. Isn't dying from getting sick in an unsafe school building the ultimate form of dropping out? And shouldn't a bon vivant like Quinn even  here in small town Buffalo have the sense to understand that many of these minority kids he claims to care so much about live in multi-generational homes with elderly relatives whose health issues could make them more susceptible to bad outcomes should they contract the virus? Maybe it's time to put away the sailboats and that put a hair up our guy's Topsider. Hard to say exactly but if floating lame brained conspiracy theories supposedly gleaned from inside sources is all Larry Quinn has to to with himself these days maybe he should go put his name on the sub list in City Hall. Put your money where your mouth is Lars, show those teachers how it's done. 

C'mon you sons-of-bitches -- Do you want to live forever?

The rotten core of Stage 4 capitalism and people like Donald J.Trump and Betsy Devos are telling us the only way to save the oligarchy is to put other people's kids and their useless overpaid Blue voting teachers back into their classrooms while a global pandemic flashes and yearns. Bonus points if you caught the Berryman reference. 

Conveniently, what passes for a democratic government here is

making no allowances for parents and pressuring them too to return to work whether they have school age kids or not. And with a government that unequivocally states it has no intentions of helping out minority owned businesses, parents of school age kids and anyone else of lesser status, parents are naturally insistent that schools open to watch their kids since they've got no other choice. The hostility of parents for what they perceive to be pampered and/or uncaring teachers is pre-packaged and part of the larger plan. Hard not to blame some parents for it as they've been put in a lose/lose position. Rather than taking the side of teachers who insist on children's and their own safety above all else, some parents have adopted the attitude of If I'm going to get corona so the hell can my kid's teachers. What's lost in this is the very real possibility of their kids catching it too as well as spreading it at home and through the community. 

Today's news tells of a device shortage caused in part by the massive shift to online pandemic schooling, complex supply chains that involve several sources to build devices topped off with Trump trade sanctions against China where a lot of these devices and their component parts are produced. And to the surprise of nobody low end laptops and tablets are becoming more expensive because you know supply and demand and all. In places of low supply teachers are creating the dreaded learning packets that some parents equate with guaranteed proof of learning taking place. In others kids are using outdated laptops, misfiring ipads and their own or their family member's smartphones to stay connected and learn. 

Have we all by now seen the pic of the little girls sitting on a curb in the Taco Bell parking lot with their electronic devices trying to take advantage of the free wifi while Bezos, Gates and Musk are stacking their Coronavirus billions? France has just committed to paying workers between 70 and 85%  of their wages until July so the country can stay together, people can stay in their homes and nobody has to kill themselves out of sheer desperation. Imagine a place where the government takes active measures to look out for its citizens and puts its money where its mouth is.

We are experiencing an unprecedented event in post modern America. We can safely say that Late Stage capitalism has failed Americans miserably. The forces of this failed system are mustering now to push students and the adults who teach, feed, and drive them back into school buildings that are often poorly ventiated and lacking basics like hot tap water and windows that open all the way. Extra protective gear, cleaning supplies, personnel and sanitizers as well as drastically reduced class sizes, and social distancing will be required for schools to even hope to experience a safe reopening. But instead of additional funding to meet these Herculean requirements most schools are seeing their funding cut. Did I mention the U.S. military set a new record for the size of their latest budget?

I'm hoping to find some worthwhile messages in this mess. Hope you'll come along for the journey. Wash your hands, wear your mask and spread out.