When 10 Percent becomes 30 to 50 Percent...

He wasn't at school this Friday. Three months ago this would have status quo, but today it broke my heart.

J. was placed on my caseload about 3 months ago. When I initially looked at his academic, attendance and behavior record I thought, "this ought to be a doo-sie..." He was attending school only 25% of the time and when he would show up, he was constantly getting kicked out of class for being disruptive. He'd not had a grade higher than an F in years. The first day having J. in my classes, I was pleasantly surprised to meet a polite young man who actually seemed to get some of the lame jokes I throw out during class that normally go over my students' heads.

As the days and weeks went on, I discovered that J.'s home life is an absolute wreck. There really isn't any element of 'home' involved in his life from what I can tell. His mother is on drugs [which,if I questioned, was clarified after meeting to talk with her about getting J. to school on a regular basis] and only comes to the house J. and his sisters live in once in a while. Needless to say, I am the one signing his progress reports for his other classes. There is never less than 10 people in and out of the house on any given day; J. told me he doesn't usually know who they are but assumes they are his mom's "friends". He doesn't have any other family in the area and hasn't been able to make friends as he has moved schools every 4-5 months. Basically, the kid has been on his own in the world with little to no rules, boundaries, limitations or even basic care.

I had the opportunity I'd been waiting and preparing for for the past few years: to intervene and show what it is like to have someone really care and provide structure, rules, discipline, advice and consistency in a student's life who truly NEEDS that. I get to see J. for at least 3 hours a day, which is likely more time than he spends with any adult. I truly poured the next couple of months into pushing J. to do his best in school. We talked about what it takes to be successful and how, for him particularly, education is the key to a brighter future. I'm so proud of him for actually listening to me [at least one of them listens to my daily rants and lectures on life!] and stepping up. The past 4 weeks he has only missed one day of school and has three C's and 2 F's. He tells me, with a little smile on his face, exactly what he did to be more productive and successful each day and I pump him up and encourage him to keep going...

Unfortunately, it turns out that J. has been involved with a couple of older boys(17 and 18) who dropped out of high school and spend their time in all sorts of no good. J. has attention, auditory and visual processing deficits which, by no means excuse him from criminal activity, but definitely make him easily influenced by peers and/or people he perceives as friends. Last week, J. was pulled out of class and questioned by an officer at school who revealed that the police have physical evidence linking J. to at least 5 home break-ins, numerous theft jobs and one arson case. J. was visibly scared and, not surprisingly, admitted to everything he did and gave the officer all the information he requested.

Here is what truly makes my heart ache:
J and a 5th grader working with/for the 17/18 year old were given 5 dollars for breaking into the homes and taking out what they could. I can account for 2-3 dollars of that money each week. J. buys his school supplies from me.When arrested, the older boys told the officer that they could get J. to do whatever they wanted because he had such a messed up family life. I feel like he never had a chance for anything but this; a victim of circumstance and irresponsibility. I can't say that, if I was born into his life, I'd make any better decisions.

J. was told that he would be arrested within a week or so for his crimes and we wondered if he would show up the next day at school. He did, and he had all his homework and makeup work I told him he needed to do. He came everyday this week with the same positive attitude and motivation. Except Friday.

We'll see what comes of this, but I know that no matter what happens I will be at his hearings to show him that I do truly care about him and that he still has a chance to better his life through education. Maybe Juvenile Hall will be a more stable living environment for him. Maybe he will have an awesome teacher who understands his learning differences and sees the kid who wants to succeed that I do. Maybe he'll get his GED there or even get out and finish high school. Maybe he will keep his head up and strive to make something better of his life despite incarceration. Maybe he won't get out and have become yet another learning disabled adult who will be in and out of prison for a lifetime. Maybe. I don't know if I believe that any of those 'maybes' will be true for J. or not, but it can't hurt for him to think that I do.

I found the following statistic on the National Center on Education, Disability and Juvenile Justice:

"Approximately 10 percent of youth are identified as disabled and in need of special education by public school systems nationally. In contrast, 30 to 50 percent of incarcerated youth have disabilities (Casey & Keilitz, 1990; Murphy, 1986). In other words, the prevalence of youth with disabilities is three to five times greater in juvenile corrections than in public school populations. This troubling phenomenon, called overrepresentation or disproportionate representation, occurs most frequently among incarcerated youth with emotional or behavioral disorders (EBD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities (LD), and mild mental retardation (MR) (Rutherford, Bullis, Anderson, & Griller, 2000)."

Let alone a "messed up" family life.

7th grade is just too late for a mentor,counselor or teacher to step into these kids' lives to hopefully prevent things like this from happening. I wish for J., and many others like him, that someone had seem him earlier.

PS. I wish there were more people like Kacie Stratton and places like The Greenhouse in this world.