the first day it's rained

It's funny: this weekend I was camping with a bunch of friends, telling some of them about my commute to work (I bike 16 miles roundtrip each day), and one of the asked me, "What do you do when it rains?" Instead of answering, I listed off all the things I've considered for solutions if it does rain. But it hadn't rained yet.

Last night my new phone was dying, but because it's new, I need to let the battery die all the way before I charge it, and because it's my alarm, I couldn't mute it. It beeped every half hour through the night (and for the record, it still hasn't died). At 3:30am, two (or more) cats in our incredibly acoustic alleyway had the loudest fight I have ever heard. At 5:45, my alarm went off, and at 6:40, on my commute, I failed to get my foot out of the strap pedals on my roadbike and fell over in front of a line of traffic. At 7:40, the social worker of one of our students came in to tell us (Nick, Amy, me) that the student had been hospitalized over the course of last night. We were heartbroken.

This student (let's call him H), has been doing pretty well in class, actually doing over 50% of his work. This is quite the feat for him. He's had maybe 2 timeouts, if that; although he's sometimes disrespectful, most of the trouble is getting him to do his work. And when he does it, he's performing near the top of our 6-boy class. His parents hospitalized him, though, which is apparently something they've always wanted and thought necessary. He will miss at least 2 weeks of class. A lot of not so good stuff had happened up until that point in my morning, but it wasn't until this news that I began to feel a little like I'd been punched in the stomach.

The day quickly unraveled from there. One student had earned an ISS (in-school suspension) at the end of the day yesterday for trying to hit another student with a chair and trying to stab the same classmate with a pencil. (Keep a tally now, that's one absent and one in ISS.) Two more boys came in in foul moods. One was sent to time out within a half hour, and his actions en route to the time out room (kicking, spitting on staff) earned him an ISS. The other earned three time outs over the course of 2 hours, and three time outs is an automatic ISS. Even A., who usually sleeps through the day, was awake and getting in the mix. He got his second time out of the year today.

Of six students, by the end of the day, we had only A. left. One had gone to his mainstream school for the afternoon, one was hospitalized by his parents, and three were in ISS. Nick was slapped, kicked, punched, and spit at. Amy was verbally threatened, as was I. We were all sworn at - and vulgarly, too. S. threw a desk, a chair, and the biggest tantrum I have seen from him (or any middle school boy) yet. The desk broke one of the wooden cubbies in our classroom. He had to be restrained from tackling Amy. As for paperwork, I think we filed 7 incident reports (and then 7 follow-ups) today. Plus copying 2 weeks' worth of school work to send to H. in the hospital.

When I left the school at 2:50, a gigantic navy blue-black cloud was approaching from the north. It caught me as I was turning on to my street on my bike, but I made it inside without getting too wet. I don't know what I'll do if it's raining in the morning. But I definitely feel like today, it's true: it never rains but it pours.

If I didn't have Jesus to give me strength and hope, I don't know how I'd have made it.