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I have this kind of vague theory that when I start waking up randomly throughout the night, it means I am stressed.

If you know me at all, you probably know that I've always been a kind of stressed-out person, one who thrives under pressure and excels when she is busiest. But I've never had trouble sleeping: once I fell asleep, that was it. I was out until morning. End of story.

But working with the students and situations that I do now, all that has changed. - That is the only theory I can come up with.

So the fact that I woke up inexplicably at 4:53 this morning probably signifies that we have settled in to another school year. Two of my students have been hospitalized... Actually, in two consecutive school days. Friday, and then Monday. In the past when my students were hospitalized, they went home from school and then their parents made a decision at home, or some kind of escalation of events occurred at home. Friday while I was in Michigan, and again yesterday, something happened at school that put us in a position of having to call SASS - basically call for an evaluation of the child. (I can't remember what the acronym is.) From there they were hospitalized.

The thing is, with all the structural changes being implemented in our school (mainly, departmentalizing - the fact that we are no longer self-contained all day every day), every student is in crisis at some point. Every day. Many of our students are in crisis almost the entirety of each day - and because their needs are louder, more violent, and more noticeable than other students' needs, we have become emotional and behavioral firefighters. Therapy is a joke. We are treading water to stay afloat.