Reverting, Re-entering, Progressing

I’m worried – but still hopeful – about Jose. His in-school suspension turned into an out-of school suspension after he got into a fight with another student who was distracting him while he was trying to do his school work. There are two ways I view what happened. On the one hand, that Jose would actually be focusing on doing school work after getting suspended is a total 360 from last year. On the other hand, he reverted to his old behavior by letting the situation with the other student escalate into a physical fight.

Students on out-of-school suspensions are sent to Alternative Learning Centers (ALC). In Jose’s case he had a seven day suspension at an ALC. I worried a lot about him during this time, specifically that the ALC environment might provoke him to revert even further to his old aggressive and erratic behavior. While some ALCs are well managed and orderly, (and Partnership with Children works in several of these), others are mayhem. Unfortunately, Jose was in a more chaotic ALC.

The situation at the ALC was out of my control however. As a social worker I sometimes find myself in a circumstance where I have to accept that I can not control the situation or make it better in the future. In this case, I knew all I could do was plan to make Jose’s re-entry to our school smooth and to make sure he did not have any lingering anger issues from the suspension.

Bottom line, I want to see Jose succeed. We provide a supportive environment in our PACE group (for students that have been held back), but Jose has to eventually learn to handle himself without our support. Maybe I was swayed by the impressive advances he’s made in class and with his peers, and I lost sight of the fact that he is still a teenager working through his emotions and learning to control his behavior. How much can I expect him to grow in just a few months? I have to continue to praise and support him but also check my expectations.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Jose, our self-proclaimed valedictorian, who has shown so much growth this year, academically and emotionally, got suspended this week. He got a 5 day in-school suspension for being rude to a teacher and walking out of school. At first I was shocked, but I knew he would stumble at some point.

When I walked into the suspension room, or Accountability Studio as they call it, he was in the corner doing work. Normally suspended students run amok in the Studio, so, to see him working quietly in the corner showed me that he realizes he made a mistake, and he doesn’t want to fall behind in school.

This past week I dealt with more crisis than usual overall, and I think it has to do with the Thanksgiving holiday. For a lot of the children we work with, the holidays bring up all the tension, insecurity and anger they try to suppress. The holidays are stressful for kids in broken homes, living in poverty, or dealing with any types of issues with their families. This week that a lot of kids were on edge emotionally – even the smallest event could set them off. One girl had her hair pulled and ended up weeping in our office for an hour. On any regular weekday, she would have gotten over the situation a lot faster and with less emotion.

I also noticed this week that Jose was wearing a button of his uncle who was in a Puerto Rican motorcycle gang, and was killed. He used to wear the button last year, but stopped since September. I’m not sure why Jose started wearing it again this week, but I think perhaps it’s because of the holiday. He’s still not living with his mother, and this family-centered holiday must be difficult for him. His uncle is a male role model –albeit a negative one – and maybe he needs the thought of a male figure to help him get through the holidays without his mom, or dad.

Report Card

A quick and exciting update! I just found out that Jose got a 94% overall on his report card! At this time  last year his average was probably about 65-70%! He's feeling pretty proud right about now. In fact, he already has his heart set on being the school valedictorian.


I'm including a photo here from our recent after-school trip to the International Center of Photography. We paired up our kids with volunteers from Transatlantic Reinsurance, and took part in a digital photo program about self-portraiture. The kids loved it, and, even got to take home prints of their photos.