Here's a new post idea for me. Every Friday I'm going to give another reason why I'm not putting my kids into the schooling institution whether public or private. They'll be mostly based on my experiences and readings as a public school teacher.
So here's what rattled me today...
1st period, almost 8am, kid raises his hand and asks for a pass to the nurse. I write the pass, he comes up to the front to pick it up then proceeds to walk out the door. On his way, drops the pass, bends over to pick it up, knocks my plant and picture frame off the desk into the trash can, walks out. I look at the other kids and ask "did he do that on purpose?, did he know he did that?" Other kid sitting by the door doesn't know. 15 seconds later another student returns from the restroom and says, "Hey Mrs. Jimenez did you know Kid is passed out out there?" I say "no" run outside to see Kid lying flat on the concrete, out cold, body all twisted. I run back to my room to call the office for security to come. And tell kid by the door to run to the office to get help. When I think of the nurse, I'm not sure why I said to call security since that doesn't make any sense, I start running in my flip flops and jeans through the hall to get the nurse but kid runner is walking back from the office towards Kid with the principal... very.... very... very... slowly...
A minute later, Nurse arrives and looks at the kid, bends down puts her hand on his back, sees the blood coming out of his nose and mouth, looks up and says "does anybody have a phone? call 911" student coming from restroom pulls out phone and calls 911, principal says "I got it" as he slowly pulls phone out of pocket and slowly dials 911. A minute later I ask "should I call his mom?" Since he's my student I can access mom's phone number and call her. They say no, the nurse will do it. Well uh I think the nurse is busy trying to get him back to consciousness. Five minutes later, I see principal calling mom but tried 5 numbers before finally getting through to her. Nurse asks me how long before student discovered him, how long till she arrived. We figure he was completely out for about 3 minutes till he opened his eyes. Nurse starts asking Kid questions, "do you remember when you fell?" "no" "does your head hurt?" "no" Of course his head hurts he fell on concrete! Ambulance arrives, about 20 minutes later they finally get him on the stretcher and another 10 minutes later ambulance leaves very slowly. I'm praying that he is okay. Said Kid is always very quiet, frequently out "sick" and I never pay much attention to him. Now I fell really bad because I think in order for this to happen, he must be really sick.
So, why I'm not putting my kid in school... response to emergency is WAY TOO SLOW. If something happens to my kid I want people responding QUICKLY. And I want to know about it ASAP. How am I going to do that? Just keep him home where he gets one on one attention all day and we are in tune with him completely.
As my mom pointed out after venting to her, nurse and principal see this type of occurence more frequently than me and since it was my first time I may be overreacting.
That sounds scary! After looking at the outrageous tuition for private school I am even more convinced I want to homeschool. My dad even offered to help. He sort of homeschooled us on weekends because he is convinced schools do not teach kids anything. I will have to figure out how to make it work with my career though because I do not think I will be a SAHM in five years. We'll see...
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