Just Another Day in the Office...but it's Friday!

Wow!  This was quite a week. I'm learning a lot!

My first graders came into the library at noon.  I had noticed just before class that there was a notation made about them.  It said, "BIP-Please make sure not to let Lily and Nolan near each other."  Hmmmm.  Interesting.  I went out to pick up the kids in the hallway.  Within seconds, there was a little girl hanging onto my arm. I learned that this was Lily. I took the kids inside and sat them in front of the SMARTboard to start the lesson, but first I was going to read them a story. I was satisfied with the distance between Lily and Nolan. I started the story which was a simple biography about Pocahontas, but had to stop just a half a page in.  Lily was shouting, "Stop looking at me!  He's laughing at me!" She was pointing at Nolan, who, as far as I could tell, was not doing anything but sitting on the carpet listening to the story.  He said, "I am not...I'm just sitting here."  She started shouting over the top of his words, "You are too looking at me!  Stop looking at me!  I hate him!"  She would not stop shouting.  I asked her to be quiet.  "I will not be quiet.  HE needs to be quiet!"  I said, "Lily, do you need to go to a quiet space for a little break?"  (I asked this as gently as I could because I know that she is an emotionally broken child) Her response was, "NO!  HE IS LOOKING AT ME AND LAUGHING AT ME! I HATE HIM!"  At this point Mrs. R was calling the office for support.  One of the counselors came down and tried to get Lily to take a little walk with her.  She refused to get up.  At this point, it was suggested that the entire class move to another part of the library to read the story.  That is what we did...leaving Lily sitting angrily on the carpet.

While I was trying to read the story, the counselor was trying to deal with Lily, who had started to run around the library.  The counselor called for more support on her radio. A second counselor came down.  We continued to read the story as best as we could. Suddenly, they were gone and we finished the story and went over to the SMARTboard to continue the lesson. (which was about how biographies are written in chronological order by the way) On the board, the kids started dragging sentences of Poc's bio to put them in order chronologically. Then there was an announcement over the P.A. system.  "We are going into a level 1 lockdown."  A level 1 means that there is not a danger to the school as a whole, but for some reason, we need to lock our doors and stay in our classrooms.  About 20 minutes later, the lockdown was lifted.

I found out later that Lily had given them chase by running through the hallways of the school. It took three adults to finally bring her in.