Drama King

The drama at work is utterly and completely out of control. The foster parents of my student who just qualified (after a lengthy evaluation) to be in an Emotional Behavior Disorder classroom sent me another harrassing email. This one included the following phrase: "You chose to make Jarred a target of your frustrations and now as his parent I'm going to make sure that you fly right the rest of the year." as well as this threat: "...I have no choice but to escalate this to the district and our representative from the school board to file a formal complaint against you....I am putting you on notice that for the rest of the school year you are going to have me, Jarred's social worker, his CASA, Gretchen, Sheila, and anyone else I bring in with their collective eyes on you." If these phrases make you think, "Oh my god! What happened?" I can assure you, that was also my reaction. The two foster dads of this child are trying to adopt him and the only reason I can think for their purpose in doing this is to try to discredit me because I am going to be one of the people asked by the courts to give my opinion of them. For some reason, they have the impression I blame them for his behavior. This was actually never my concern. Jarred comes from an abusive, neglectful family and it's why he was placed in foster care. I never believed these two men had anything to do with his behavioral and emotional issues.....until now. These are angry and threatening (threatened?) individuals who lack maturity and the skills to act as a role model for this child. The worst of it is that they have hit me in the heart. My "job" is something I put everything into. I am a full time caregiver, nurturer, and advocate for 25 children. Many of these children have seen things that no one should ever see and been treated in ways that no one should ever be subjected. I have a big "job" to do and I would venture to say that most people would never sign up for it and few of those who do would stay committed to it. On many days, with this child in particular, I feel like I'm a glutton for punishment and even *I* question my sanity in doing this day after day. I've come to find out that these attacks on teachers are commonplace. I am beginning to question if I'm game to take this abuse for years to come.

On a lighter note, I was able to conclude my horrible day with a treat last night. We went to see The Lion King at the Paramount. Mom bought us the tickets because they loved the show so much they saw in Indy. I can see why! I was blown away. The costumes, the sets, the music. It was truly and totally amazing. We had phenomenal seats, too, so that made the event that much more magical. I am really lucky to have parents who love the arts so much! When they come visit in a couple of weeks, we are going to see Hello, Dolly at the 5th Avenue theatre. The show won't be anything like The Lion King, but it will be neat to see the inside of that theater, since I never splurge to see any of the shows there. Also, I was Dolly in our HS production back in the day, so it will be fun to relive the show. Since then, in NYC, I saw Carol Channing as Dolly, but we had horrible seats and it wasn't much fun. The seats really do make a difference. As much as I loved seeing Wicked in LA over Xmas, I didn't feel totally consumed by it because I would have needed opera glasses to see their expressions.