9. One-On-One

One-On-One

A school district called me out of the blue because of my Biology endorsement, which was very nice.  They offered me a part-time position, ten hours per week, no benefits.  I would be the one-on-one teacher for a student who had been expelled. 

I had previously thought that expelled students lost the privilege of an education.  Now I learned otherwise.  The student had been enrolled in an advanced Biology course before being expelled.  They needed a teacher who could keep him moving forward in this area, along with his other courses. 

But why had he been expelled?  I asked, they didn’t know.  I asked them to please find out and get back to me.  They called back later and told me the infraction (smoking).  I had seen smoking disciplined before – student not expelled.  Smoking didn’t sound to me like a serious-enough offense to get the student permanently thrown out of school. 

Troubled students usually were suspended or went to an alternative program.  I had subbed in the alt program and had met those students.  I had seen their behavior, and the police had been involved the last time I was there.  The police didn’t seem to involve themselves in underage smoking very often.  The police knew these alt school kids and kept an eye on them.  They were a rough crowd, but they weren’t expelled.

This was worse.  It was complete expulsion. 

No more details about the student were available to me.

Where would I teach him?   There was a meeting room at a library we could use.  I asked for some time to think about it.

I still wanted a job, but this made me nervous.  I asked the advice of a retired local teacher who had dealt with troubled youth during his career.  He asked me why the young man had been expelled.  I told him the infraction -- smoking.  He thought it must be something worse than that – perhaps this was the technicality they had used to get him out, after a long history of trouble. 

He advised me to ask the following questions:

·      How old is this young man? (He could be as old as 21 and still be in high school.)

·      How physically big is he? (I am not a very large woman.)

·      Would I be alone with him, one-on-one? 

·      Could there be another person in the room as a witness for anything that happened? 

·      Could I be within sight of other adults at all times in case I was ever in danger? 

The district said they would investigate and get back to me with the answers.

I mentioned my other work and my business travel in May.  I would need a few days of unpaid leave and a substitute.  Again, as with the other district, it was a no go.  Regretfully, they said that they would have to find someone else.  They withdrew the offer.

He had been thrown out of school, but his advanced-science-and-everything-else personal one-on-one teacher couldn’t request a sub for ten hours in order to take unpaid leave for a trip she had scheduled before they sought her out for an emergency hiring.

I lost this job.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  That job scared me.  I’d already been involved in one narrowly-averted school killing spree.  I didn’t want to be closed in a room with a smoky kid who was too naughty to attend the alternative school.

Soon I had a decision to make.