A Moultrie Middle School student took his father’s pocketknife to school Wednesday because he wanted to “attack and kill” a classmate who was picking on him, authorities said.
Mount Pleasant police said the 13-year-old boy instead held the knife over his head and lunged at a teacher who escaped injury as she escorted the other students out of the classroom.
The boy, a special needs student who has been attending anger management classes, was taken to the S.C. Department of Juvenile Justice.
As tempting as it will be to pass judgement on this student and his parents, please try not to. This could have been my child, who has a host of emotional issues and learning disabilities, receives a variety of medicines under the care of a superb pediataric psychiatrist, sees a counselor weekly, and yet has threatened classmates as a result of on-going, unaddressed teasing and bullying. Mercifully for us, my child receives excellent services through our county, and his school psychologist recognized the need for a theraputic intervention, as opposed to a disciplinary intervention. I’m so grateful that this school psychologist has cultivated a relationship of trust with my child. I’m also grateful I live in a county that (currently) has excellent services for kids with special needs.
None of this effort, however, guarantees that my child will not act very badly. Needless to say, I pray a lot for my child, and my other children. If you are horrified by the behavior of that SC middle school boy, please pray for him and his family. They really need your prayers.
Here in Florida, our county just announced the closing of two schools, one a special needs school. Yesterday the county announced a further 4% cut in the operational budget of the school system.
I interviewed for a teacher’s aid position at an elementary school. The principal told me that he only receives the qualified applications from the School Board, and for this one aid position he was sent [b]60[/b] applications, many of which were from applicants with higher ed degrees unable to find a job, or recently let go from teaching positions!
Further, he said, he will have to choose 24 very competent teachers to let go at the end of the school year thanks to that 4% budget cut mentioned earlier.
Needless to say, I did NOT get the job.
The point? With all the cuts, how in the world can a caring teacher POSSIBLY get students like the one in the article the help they need? I think we are going to see more stories like this one in the coming months of the school year, not less.