EPIC Fail

Today, our wonderful school system failed some of our future generation. I teach junior high special education, so really I not only teach but I am a mother, a nurse, and a counselor. I have had this one student I will call him Slacker, who is a royal pain in my a**. He is always getting in fights, he is always bullying other students, and he make poor choices. His mother blames and blames for all of his problems, "it is the other kids", "his teachers do not like him", blah, blah, freaking blah. He never, EVER takes home homework, and if he does he fails to bring it back. He is a student, that needs some serious mental health counseling. He needs a strong male role model to show him the way. He would also benefit from a swift kick in the butt. Anytime something does not go his way, he becomes insubordinate, he fights authority and has utter disrespect for the rules. We (my team) recently discussed moving him to a behavioral class, mainly because of his behaviors. Monday he got in another fight on the bus, with a very loveable yet smelly young man. He got 10 days out of school suspension. He has been suspended or absent 35 of the 104 days we have been in school. He needs another placement.

The main reason for this post is to talk about Auto Mechanic. Auto Mechanic will never go on to a higher institution of learning, yet he is great with bikes, four wheelers, and even cars. My goal for him is to get him into a career program where he can get certified to work on motors, or cars, or something. I have a goal for this kid. I see promise in him, he got into a fight last week, his first fight this year. He was provoked by another student who, yes is very very annoying. He did some real damage to this student and sent him to the hospital. Now the student who was hospitalized did get hit in the head pretty good, and maybe just maybe suffered some temporary memory loss. But Auto Mechanic got an out of school suspension for 10 days. I had been hearing rumors all week that Auto Mechanic was going to be removed from my case load and placed into the school north of here, that is reserved for really BAD, BAD, dangerous students. This is his first fight of the school year, he has potential unlike Slacker student who is looking for the easy way out. WE failed Auto Mechanic, in a big way.
It is all I can do to focus on what I need to be focusing on right now, I feel like an utter failure, I failed, we failed, and this time we can't fix it. Auto Mechanic is going to go be with some really BAD kids, and I see this as a spiral and now Auto Mechanic has no reason to even try. WE FAILED.