Since I first met Julius, an entire section of my head has turned a vibrant shade of white. Julius is now 17 years old and I should have insisted that he be transferred to the alternative school years ago. He is now at least an entire year behind in credits, has been dragged to truancy hearings more times than I can remember and this coupled with his substance abuse I am now on a first name basis with his probation officer.
In my quest to rid our high school of any appearance of gang activity, he has been a prime target for three years. I have "encouraged" almost all of his friends to seek their education elsewhere... some via expulsion hearings, but for some reason this kid stole a chunk of what is left of my now jaded heart.
Now Julius stands about six foot four, quite imposing to those around him. He is stout for his age and would be perfectly suited for a defensive lineman on the football team if he could ever manage grade eligibility. He moved to our school from another district where his "uncles" are up to their wazoo in local gang activity. Julius has been in juvenile hall about four times, last year wore an ankle monitoring device to school just a few months before he almost died from a stab wound inflicted as a result of his "family doings."
As "scary" as this "gangster" may seem to anyone on the street, I have had no problem telling him to get his butt in my office and if he didn't straighten up I would rip his ears off and feed them to my Shih Tzus. He knew I would do it too.
To our amazement this school year Julius totally reinvented himself to become the model student. While visiting classrooms the first day of the school year, my principal and I were totally speechless when we entered a chemistry classroom and saw him sitting in the front row with his chemistry book open ready to learn!
We also heard stories of the health teacher going from classroom to classroom asking teachers to step in and see who he had taken on as his student aide. Julius had approached him the first day of school, apologized for the daily discipline referrals and offered his assistance. I even noticed he was not dressing in his normal "colors" and actually avoided all the beginning of the year "Homie drama." This kid had renewed my faith in this generation and I had high hopes for his future and his ability to actually "get away from his family."
Until today... I had just returned from a doctors appointment. I won't go into details, but let just say if I ever see another latex glove I think I will be too soon! I walked into school and realized that I had entered a war zone. I shook my head, thinking to myself how quickly things change in public high schools. I had left the place in peace!
My first eye contact was with Julius who was seated outside my colleagues office breathing heavy and red eyed. I blurted, "What did you do"? when my colleague summoned me into her office. She reported that a teacher had stepped outside his classroom to find Julius and friends in a cloud of marijuana smoke. Administration was summoned and the boys were quite belligerent on the way to the office. In an attempt to calm Julius, she tapped him on the arm only to send him into a rage... he swung his arms back and when she flinched he said "Yeah, that is what I thought." She told me she thought he was going to hit her.
I swung open the door and repeated the phrase he has heard many times before ... "Julius get your butt in here... NOW"! He was quite upset and kept saying, she kept poking me! I told her not to poke me! I calmed him down and took him to my office. Almost immediately he began sobbing. He had been working for so long to get his act together, and in a matter of moments he was now facing juvenile hall again. Did I mention that none of the boys were in the possession of drugs or paraphernalia.
I had to fight the tears myself... for now four years I have watched this kid fight his background, pay for his bad decisions both physically and emotionally and now there was literally nothing I could do! I made a lame attempt to speak to him about anger management and explain to him due to his size when he acted in anger it startled people... with great size comes great responsibility. (Being vertically challenged myself I have never faced this dilemma)
I left him sobbing, returned to my colleague still a bit shaken from in the incident and now in the company of law enforcement. I can count on one hand the times I have asked the police to go easy with a student, but I was willing to eat a bug to keep this kid out of the Hall. He had come too far to lose it all now!
Being compassionate by nature, my colleague requested to speak to him again. He tried his best to swallow his tears, but once again he began sobbing... she praised him for his good work, but was firm with the discipline. He was cited by the police, but not with a felony threat against a government (school) official as they have in the past. This is an ugly place, Julius needed to be taught this behavior is not acceptable, if we did nothing he would surely repeat it, possibly outside the "safe" school zone. On the other hand, throwing him back in juvenile hall would only crush his attempts of reform.
Today I spoke to his probation officer in my office... we both know how hard this kid has worked, but now his fate will rest in the hands of the courts. It breaks my heart that most kids just don't understand that just a moment of stupidity can drastically alter their life. Some end up in prison, pregnant, hospital or even dead as a result of only one poor decision. Making them understand the stakes of this game called LIFE is truly a challenge and one that the adults in their lives should not take lightly. As a child I remember playing games and yelling "do over." This was one of those times my heart ached to yell that redeeming phrase, unfortunately we don't always have that option.
