Save Them All: A public school teacher's experience with severe child abuse, street gangs, and problems facing our schools

By Wendy Green

Save Them All contains true and shocking stories of underprivileged and troubled kids living in the beautiful Bay Area of Northern California. The book is written with empathy, irony, and a touch of comedy and also gives deep insight into the lives of everyday kids, on political issues, the struggles facing our public school teachers, and the societal issues that bring on many of these problems. Many of the stories contain disturbing accounts of the issues facing the everyday life of the "at-risk" students and the struggles of a rookie teacher contending with the conflict between her desire to contribute and the realities of society's failures. Topics are suicide, gangs, drug abuse, murder, and child abuse and neglect. The book is not a condemnation of our public schools but is meant to be an insight into the realities politicians and society refuse to address. It is a must-read if you care about kids, schools, the politics of education, and how to make a difference. Save Them All will shock and inspire, educate and entertain, create laughter and tears, and possibly influence the reader to implement change. All names have been changed for privacy and confidentiality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781641402378

Book preview

Foreword

Originally, when I started writing this book, it was because I thought I had a lot to say about working in a public school and more specifically working with at-risk kids at a continuation school. I thought this book would be enlightening to the reader and would, to use the old cliché, make a difference. I wanted to write something that would educate and entertain. The original book was started about two and a half years ago. I would write a little here and there, but the words never would release themselves in a continuum in a natural way.

In the spring and summer of this year, I was healing from a broken heart. My husband and I had separated, and my family was all over the place. This experience was like climbing from a terrible dark place to a place of beauty, light and peace and hit home the realization that God and family are the greatest gifts we have.

When I woke up, I realized that my family was in a state of intense change and turmoil. I began to reassemble the science and art of life, starting with another go of it with my husband of twenty-six years. A broken heart and, more importantly, healing from a broken heart seem to have been the fuel for this emotional memoir that goes into details about my years as a public school teacher in California’s beautiful bay area. Thus, I picked up this book again this summer, and the memories and the words seemed to race from my head and heart into my hands.

Somehow it took a deeply personal emotional experience of my own to enable me to tell the story of what I saw in our schools, which in my experience directly mirrors society. The stories contain just a few brief accounts of my own experiences as they relate to this writing.

The healing process for my heart has been the catalyst for me to pour out the emotions and memories in this book. Like the memories kept tightly inside almost every human heart, the memories I share with my readers are full of love and hate, laughter and tears, despair and forgiveness, loneliness and revelations, chaos and overcrowding, shock and boredom, rage and passivity, and sadness and joy! I hope these memories can provide a channel of learning and hope for children yesterday, today, and tomorrow and the child in us all.

Letter from a Peer

To the Reader,

This letter was written to me by a good friend and peer who wholeheartedly puts her heart into working with students in my school district. She wrote this letter to me after reading my manuscript over a weekend. At that time, I was working as an elementary physical education teacher (and was finished with the experiences you will read in this book), and she was employed by the district as a yard duty/teacher assistant. I thought I would share her letter with my readers, so if you care to read it, read on! Or just skip this part…as always, the choice is yours.

Miss Wendy Green,

First, let me start by telling you that it is midnight on October 12, 2011, and I am up reading your manuscript. The manuscript I haven’t been able to put down since arriving home from my day at Grant Elementary School. Not only did I find your book riveting, educational, and enlightening—just to use a few adjectives—I shed a few tears, laughed, and thought with concern myself as to the whereabouts of these misguided souls.

I also wonder where you came from, how you were raised (must have been by amazing people), where you got your strength/drive, and how you kept your sanity. I sometimes question my own sanity from my school days, although my experiences compare in any way to yours.

I feel in reading your writings that you must often feel blessed as well as cursed. I am truly impressed (blown away) actually with your drive, your thirst for knowledge, your many accomplishments, most of which you have conquered fearlessly for whatever reason. I could actually feel tugs at my heartstrings upon reading your thoughts and experiences.

Your book is beautifully written, easily expressed, so I as the reader can follow with ease. I also found some items quite disturbing. My thoughts are, I’m shocked that society would treat fellow human beings in such a manner that I wouldn’t call acceptable in a so-called civilized society. I feel your book needs to be read by as many people as possible that a publisher can provide. And also, I would be truly honored if I could either purchase a copy of your manuscript or hopefully wait for my own autographed and published copy!

I would treasure it and pass it on to others to read as well. Your dedication as a teacher, mother, and humanitarian shows the incredible woman I could sense from our first few encounters. This led me to wonder, how do you do what you do? Are our choices predetermined to us unknowingly as humans? Were you sent here from heaven to be a guardian angel to these children/students, lost souls? I was sorry to learn you lost so many students along your journey.

Maybe this is God’s way of leading them to the final peace they all need. Who knows? I sometimes ask myself this question: how do I perform in the situations I must deal with in my school environment? Do I make the right choices helping the students I encounter? Do I really make a difference? Every day, I hope I do!

I truly feel you are an inspiration to all you encounter, and I also feel that educators are greatly abused and underpaid. But like you have mentioned, just when you’re ready to give up/quit/lose your mind, that one kid (you know the one), the kid you just want to choke, that kid will one day run across the playground just to give you a hug. Or the cool one who will stroll across the campus nonchalantly with that silly smirk—the smile that connects the two of you in some strange way. Or maybe they just wanted to tell their mom or dad, Hey, that’s my teacher! And all of a sudden, that small Jack in the Box paycheck, that headache you suffered, and the sleepless week you spent worrying about him or her seem really small. Because in that brief moment, your heart soars to the moon! All the blood rushes through your veins, and peace comes to your soul, knowing that you made a difference in that person’s life!

Hopefully because of knowing you, your words or actions are being repeated to their very own family member—brother, sister, or mother—actually helping someone else out of a bad situation.

That’s why we’re all here after all, to make the world a better place! You are an amazing person, and I am blessed to have met you! And thank you so much for allowing me to read your manuscript. I hope there will be many more books to follow. You’re very talented.

Sincerely,

Julie Aguiar

PS: Have you seen Freedom Writers with Hillary Swank or Gridiron Gang with Dwayne Johnson? I highly recommend them both after he intimidated or robbed them because they were afraid of the repercussions from his anger. He would retaliate by harassing them later after school.

In my program, the average is about two students each year who can’t seem to get it together enough to keep from earning another expulsion from school. The rest of them will make it through the school year to move on to the next grade and back to a normal school.

No matter how hard a teacher tries and how much discipline, love, and often prayers are offered to or for the kids, the end is still the same for some of them. Those efforts sometimes simply cannot turn a kid around who is on a path of destruction and hopelessness. For a variety of reasons, some of these kids seem as if they cannot or just will not change their ways.

In March of 2008, my first student that school year was expelled from my program, and even though I knew that staying in my class was harmful to both him and the other kids in the class, I still felt a huge sense of loss for his failure. To know that his failure meant that he was on a path of destruction, that 90 percent of the time would end either in prison or death is a terrible feeling.

The reasons are profound and societal, and many call such cases predictable. Some are crack babies, many have a father in prison, and they tell me in a very matter-of-fact voice, I’ve never met my dad, I don’t even know who or where he is. They don’t search for or care, or even think, that they should have a dad because the nonexistence of a man in life is what they know. It’s what they have always known. It is their norm, what’s normal for them.

Many of their mothers are gone too, so some are being raised by girlfriends, otherwise known in some circles as one of my bitches of a prison inmate. Sometimes it’s an aunt or other relative, but more often than not, it is an aging grandmother who has taken on the daunting task of trying to raise an incorrigible and mixed-up youth. Free from responsibilities, she could go to church and reminisce about the old days with friends instead of spending time looking for teen drug programs or getting her grandson or daughter out of bed and to school. Once the child is at school, the woman has to make sure he/she stays there instead of out on the streets. It’s almost impossible for one person to do alone.

I commend and have the utmost respect for these grandmothers, aunts, and other relatives for their bravery, efforts, and hearts. To take on someone else’s child can be an overwhelming task. Usually, they are soulful and disciplined women, often trying to make good on what their crack-addicted, prison-incarcerated, or mentally ill child could not handle. Society views them as the previous generation’s leftovers of social sickness and despair, not somebody’s son or grandson or sister or mother. I think these caretakers are some of the strongest examples of the human spirit that you can find in the United States today! They are not the highest on the socioeconomic ladder perhaps but resilient and powerful all the same.

Unfortunately, there is not much support, either monetary or humane, to help these women (and a tiny and ever-increasing amount of men), and they usually lack the education, skills, and support to keep a kid on track. Sometimes these women do have the savvy to obtain the skills and support, but some kids seem to be running toward failure and hopelessness that can only be stopped with divine intervention.

I am a public school teacher who has the title of Opportunity Teacher. The Opportunity Program is a program set up (usually each district has at least one program like mine) to house those kids who have been expelled from a comprehensive or regular classroom. Most of the kids have severe behavior issues. Their previous teachers gave them enough disciplinary referrals to add up to twenty days’ suspension, which equals an expulsion. This is the best-case scenario for a student who is placed in my program.

Others bring a knife or a gun to school or fight so often or severely they’re charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Once I had a kid who was in my program because he made a Molotov cocktail and set a school on fire. Some are runaways who are forced by the SARB (Student Attendance Review Board) to attend school. The alternative is their parent or guardian may be fined, or even put in jail. I receive several students each year who wear electronic monitoring devices or ankle bracelets put on by the juvenile courts to track them, sometimes following in their parents’ careers as inmates.

I had a boy once who was wearing the ankle bracelet after his release from juvenile hall. He still had to be watched very closely after his release because his crime was raping his nine-year-old brother. For obvious reasons, the courts would not allow him unsupervised visits with his brother or family members.

It is my hope that as you read the following stories, you may gain greater insight into the lives of American kids (and sadly these kids are becoming less and less a rarity), the public schools, family, public education, and societal issues and what it is like to work in a public school system in California. I feel sure the stories you read mirror every other state in our nation, especially the farther inner city one travels.

All of the stories that you will read are true hand accounts of my experience of working in the public schools, specifically with very high-risk kids. All of the names of the students and school employees have been changed (except for one you will meet at the end of the book) for the obvious reason of confidentiality.

The Start

I was thirty-five years old when I finished college and was ready to begin my career as a public school teacher in the Bay Area of California. My youngest and fourth child was about to begin kindergarten, and I had been an at-home mom, housewife, and student for quite some time.

I returned to college to earn my teaching credentials and master’s degree after a long period of time at home when my youngest child, Adam, was able to attend preschool. Once Adam was old enough to attend preschool, I felt I could go to work. His dad had his own business and was able to help me with picking up Adam and his brother and sisters from school.

Besides, we had four children whom we hoped would attend college. The added income would be a great asset (okay, not a great asset on a teacher’s salary but a good one) for our growing family. We struggled along for years like most young people trying to raise a family.

When I interviewed for my position at a public continuation school, I had even less experience working with kids with problems than I had with the experience of being a new teacher. I had taught equestrian sports, ballet, and other dance styles in the private sector. Private teaching is quite different from teaching in a public school. The rules and guidelines are much more vague and loose than those of a public school. The public school setting is far more institutionalized and must be run with strict guidelines, especially since they are supported by public funds.

The principal who interviewed me read over my resume and said, Your accomplishments and interests are very impressive. However, because of them, I still have concerns as to whether or not this teaching position will be a good fit for you.

In my previous life, before I was married and started my family, I worked as a waitress, model, ballet dancer, and horseback riding teacher and trainer. I was also currently into riding and training my horse, Sinbad, for endurance racing and was looking forward to the renowned Tevis Cup, a prestigious one-hundred-mile endurance race on the Nevada/California border.

The principal, Mr. Smith, was interested in starting a dance program at the school, so my previous dance experience was an added bonus as far as he was concerned.

The man interviewing me had a picture of a white soft-spoken blonde woman in her thirties who practiced and loved ballet and rode horses and was passionate about almost all the arts. These credentials gave the picture of someone who was snooty or classist, definitely not the typical tough person who would be the best candidate for working with intercity kids, the majority of whom were Hispanic or black. Many legitimate studies show that kids interact better with someone who looks like them, at least initially. I think it’s safer to say that kids and people in general interact better with someone they can relate to rather than someone who has the same skin color or race.

What Mr. Smith needed was a teacher experienced in working with students who had severe social and behavior issues and are sometimes violent. I did not actually fill the bill, so to speak, but my education and credentials were in order. Besides, I’m pretty sure no one else was dumb enough to apply for the job. Mr. Smith desperately needed a teacher for the position the following week. Toward the end of our interview, he said, The students will be out having lunch soon. It lasts about twenty minutes. Why don’t you go outside, walk around the school, and mingle with them?

In any case, he was looking to see how I would interact with the behaviorally challenged kids before he would hire me. In other words, he wanted to see if I could handle the kids, or if they would send me running and probably crying or screaming back to my cozy home in the Castro Valley hills with my upper middle class lifestyle. I seriously was terrified because I had lived a somewhat sheltered life. At the very least, I had no experience whatsoever of working with kids who were in a continuation high school. Almost all of them had been kicked out of a regular school, and most had broken the law and looked like young thugs and hoodlums, but the position was the only full-time and permanent position that the school district was offering at the start of the second semester (midyear). I was more than ready to start my teaching career.

I’ve always liked to challenge myself, and besides, hadn’t I seen Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds after all? In my fantasy world or best-case scenario, I thought if she could do it, then I could do it too! It couldn’t really be that bad, or could it? Mentally, I was preparing and convincing myself. The previous teacher quit the job, and I found out later she came close to having a nervous breakdown. At the very least, I figured that I could learn to work with these kids, and I was excited to really try to use the now old cliché of making a difference. I pretended to not be nervous and simply said, No problem, to his request that I go out and mingle with the kids.

My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I could hear it, and it was hard to breathe. I’m sure that Mr. Smith could see how nervous I was, as my nostrils were flaring in and out as I struggled for panicked air. I worried that he could hear my heart bravely pumping to the requests and demands of my mind.

Mr. Smith smiled kindly with eyes that rivaled Paul Newman’s and said, See you back here in about twenty minutes.

When I turned around to walk out of his office, I was sure I heard him say under his breath, Shit, they’re gonna tear her up, with a sad look on his face. I turned back again to look at him, but he dismissed me with a smile and a wave of a large manila envelope he had in his hand.

I walked out of his tiny office, down a hall, and then through an area that was enclosed with chain link fencing, which was where the students were housed. In retrospect, it reminded me of being at a dog pound or an animal shelter. In this area was a window that came from a building next to this section of the school. This was the place the lunch lady would hand each student their lunch one at a time from a single-file line.

There was also an open quad area that had blue-painted metal picnic tables placed randomly about. Here the students would sit and eat their lunches, converse and cuss with their friends, check out people of the opposite or, in some cases, same sex. Some of the kids looked out for rival gang members or to see if they could find somebody to get high with after school.

I began my walk through this crowded area with a shy but welcoming smile on my face. I tried to look confident and continued to put on a good front of having no fear. My mother taught me to always wear a dress on a job interview, and today was no exception. There were also very few white people at the school, except for some of the teachers and Mr. Smith. However, the vice principal was a young, hip, and very beautiful black woman. Many of the boys were known to fall in love with her.

As I walked through the lunch area and down the halls, heads turned. Some of the male students started whistling, hooting, and shouting out, Hey, baby, as I passed by. I overheard one young black woman with what appeared to be fighting scars all over her face say to her girlfriend, Hey, who dat bitch?

My heart started to beat faster and louder still as I started to imagine her jumping me and trying to put the scars on my face that she wore proudly on her own. Why was she so pissed off? I was wondering, and also why was her anger directed at me? In any case, I was extremely relieved when the twenty minutes was up, and it was time to head back to Mr. Smith’s office.

Anyone who has ever been a public school teacher can tell you how difficult the first couple of years are, especially the first year. For most teachers, the first year of teaching is nothing like they anticipate, and it’s much harder than it looks compared to being an observer in the classroom or a parent helping out for the day.

I had just proudly received my degrees and teaching credentials and was not prepared (although I was book smart and did my best to fake it with Mr. Smith) for the twenty-one troubled students who would be in my classroom on my very first day of school. The continuation school that I was hired to work at is in the middle of Hayward. The average middle class person who lives near this area doesn’t realize that this area has two rival Hispanic gangs, the Norteños and Sureños. We also housed and served many students who had been expelled from the Oakland public schools system, and many of them belonged to little clicks or groups similar to small-time gangs.

Many and most of these kids do this out of fear and for protection. Many black and white kids will affiliate themselves with the Red kids in the gangs usually to be in or to be safe from getting jumped on the streets. People who study animals know they stay in a group or herd for safety and survival. There’s less chance of getting eaten by a predator and safety in numbers.

Sprinkle into the mix of the school population a few oddball or out-of-the-norm Asians and some white hardcore rocker types. Think really white skin often with cutting scars somewhere on their bodies, black nail polish, and Marilyn Manson.

Almost always this type rivals the figures or body types of Olive Oil or The Thin Man. And then as in every school population, there are always a few nerds or severely introverted people who just can’t handle regular high school. They are the rare students who request to attend this continuation school because they couldn’t stand to be in a normal school.

Anyway, my first day was a blur and a nightmare, and it felt as if I were in an old-school mental hospital where the inmates were running the asylum. Many times I couldn’t believe the things