Fight #2 + Seizure

Yesterday I was having a great day. Many of my students were enjoying the literacy lesson plan about genetic engineering that I had devised for them. I had them list foods they had eaten for the Do Now, then we went through them one by one identifying each food as living at some point, be it wheat in bread, beef in hamburgers, tomatoes in tomato sauce, etc. This was a great segue into a discussion about genetically modified foods. I passed out an article about genetically modified beef. A guided reading addressed different words in the article they did not understand and led into a great Q&A session about genetics, GMOs and their safety. Everything was going smoothly as ever.

Then, as my 9th period rolls around, only 3 students were actually on time. Many of the others were coming from their gym class, which I believe is on another floor in the building, so they have to hike up quite a few flights to get there on time. A few moments later, I had a few more students and most had begun the Do Now activity. One of my most disruptive students popped her head in the door and spoke loudly to some other student. I approached her and instructed her to come in, take her seat and begin the Do Now. She immediately left the door and went back into the hallway.

Moments later I hear someone yelling to get security. After yesterday, my phone had been destroyed. I do not know how as it did not occur in my presence, but it looked like someone took it off the hook and banged it against the wall. The handset was in two pieces. I tried earlier that morning to get someone to fix it to no avail (figures).

I yelled across the hall to another teacher to call 711, our version of 911 in the school. Seconds later, I was yelling at my students to get back into the classroom. They were yelling at me to "help her." My most disruptive student who had earlier popped her head in the door and left was now laying on the floor in the hallway convulsing - yes, having a seizure. I am guessing it was induced by another student who was being physically violent with her, who was supposed to be in my class also. I made sure that they were both marked absent on my attendance sheet. (CYA).

I had my AP, another AP from a different academy in my building, the whole security staff, two other academy coordinators and various teachers all involved. This was surreal and incredibly stressful. I fully expect my principal to have me in his office on Monday.

After the convulsing students was taken to the hospital and the other girl was detained my school safety, I was trying to manage all the highly disturbed students in my classroom. They were all very upset and became combative when I was asking for their cooperation. Two of them began to argue, which I successful tried to de-escalate. Before I knew it, I had School Safety Agents in my room again and they were removed. I did not prompt the removal, it was the safety agents that came in upon their own accord.

The AP from the academy came in and had a talk with the students. It filled pretty much the whole period. I stood their and watched. In last 15 minutes, I salvaged whatever I had left of a lesson. The AP left before the end. I kept my students on task for the next 10 minutes, but in the last five minutes of their last period on a Friday, they began to become more talkative about what happened. To pull them back in at least for the last few minutes, I had them turn over their agendas and on an exit slip write two things about what happened during the earlier incident. I got some interesting responses. "'student a' was slam 'student b's head into the floor."

I just can't believe all day, everything goes SO well, then in the last 47 minutes, it could not have been any crazier. Good thing there are metal detectors or I'm sure someone would be killed by now. What a fucking fiasco.