Story from my book, "Breaking Through the Silence" Coloring in the Lines

No More Running!



Breanna, the year is now 2016, and I am so proud of you for the transition you made getting back on track in school. I can recall a time when I would get a call from Key Elementary where you attended your fourth grade school year. I received a call almost every day, telling me that you’d run out of the school and that you would not go back in. I at the time worked at MacArthur Elementary in Before/Aftercare as a Site-Supervisor. My schedule at the time was perfect because I did not have to leave the job to come and tend to you and get you back on track in the school setting. My schedule at that time, as a Site-Supervisor, was from 12:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m., and I knew that if you continued with the behavior of running out the school, the principal would have no choice but to suspend you because of
your putting yourself in danger by leaving the school.

I remember a time when I got a call from Key Elementary telling me that you had walked out of the school and were leaving the school grounds, and they had no choice but to call the campus police. After I got the call, I jumped in the car, praying that you were safe and that I would beat the campus police before they got to the school. I arrived at the school and there you sat in the counselor's office, with a lady police officer sitting beside you. I was glad that you were safe, but I needed to get to the bottom of why you kept running off from the school. In the counselor's office, you revealed to me and the lady police officer that you were being bullied by some of your classmates. As we all sat in the counselor's office, we tried to make you understand the impact that you made by running off and putting yourself in danger. Although we all tried to listen, and understood that you were tired of being bullied, we also stressed the importance of telling someone what was happening, whether it was me, the teacher, or the principal, to allow us to take care of the situation.
Breanna, each day I dropped you off at school, I tried to reassure you that you were safe and that everything would be fine. However, I was still receiving calls that you were still running out of the school. The principal called me into the office and told me that, if you continued to run out of the school, you would be suspended. I knew then, as a parent, that I had to help make you feel safe and help you to learn to stop running from your problems, whatever they might be. It was the year 2012 and it was three weeks before Christmas when I made the decision to pull you out of that school setting and home school you, and I am glad that I did this because it gave you the tools that you needed to be successful in school – but the only downfall to home schooling you was that it made your attachment to me even stronger. The next school year, 2013, I left college to help you and your other siblings transition back into the Tulsa Public School setting. Your brother and sister were also having some problems in the previously mentioned school setting at Key Elementary.
It was now 2013 and the new school year was about to start. I made the decision, after home schooling you and your siblings for about five months, that I felt it was time to transition you back into the public school setting. I decided to go down to the education center and transfer you and your siblings from Key Elementary to the school where I was working as a Site-Supervisor in the Before/Aftercare program at MacArthur Elementary.
Breaking Through the Silence

Although you guys had troubles there, not wanting to stay in school because you wanted to stay home with me, I had to fight through my heart strings and do what was best for you all, and thanks to the support staff at MacArthur, and Uncle Garry and Aunt Ann, we all helped to help you guys stay in school. I knew that home schooling you guys was not an option because of the attachment.
I look at you guys now that you are thirteen, thirteen, and fourteen, and think how proud of you guys I am for doing such a great job in school. I am sorry, but who would have thought that the transition from the Union School District to the Tulsa Public School District would be so hard? In the past, hindsight being twenty-twenty, if I had only known that my children would be knocked out of their normalcy, I would have fought harder to stay in the Union School District. Aaron spent five years in the Union School District, and Breanna and Skaya spent four years in the Union School District. Leaving the Union School District was when the shift in my children’s school anxieties started. At that time, though, I really didn’t have a choice about moving out of the school district. In 2010, I lost my job because I missed a lot of days because my kids were sick with asthma flare-ups and, at the time, we had issues with mold in our apartment every time it rained. We had leaks into the apartments that caused the mold to grow, which I believe was making my children's asthma flare up; however, management would only do their part and put kills and paint over the mold. One day I was called into the office at my job and was told that they needed someone who was dependable, and although I’d worked for the company for three years, I understood. I was allowed unemployment until I found a job. In 2011 my unemployment stopped, and I had to reapply and it was approved, but I had a waiting period. I was already behind a rent payment by then.
I received a notice on my apartment door saying that I had three days to come up with a rent payment or I would be evicted. I knew that I could not come up with the rent in the allotted time that they’d asked, and they filed for eviction and I had to find my children and me a new place to live in a hurry. I did find us a new house, but it was in the Tulsa Public School District.