Virginia Public Schools: From the Superintendent's Desk

An

Inside view
into Virginia

Public Schools


	"Hmm...short...shorter...shortest..."

"Jean would be the fastest runner"

I headed into Caley Westin's first grade classroom where the students were sitting on a carpet before the board, pondering different variations of verbs in sentences. "If Curt is a fast runner," said Caley, "then what does that make Sheena if she can outrun Curt?" There was a slight pause from the students as they pondered this problem. A student raised her hand, "She would be faster than Curt." "Correct," said the teacher as she swung her arms in a show of support. "And what about Jen? What word do we use if Jen can run faster than Curt and Sheena?" Another pregnant pause by the students. A student raised his hands, "Jen would be the fastest runner," he proudly proclaimed. "Yes," confirmed the teacher. The class then moved onto derivations of the verbs long, longer, and longest.


	Moments after standing like a bear.

"Stand on your two legs like a bear!"

I found myself in the auditorium where Roosevelt students sat while listening to a presentation by Minnesota author Mary Casanova, who lives in International Falls. "I used to love reading when I was your age so make sure you keep reading as many books as you can," said Mary, as she fiddled with the clicker, trying to advance the slides. "How many of you have read Mr. Popper's Penguins?" she asked. A roar went up from the crowd. "And what about books in the series about Wimpy Kids?" A slightly bigger roar rose from the kids. Then Mary proceeded to tell a story about a bear which had shown up in their yard and how her husband had thrown pebbles at the bear to make it go away. [Note: I should point out that the author did not recommend trying this at home.] "Now everybody on your two feet like the bear did when my husband threw pebbles at it," she exhorted the crowd. The kids rose from their seats. "Now roar like a bear!" she added. Soon hundreds of small bear roars were reverberating from the walls of the auditorium.


	"Can you computer the slope formula relating to a ferris wheel?"

"Our goal is to beat Edina."

I wandered into Rick Wilson's eighth grade algebra classroom where I found Rick discussing the results of a test with the class. "What is the formula for slope?" asked Rick. "Rise over run?" said one student. "Yes," said Rick while jabbing a hand in the direction of the student who answered. Then he pointed to the board, "And we all know the formula is M = (Y2 - Y1) / (X2 - X1). Later on, while the class continued to discuss the slope formula, the conversation turned to the height of ferris wheels getting higher as time went by. (And yes, you can use the slope formula to compute these two variables.) After a brief conversation on how the prices of admission to Valleyfair Amusement Park in Shakopee (where there is a real ferris wheel) have risen since Rick was there, the class turned their attention to square numbers, in preparation for the MCA test they will be taking next week. A student volunteered to find the square of every number from 1 to 15. "Now make me look good," said the teacher, as he handed the marker to a student. "The superintendent is watching from the back of the room." [Note: The student did make the teacher "look good."] Later, as they continued discussing the MCA tests, Rick said, "Our goal is to beat Edina on the MCA."

Random Roosevelt Recess Moment

I parked my car across the street from the Roosevelt playground area and started to cross the street to get into the school, when a football bounced crazily off the playground pavement, over the chain-link fence and onto the road. The football spun lazily in the middle of the street and close to where I was walking. I picked up the football with one hand and looked across the street into the Roosevelt playground. Around ten boys stood by the chain-link fence, staring at the football in my hand. Several boys yelled out in a chorus, "Can we have our football back, please?" It is here that I should note it was obvious the students had been trained by the teachers to not venture out into the street whenever a ball landed there. I glanced at the football in my hand and then back at the boys looking greedily at the ball on the other side of the fence. Many years ago, when I was their age, I would have been doing the same thing as these boys, staring at the adult, wanting to have the football back. So I did the only logical thing a superintendent in my situation could do. I sent one of the boys out on a pass pattern in the playground area and after he performed a quick down and out, I threw him the ball. And then with a wave of his hand in thanks to me, the boy threw the ball back to the group and they quickly resumed their game.

Advice for Adults: What should I do if I suspect that a child is being sexually abused?

The newspapers occasionally have articles and stories about parents who do horrible things to their children such as sexually abuse them, torture them, and even lock them in the basement and don't let them leave for months at a time. These stories, fortunately, are situations most children don't experience. Unfortunately, we do have children who do experience awful situations while under the care and guidance of what are supposed to be fully responsible adults.

The problems that kids have, when they experience things such as sexual abuse, which is probably the most common of the examples I have given, can be profound and long lasting. And what compounds these problems is that the kid doesn't develop a sense of what is normal (or within the bounds of normality). They can develop a classic sense of disassociation from normality, where the chaos surrounding them becomes normal for them because they haven't really experienced any sense of what really is normal. What is normal for them can be a sexually abusing uncle, or a physically abusive father, or a manipulating passive-aggressive mother who continually reminds her daughter of her worthlessness. (Keep in mind that about one out of every five children who is sexually abused is a boy.)

What should other adults do who observe such behavior in their neighbors, or family, or friends? The short answer is: do something. It is not unusual for cases of abuse to have gone on for long periods of time before another adult intervenes or the teenager themselves, walks into a counselor's office asking for help.

What can you do?

Sometimes the best thing you can do is to ask the child/teenager, "How are you doing?" or "Is there anything I can do?" These simple questions can sometimes unleash a torrent of emotion from the child who has been living with the guilt of the turmoil that their life is intertwined with.
Call Child Protective Services at the Virginia branch at 218-749-7128 or the Duluth branch at 218-726-2012. St. Louis County has a specific department and people who are professionally trained to investigate the situation.

It is not uncommon for children who have been traumatized or abused to initially not seek help or appear eager to tell the truth about what is really happening. This happens because they are often afraid of the offending adult and don't want to get into more trouble or have the offending adult be "mad at them." Experience has shown the victim that to fight the adult brings even more negative interactions.

So do the abused child a favor and talk to someone and let Child Protective Services know that you suspect something is going on. You don't have to have all the details or have a CSI-level of proof, but sometimes a little prudence goes a long ways in helping to intervene when a child is being taken advantage of by an irresponsible adult.

As always, give our children little of what they want and lots of what they need.

Dr. Noel Schmidt