Teens in Trouble

I went and got my hair done today. As I was sitting under the hair dryer, I picked up a magazine with an article in it about teen suicide. This reminded me of a story that put a cap on my 1st semester of teaching.

Tuesday the 14th was the last full day of school. I have a female freshmen in my 8th period class. She is Miss Chatterbox so I have given her the classic seat next to the teachers desk. She came in one day a couple of weeks ago with a straight edge razor blade as a pendant for a home-made necklace. I took it away from her and locked in in a drawer and forgot about it chalking it up to weird things teenagers are doing nowadays. Tuesday the 14th, she came in and I noticed some writing on the palm of her left hand. Students frequently write on their skin in permanent sharpie pen and I always tell them they should treat their bodies with more respect. I was just about to give her the same lecture when I noticed that it wasn't writing on her hand. It was stitching. She literally stitched words in her hand with a needle and thread. Up and down using the skin of her hand as fabric. She wasn't bleeding and her hand wasn't red. I told her we would talk about it later in class. I made a mental note to send her to the counselor when I was done with my final review. My review went much longer than I planned and the bell rang before I could send her to the counselor. She bolted out of class and was gone. I sent an email to her homeroom teacher, counselor and cc'd the school nurse. Just in case.....

I got an email back the next day from the homeroom teacher telling me in no uncertain terms that I should have called home a long time ago. This student is failing my class and her behavior in class is unacceptable. That's nice. Ok, I will call home. The email from the counselor told me I should write her a referral for self-destruction. How? She didn't stitch her hand in my class! The email from the nurse was more helpful. She asked me to send the student to see her tomorrow in class. I responded with the fact that I wouldn't see the student tomorrow as we only had class periods 1--> 3 the next day (Wednesday). I told the nurse as soon as she was done with her final, I would send her down on Thursday which is the next day I would see her.

Thursday after she was done with her final, I sent her to the nurse. I got an email from the nurse after school asking me to call her when I had a "private moment." I picked up the phone right then and called. She dropped a bomb on me I was not ready for.

Apparently my student is suicidal. She was planning to kill herself over Christmas break when her parents left her and her sister alone to go back to Mexico for the holiday.

I was speechless. The nurse told me not to call home. Due to the severity of the issue, the social worker is now involved and state-mandated counseling would begin ASAP. The nurse also thanked me for noticing and sounding the alarm. Without my email, the student would have never received the help she was so desperately needing! WOW! How many other teachers would have notified the nurse? How many other teachers would have just sent a referral down to the office or called home to nag the parents for their daughter's behavior? How many other teachers actually noticed that she had stitched her hand?! When I think about the fact that she was literally caught at the last minute, it makes me nauseous! We were 7 minutes away from being done with school for 2 whole weeks! What would have happened if she wouldn't have finished her final before the end of class? What would have happened if I would have forgotten to send her to the nurse? Augh! If she doesn't show up when we start school on the 3rd, I think I might just throw up.