You know how some days are just awful, no matter what you do? This morning was one of those.

I have a student in my last class who simply doesn't behave. I knew both of her parents, and uncles on both sides of the family - major family dysfunction of both sides, which of course goes from generation to generation.

This child has been escalating in her behavior problems, and the assistant principal who was dealing with her has been transferred to another school. So yesterday afternoon, when I carried a referral upstairs (the girl asked to go to the nurse, spent 30 minutes out of class, and never brought a note - I checked, she never went to the nurse) the principal and assistant principal had me going back and forth, in a power struggle as to who was taking over this student (and the academic team). The principal nearly yelled at me with a "I'm not playing that with you." Not that I was playing anything, I just felt that this student's behavior needed to be dealt with at a higher level than I could accomplish. (This was just the most recent issue.)

So this morning, I took the referral upstairs - and again the assistant principal refused to deal with it. I tried talking to the team chairperson, but she was rushing to a meeting and couldn't be bothered. So as she walked into the principal's office, I leaned in and put the paper on his desk (which other people have done when I'm in his office) - and he was ticked off about other stuff and told me that was inappropriate. I went to do other stuff, returned to apologize - and he again told me how unprofessional that was, on and on, and I finally broke down and nearly crying told him he yelled at me yesterday and today when I was just trying to find someone to deal with this problem student, and that everyone was passing the buck and I felt her behavior was such that I couldn't ignore it. He eventually turned around his actions to pacify me, and later called in the student. Plus later I printed out my notes about her behavior, and he could see what I've been dealing with for the 5 weeks of school.

And yes, I probably got more upset than I needed to - but when I'm trying to take care of an escalating problem, I don't want to get caught between two people's power struggle and then get yelled at when I haven't even done anything!

So I think I'll go home and hang out. Well, after I do my errands.