June 2007

Question:  Where is the school "emergency room?"

In the days following the tragedy at Virginia Tech, I, like countless others around the country, spent many waking moments pondering how such a horrific event could occur.  I was particularly struck by an interview done shortly after the event with the Chairperson of the English Department.  She spoke in such a calm tone about all that she had done with respect to the student who committed the unspeakable acts.  Her broken heart and grief were unmistakable, as were her very insightful comments about working within an educational institution that does not always have the ability to respond effectively to teachers’ concerns about specific students.  As a teacher myself, I was particularly struck by the similarities I heard in her story, compared with my own experiences working in a suburban New York elementary school.  While my purpose is not to raise undue alarm, I do feel strongly that an accident (or a disaster) isn't such, until it happens.  Until we are able to create systems that can both process and respond to teacher’s concerns about student behavior, I am afraid we may possibly repeat this horrible event.

While many will look at Virginia and wonder how this could have happened, I recognized so many of the professor’s concerns and frustrations I could, unfortunately, see how it could come to pass.  There were many warning signs but there just wasn’t a system in place to properly receive and process the warnings.  

 Our school district, like most others, has systems in place for children with learning problems and even mild to moderate behavior problems.  I have often compared our system to that of a doctor's office.  We can manage and "treat" children whose issues are not extremely time-sensitive.  Similarly, a doctor's office makes appointments months in advance for well visits, days in advance for mild illnesses, and daily "emergency" appointments for fevers or rashes.  However, if a child has broken a bone, seriously bleeding wound or other extreme symptom, parents head to the nearest emergency room.  Time is of the essence.  Rules that apply to the orderly and systematic scheduling of a doctor's office cannot be applied in emergency situations.

Some problems our students face, though uncommon, are more appropriately labeled as “emergencies.”  Classroom teachers, on the front lines, often sense the urgency much more acutely than support staff or administrators.  In Virginia, the head of the English Department was so concerned about the gunman’s behavior that she ended up privately tutoring him to reduce his interaction with other students.  She recognized the warning signs.  She reported her concerns to many levels of administration.  Faced with what she considered repeated inadequate responses, she took matters into her own hands.  She felt powerless to do anything else.  Yet in hindsight, we all can see what really needed to be done.  Virginia Tech needed an “emergency room.”  A place, or process to manage a student with symptoms so worrisome they needed the same level of attention and care as a person brought to an emergency room bleeding profusely or even unconscious.  His life was in danger (as were many other lives it turned out,) yet the system only had doctor’s appointments and long waits in the “waiting room.”   

In our society we find it difficult to quickly and decisively respond to situations involving emotional “unwell-ness.”  Bleeding we can see.  Broken bones we can feel.  Learning disabilities we can test for.  But emotional instability is hidden from sight in many ways.  It can only be noticed and reported by those who come in frequent contact with the suffering person.  And those who report the suffering need to feel supported and responded to in the same manner as if the symptoms were more obvious to the casual observer.

I've had many students to worry about over the years.  The response is always the same - wait and see. And then respond to specific incidents as they occur. Even as a veteran teacher, it took many months and my complete and unwavering belief in the desperate nature of my student’s situation, to get an adequate response.  It was not until other staff members became physically involved and personally inconvenienced that real progress was made.  I noted a problem on the first day of school.  I reported it to both the parents and other support staff by the end of the second week of school.  But without an emergency room system in place, complicated by the difficult nature of emotional illness, the child’s warning signs went largely unaddressed.

I share this experience not to point fingers at individuals, nor to open a case of “he said she said”  but rather, in an honest  effort to avoid such a horrible, unspeakable tragedy from occurring again.  It is not enough to love and support each other.  It is not enough to look at the good around us and live each day to the fullest.  Those of us working “in the trenches,” those of us best in the position to observe the warning signs, need an emergency room.  A place where the rules and procedures appropriate for other less desperate situations are not adhered to.  I urge all administrators, with whatever power and ability you have, to work towards this end.  I feel all of our lives depend on it – those that suffer, those that try to help them, and the countless other innocents who may get caught in the crossfire some day.