Thankful for You

Chapter 1 “Thirty days this month,” Isabelle Swanner muttered under her breath as she picked up another card decorated with a leaf and slipped it in the next slot on her calendar. That was followed by a pumpkin and then another leaf. Once done, she picked up the number cards that would show her kindergartners the day of the month and filled those in as well, carefully placing them in front of the leaves and pumpkins so that both could be seen. When she got to November 27, she switched it out for a turkey that proudly proclaimed, “Thanksgiving Day.” With a sigh, she thought to herself, “Surely we can make it until then!” When the calendar was ready, she checked a few other things on the wall nearby, the area where her kids would go over the date and the weather during math time, and was satisfied that everything was ready for the day. She straightened her long, blonde braid and glanced at the clock, which told her she had about five minutes before the first little footsteps and sweet voices would fill her ears as her class of twenty-two bright little angels began to make their way down the hall. That’s how she liked to think of them, anyway, especially this early in the morning, before anyone had a chance to make bad choices and earn a color change. All of the clips were on green, she made sure of that, which meant all of her students would start off with the opportunity to move up or down. Luckily, most days, there were twenty-one clips either on green, or the higher designation, blue, when the final bell rang at 3:00. In nine weeks of school, she had yet to have one day when all of the kids were on green. There was always that one clip that made it down to yellow or red, sometimes by lunch. Since today was the first school day after Halloween, there was a good chance some of her little friends would be tired or might’ve had candy for breakfast, which would make things more challenging, but she was confident most of them would still make good choices throughout the day. “Please, Lord, please let it be a good day,” she said out loud as she surveyed her work one more time. Isabelle sat down in the chair behind her desk and took a sip of her coffee, which was nearly cold by now. She’d gotten to school a few minutes earlier than normal—which was also very early—so that she could make sure to have time to change the calendar. It was nice to think it was fall already, and soon they’d have an entire week off for Thanksgiving, but if she didn’t find a way to reach that one child, the one whose clip never could seem to stay in the green, she was going to feel like a failure. This was her fourth year as a teacher, her fourth year in kindergarten, and she’d had troubling students before, but little Cooper Bryant took the cake. It wasn’t even that he was your stereotypical “bad kid,” the kind you heard teachers discussing in the lounge who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves or constantly yelled back at them. Cooper just… couldn’t seem to control himself. He was impulsive and had trouble sitting still. She thought there was a possibility he might have a condition called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, but Isabelle was no doctor, and even though she gave Cooper lots of chances during the day to show he could make better choices than launching his pencil across the room or getting up in the middle of a lesson to wander around the classroom, she wasn’t sure what else to do with him. Her school had a Response to Intervention team that might be able to help, but they didn’t like to discuss kindergartners in the first semester. They said there were so many different possibilities of what the problem might be that they wanted to give the child a chance to acclimate a little more to school before they decided to create goals and write behavior plans. That made sense to Isabelle, and never in the past had she ever even considered brining one of her students to RTI so early in the year. But she felt like she’d tried just about everything she could think of with Cooper and she hadn’t gotten anywhere. She had great teachers on the kindergarten team with her. Mrs. Angela Thomas had been teaching for fifteen years and had served as Isabelle’s mentor. She had recommended a parent teacher conference, and Isabelle had called Cooper’s father several times to try to arrange one, but every time they scheduled a meeting, something came up, and he had to cancel—or just didn’t show up. She wasn’t sure what it was about Mr. Bryant, but he didn’t seem to have a lot of time to spend on his son. It was Isabelle’s understanding that his wife had passed away about a year ago, and Mr. Bryant had been trying to do his best to raise his son, but apparently he worked a lot—Isabelle had heard maybe he was a truck driver—and most of the time when she scheduled a conference, he didn’t even let her know he couldn’t make it. A few weeks ago, Cooper started talking about his grandma moving in with them. He said he had a big family now and drew Isabelle a picture. There were four figures in the picture, but when Isabelle asked him who they were, Cooper shrugged and started talking about a video game. Trying to press him had done little good, and while Isabelle wondered if his grandmother might be more helpful than his father, she had no way of contacting her. No one ever answered the house phone, or she’d get a message that it was disconnected. The sound of chatter in the hallway let her know that the students had begun to arrive. Some of them would be off to breakfast in the cafeteria, but others would head straight to class. Isabelle always encouraged them to look at books when they first entered the classroom, and a few of her students were actually beginning to read. She believed books were a much better way to start the day than a worksheet. Putting aside her thoughts of Cooper, who would be one of the last to arrive, although he had been much better dressed and cleaner these past few days since his grandma had moved in, Isabelle stood and headed toward the door. She liked to shake each student’s hand or give them a hug as a way to start off their morning on the right foot. Peering out into the hallway, she saw two of her girls walking toward her with big smiles on their faces. Brianna, a cute blonde who was tall for her age, was walking hand in hand with Shayna, a tiny brunette who didn’t look like she was old enough to be in school. Seeing them made Isabelle smile. She really did love her job, even if it was tougher than she’d ever imagined. Still it was moments like this, when these little faces showed her how much they loved being in school, loved learning new things, loved seeing her, that she knew no matter the challenges, becoming a teacher was definitely her calling. And the magic of kindergarten hadn’t escaped her—not yet anyway. Her principal, Mrs. Shelby, always said, “You’re either a kindergarten teacher or you’re not. There’s no faking that.” And Isabelle knew, without a doubt, she definitely was. “Good morning, Miss Swanner!” Brianna said with a big grin as she dropped Shayna’s hand to wrap her arms around her teacher’s legs, her head coming just above Isabelle’s waist. “Good morning, Brianna. How are you?” “Good!” Brianna proclaimed releasing her. “I had so much fun trick-or-treating Halloween night! I got a huge bag of candy, and my mom said I could bring a piece for lunch.” “That’s so exciting!” Isabelle took the child’s pause to breathe as an opportunity to jump in before the story got out of hand. “I can’t wait to see if you choose to write about that in your Writer’s Workshop folder today!” Remembering that her writing journal was the best place to tell her teacher a story—as Isabelle had reminded her class at least five times a day for the last nine weeks—Brianna nodded. “I will!” “Wonderful. I can’t wait to read it.” Bending down a bit to make eye contact, she added, “You’re such a great writer.” It didn’t matter that most of her “best writers” were still in the drawing a picture and labeling it phase of writing. They still liked to have their efforts acknowledged. Brianna blushed, and with a smile on her face, she headed into the classroom to take care of her backpack. Isabelle knew she’d do all of the things she had been taught to do in order to start her day off right—put her daily folder in the correct basket, move her lunch clip, check how she was going home on the chart, and then select a book from the library. Most of her kids had no trouble moving through this routine now, though a few struggled from time to time—one more than others. Now wasn’t the time to think about that, however, as Shayna waited patiently for her turn. “Good morning, Shayna. How are you today?” “Good.” The shy girl leaned forward and quickly hugged her teacher before hurrying past her into the classroom. There would be no elaborate story with this one, but that was okay. Isabelle had already made a lot of progress with the little girl who didn’t even want to let go of her mother’s hand at the beginning of the year. Isabelle greeted the other teachers on her team, who also stood in the hallway to say good morning to their students. Angela always dressed so professionally while the rest of the team, Isabelle, Mrs. Judy Smith, an older woman who was nearing retirement, and Miss Marney White, usually wore more practical outfits, like the khakis and pink blouse Isabelle wore today. She’d be spending at least half of the day on the floor, so she may as well not wear a skirt or dress. She wasn’t sure how Angela ever got anything done dressed like that, but she knew her mentor was a great teacher who probably spent just as much time on the floor as Isabelle did. She had greeted the majority of her class, many of whom had similar Halloween stories to Brianna which they were asked to wait and share in their writing journals, when she heard Marney, a redhead who had only been teaching a couple of years, whisper sharply in her direction, “Here he comes!” While Isabelle tried not to make a big deal out of the issues she was having with Cooper, everyone else in kindergarten knew about him. Sometimes, he would yell loudly when he got upset, and there had been a few times when she’d had to ask for help just to get him to line up. For the most part, he hadn’t acted like that since the first couple of weeks of school, but the other teachers thought he was the worst behaved kindergartner at Charles Town Elementary. Looking at him now, headed down the hallway with his backpack hung crookedly on his little back, his dark hair wetted down, one shoe untied, but otherwise dressed nicely in a polo shirt and jeans, he didn’t appear to be particularly happy, but he wasn’t angry. He didn’t stick out from any of the other kids who were scrambling to make it to class before the final bell rang, except for he had no rush about him whatsoever. Isabelle took a deep breath and ramped up her smile, thinking to herself she had control of how her day went. Cooper stopped in front of her and glanced up. He looked tired and there was a spot of egg or some other yellow breakfast item on his blue shirt. “Good morning, Cooper!” Isabelle gushed. “How are you this morning?” “Good.” His answer was the same as basically everyone else’s. He gave her a small, crooked grin, and she hoped that meant it would be a good day. “Would you like a handshake, hug, or high five today?” With the other kids, she no longer had to ask that question, but Cooper always seemed to want to know his options. “High five.” She put her hand out and braced herself, knowing Cooper thought it was a fun game to see how hard he could slap her hand, even though she’d talked to him dozens of times about how that wasn’t polite. “Don’t break my hand with your big muscles,” she joked, hoping he’d remember how they’d talked about that high fives were meant to show your friends you cared and not how strong you are. His grin growing, Cooper raised his hand high into the air and slammed it down against Isabelle’s, making a loud clapping noise, followed by his laughter and her wincing. “Cooper! You’re not supposed to do that!” Brianna shouted, stepping out from behind her desk. “Miss Swanner told you that hurts!” “Be quiet, Brianna!” Cooper yelled back. “You’re not the boss of me!” Interjecting herself between them, Isabelle turned to Brianna, “I’ll handle it, Brianna. Thank you. Please return to your book.” Stooping down so that she was at eye level with the little boy, she said, “Cooper, do you remember we talked about how to nicely give a friend a high five.” He rolled his eyes. “Yes. I’m sorry. But I couldn’t help it. I have big muscles.” Realizing her reminder had backfired, Isabelle decided to let this one go. “Okay. Next time, please be a little more careful, okay?” Cooper grumbled something and headed off toward the cubbies where the kids kept their backpacks. She knew he’d forget to do all of the other things he was supposed to do, and giving him a reminder partner hadn’t worked because he’d just gotten frustrated with the other child and yelled at them, or worse, pinched or hit them. She’d even tried walking him through it herself a few times, but he just wanted her to do all of it for him. Since she already knew how he’d get home, that he’d purchase the lunch tray, and that his folder wouldn’t be signed anyway, she didn’t bother asking him to do any of those things. She’d get his folder during her planning time. She thought, if she could get in touch with his grandmother, maybe she could start signing it. Things did seem to improve once she’d moved in—except for Cooper still never had his behavior chart signed and never did his at-home reading. The bell rang, and she watched Cooper slam his hand into his leg in frustration that he didn’t get a chance to pick a book from the library. She knew he wanted to be able to look at the pictures like the rest of the kids, but he never got to school in time to start his day like the rest of them. No matter how many times she reminded him that he’d have a chance for that during Daily Five, when everyone did a center called Read to Self, he still started his day off frustrated because he didn’t get to look at a book. The sound of the principal’s voice came over the intercom, and the kids all stood, knowing they’d be asked to say The Pledge of Allegiance soon. Cooper stood by his desk, the angry glare still on his face, and Isabelle had a feeling it was going to be a rough day. By lunchtime, Isabelle was about to pull every strand of blonde hair out of her head. She was so frustrated, she wasn’t sure what to do with herself, let alone Cooper. Thankfully, there were other staff members who watched the kids while they ate lunch so the teachers could have half an hour to eat in peace. Not that they ever actually got thirty minutes. By the time she dropped her kids off in the cafeteria, went to the bathroom, and heated her lunch, she’d be lucky if she had twenty. But those twenty minutes were always blissful. Unless, one of the staff members on duty in the cafeteria came in to get her because Cooper was throwing food or wouldn’t sit down. That had happened a few times. She pulled her entrée out of the freezer and waited her turn at the microwaves. There were only two available, but with two grade levels at lunch at the same time, they could have as many as eight teachers needing to heat their lunch. It looked like Marney was just about done, and Isabelle focused on breathing until the microwave dinged it was complete and she could slide her frozen pasta dish inside to heat. “You don’t look so good,” Marney noted, grabbing what looked like leftover roast beef in a plastic container out of the microwave with a paper towel. “I don’t feel so good,” Isabelle admitted as she pulled open the corner of her container and slid it inside, setting the timer appropriately. “I heard him shouting earlier today. Did he have candy bars for breakfast?” Angela asked, sitting down at the table where the kindergarten team always ate lunch together. The second grade team sat at the other round table next to theirs, and the third one was usually empty during this lunch period, unless someone had some goodies to share. Unfortunately, no cookies or brownies greeted Isabelle today, though the vending machine was always stocked with chocolate, and she was tempted to indulge just to make herself feel slightly better. It was too bad she had handed out all of her Halloween candy last night. While that had been fun, and she’d enjoyed seeing all of the kids in their costumes, it would’ve been nice to have a spare Twix in her lunchbox today. Thinking Cooper was one of the few who hadn’t even mentioned Halloween, Isabelle doubted that eating an unhealthy breakfast was the problem today. “He was upset because he didn’t get to go to computers during Daily Five,” Isabelle explained over the hum of the microwave. “He sure is loud. One of my kids was a little scared,” Judy said before taking a bite of her sandwich. “I’m sorry.” Isabelle didn’t know what else to say. The microwave dinged and she carefully pulled out the disposable plastic tray. “I just don’t know what to do.” “Don’t be sorry,” Judy replied. “It’s not your fault.” Isabelle wasn’t sure that was the case. She gave her pasta a stir and retrieved the rest of her lunch from the refrigerator before sitting down next to Marney. “I had hoped that his grandmother moving in would be helpful, but she hasn’t been checking his folder either, and when I call the house phone, it says the number has been disconnected.” “And his dad still isn’t answering his cell?” Angela asked. “He does sometimes. But all he ever does is apologize. We’ve planned to meet twice, and both times he didn’t show up and never called. Now, whenever I ask for a conference, he says he’ll get back to me and doesn’t. He did mention once that he was really struggling since his wife died. I feel bad for him, but I can’t help his kid if he can’t help me.” “What about the daycare center? Do they have any contact information for his grandma?” Judy asked before popping a chip into her mouth. Isabelle finished chewing a bite of bland penne pasta before replying, “He doesn’t go to the daycare center anymore. Now that his grandma lives with them, he rides the bus home.” “Have you tried the house phone since she moved in? Maybe dad hadn’t been paying the bill and now that Cooper’s grandmother lives with them, he’s back on track?” Angela finished up her salad and moved on to a banana. “I haven’t. That’s a good idea. I’ll try that this afternoon.” Isabelle wanted to be optimistic that this would work, but she didn’t want to get her hopes up. Short of getting on the bus and riding home with Cooper, she wasn’t sure she’d ever get in touch with his grandmother. “Well, if you can’t get in touch with his parents, that will make it much harder to get him any help through RTI,” Judy said, her expression sympathetic but stern. “They can’t do much without information from the parents.” “Really?” Isabelle asked, setting her fork down. She didn’t realize that. “There’s a parent information packet,” Marney explained. “And if they put him on a behavior plan, he’ll have to have someone to sign off on it every night at home.” Isabelle’s stomach turned over. She was no longer hungry. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get that kind of support out of the Bryant family.” “That’s really a shame. Cooper seems like a bright kid,” Angela mused. “He’s just had a rough time, what with his mom passing away so suddenly. And he may be a little ADHD, too.” “You think?” Marney interjected, snorting. Isabelle knew it wasn’t her place to try to diagnose her students, only to help them. And while she wouldn’t mind talking to Cooper’s father about his inability to focus, she couldn’t do that if he wouldn’t show up. It wasn’t the type of conversation she was willing to have over the telephone. “Try his grandma again this afternoon,” Angela suggested. “And if that doesn’t work, let’s talk about him at our next planning meeting on Tuesday, and we can see if we can come up with some other ideas to help him out. Maybe he needs a cool down place in another classroom….” “Not mine!” Marney interrupted. Angela looked at her harshly. “You can use mine. Or… maybe there’s some sort of an award plan we can try. There’s got to be something else we can do.” Isabelle nodded. Even though she felt like she’d tried everything she could think of, she was definitely open to suggestions. Never in the past three years of teaching kindergarten had she ever thought she might lose a student to learning before he even began his educational career, but with Cooper, she felt there was a good chance he might not make the progress he needed to finish kindergarten on grade level. He was smart—he just didn’t seem to want to learn. And if his behavior didn’t get under control, he was going to continue to make it hard on his classmates as well. And that wasn’t fair to anyone. “Thank you,” Isabelle said, finally deciding to try to finish her lunch in the five minutes they had left. She had just taken another bite when Wendy Jones, the campus registrar, came to the break room door. “Miss Swanner, I’m sorry to interrupt, but we can’t get Cooper to stop throwing corn kernels at his classmates.” With a sigh, Isabelle said, “I’ll be right there,” and began to wipe her fork off on her napkin. So much for a thirty minute lunch. It wasn’t Ms. Jones’s fault of course, but if she didn’t get Cooper Bryant to follow the school rules soon, Miss Swanner might go home for Thanksgiving break and never come back. “Three more weeks,” Marney reminded her as she stood. Isabelle didn’t want to think about what her chances were she’d make it that long, but she didn’t think they were good. On her way down the hall, she said a silent prayer to the Lord for help. She was definitely going to need it.