WARNING: Extremely upsetting situations.

There have been many, many times, too many times to state all of them, where I have had to report a child to Child Protective Services. We are required by law to report concrete suspicions, not just halfhearted guesses. We are mandated reporters.

Where shall I begin?

1. The day I finally figured out why Lacy kept crying in class. I had been constantly asking her about my suspicions, but she kept denying it. Two weeks later I could see it…she was pregnant by her dad and she was just 12 years-old.
2. The day Wendy gave me a note from her mother. The note said, “Can I borrow $20 for groceries?” I told Wendy I don't give cash out, but after school I would go get mom and take her grocery shopping for her family. Wendy began to tremble and cry. She said she had to have the $20 cash. She finally admitted that her mother needed the money for crack and her mother said she better come home with the money or she'd beat her.
3. The day 7 year-old Steven came to school with blisters on his hands and feet. His punishment for being bad was having his hands and feet put in boiling water.
4. The day Samantha rushed past me at the beginning of the school day and sat at her desk using her hair to cover half her face. I went over to see why she was acting so strangely and pulled back her hair. Half her face and head was bruised and cut and missing chunks of hair. Her mother had smashed her daughter's head repeatedly through the windshield of the car the evening before.
5. The day 12 year-old Tom’s father came to the classroom and began beating his son and tossing him around the room in front of all the class and me. He was throwing his son into desks and walls. The children witnessing this were horrified as they cried uncontrollably. I had just called his dad to tell him I caught his son trying to forcibly kiss a girl in the classroom and I requested a conference. That was the “conference.”
6. The day a parent burst through my classroom door and accused my 4th grade student of calling his daughter a racial slur on the playground earlier. I had my arms out wide to prevent him from getting past me to attack the girl. The children in my class were screaming and crying but I protected them by getting a grip on the situation and chasing him out of my classroom. I called police and CPS to get his own children out of that madman’s home.
7. The day 6 year-old Jenny began screaming after morning bathroom break that she hurt “down there”. I rushed her to the nurses office and we could smell an odor. The nurse looked, as she was allowed to with her job description, and little Jenny’s private area was all swollen with a discharge. A neighborhood teen boy had given her a sexually transmitted disease.
8. The day Carl brought a toy gun to school, except that it was real, and he pulled the trigger and a bullet discharged into the ceiling. I was so scared and upset at what could have happened that my knees buckled under me and I couldn't get the strength to stand for almost an hour.
9. The day 8 year-old Daniel kept being late to school because his mother had severe depression and never got out of bed to care for her children. The two meals they ate each day were at school. I looked out my classroom window one morning and saw him in his pajamas and slippers coming to school. Just as I was about to run out the school door to help him cross the street, he stepped off the curb and got hit by a car speeding through the school zone. He survived but we had to get the children into foster care until mom was hospitalized and put on medication for depression. She was a good person. She was having a hard time caring for her family alone and lost her way.

There's more, but you get the idea.

Which one was the one that finally drove me over the edge?

It was Lacy’s pregnancy. It was the final one that culminated the whole. I could just sense something was terribly wrong, and I kept asking her and asking her if someone was touching her or doing inappropriate things to her, and she just kept denying it and denying it.

After that, I took a leave of absence.

I blame myself for not acting on my suspicions sooner.

The thing is, she had a wonderful mother who had made a big mistake. She lied on her food stamp application and said she had no job, when she did.

It was a minimum wage part-time job, her husband never would work, and she was trying to feed her family.

So guess what?

She was put in jail for a year to serve restitution because she couldn't pay the money back, leaving her two daughters with that sick fucked-up father of theirs and his two friends.

After Lacy’s son was born and I was able to see her again, I asked Lacy why she didn't tell me, or just tell SOMEBODY. She said she wanted to, but she was protecting her little sister Crystal.

Her dad and his friends threatened to hurt her little 5 year-old sister in the same way unless she complied.

I have many wonderful memories of teaching, and I have an attitude that allows me to see the bright side of life, but this was too much. I had a breakdown which I am still recovering from.

*names changed to protect the innocent*