Child Bosses

After a pretty active day at school, Dequante hops off the bus while horse playing with one of his friends.  He punches the friend in the arm and jets away before his bus mate can strike him back.  The bus stop is not far away from his mother's apartment home, and he doesn't do the best job at slowing down so he crashes into the screen door.  His mother, a little buzzed from her third beer of the afternoon, jumps while on the couch in surprise.  Dequante can hear his mother yelling obscenities as she approaches the door.  The curse words continue as she opens the door, and Dequante walks into a living room filled with smoke.  As the child maneuvers through the weed clouds to the kitchen, he opens a refrigerator containing a few beers, bologna, cheese, and a few leftover food items.  Throughout the evening, 1st grade Dequante enjoys great tasks as fixing his own meals, picking out his own clothes, taking care of his own hygiene needs (which he usually ignores), and enduring his mothers' company; which always includes drinking, cigarettes and weed smoke, and a colorful use of the English language.  Unfortunately, what Dequante's school nights don't include is homework or adult supervision.

The next day, Dequante arrives at school displaying the usual rambunctious behavior his teacher is used to.  Fortunately for her, Dequante spends about 30 minutes in physical education today.  But most times the poorly behaved boy is more wound up after gym-and today is no different.  This time, Dequante is so hyper that he has entertained the idea of 'surfing' on one of the tables.  Yesterday when he did this, a less-than-patient Ms. Williams approached the boiling point as she asked him to get off the table.  But today, after calling Dequante's mother to inform her of his misbehavior, being disregarded by her and Dequante doing the same thing again, Ms. Williams was nowhere near patient.  After 3 prompts to get off the table, she reached over and grabbed his arm to pull him down.  Dequante landed on his feet, but he rolled around on the ground crying and claiming his arm hurt.  Two days later, Mr. Clark, the principal of the school put Ms. Williams on administrative leave after Dequante's mom filled a report.

This a fictional piece based on a true story.  The misbehaving child used to his advantage the arm grabbing teacher, and the lack of parenting from his mother to advocate his position.  The parent who smokes, drinks, and curses around and at her child becomes upset because nobody "better not touch her baby!"  Fearful of media and school board heat, the principal appeases the parent and child and comes down on the teacher.  Along with this, the teacher had to switch to another school, the parent still gets high, and the kid is still bad.

 My assessment: the parent is sorry, the principal is soft, the teacher takes the fall, and the kid is a boss.

Peace