It's finding time to talk to a kid long enough to know his upset stomach is because his parents are fighting. It's treating students with depression, eating disorders, tumors, asthma or Cerebral Palsy. It's pacemakers, catheters and feeding tubes. These days, what would have kept a student out of public school now makes for a typical day, and it takes a broad perspective. The psycho-social stuff was more prevalent than I was prepared for, which is why I went back to grad school for counseling.
Kids present the darnedest stuff.
There are so many sensitive health issues for kids, it lends itself to teachable moments. We're all here to learn. At one of the elementary schools Tuesday afternoon, Steiner passes along the word to teachers that she is practicing a code for a student with diabetes. If that student should have a problem with blood sugar, Steiner most likely will not be in the building, and so the code team drills. On a real code, the student would receive an injection from one of the two trained teachers.