How Did We Miss Jack All These Years? Ginny Johenning I have been a teacher for over ten years, beginning my career as a preschool teacher, then a first grade regular classroom teacher, and then a high school special education teacher for students with learning disabilities and emotional/behavioral disorders. Over the years I have encountered a number of students, too many really, whose lives have tugged at my heartstrings. After more than 10 years of working with kids, I believed that I had seen or at least heard just about everything. Then came Jack. At the time of his referral, Jack was 15 years old, repeating the 9th grade, and receiving failing grades in most of his classes. The referring teacher said that Jack regularly entered her class in “crisis mode,” pacing back and forth in clear distress. Many times, she wrote, this was in response to his younger brother, Drew, who was receiving special education services as a student with a learning disability. Drew was frequently removed from his 4th period special education class because of inappropriate behaviors and placed in the hallway near Jack’s classroom. Jack would then feel compelled to talk with Drew in an effort to keep him from getting into more trouble. Jack would mutter, “there is going to be trouble” if he was not allowed to calm Drew down. In addition to worrying about Drew, the teacher wrote, Jack also frequently placed himself in the middle of other students’ problems and had difficulty leaving the stress of these situations outside of the classroom. Every day when he arrived in class, he asked to go see his guidance counselor or to attend mediation or to go to the attendance office or to go see one student or another because so-and-so was gossiping about someone else. She indicated that Jack had not had any major outbursts in class, but if his requests were not granted immediately he would become frantic and begin cursing to himself. The referring teacher also described her various attempts at resolving Jack’s problems. In an effort to redirect his anger or alleviate his worry, she reported, she would converse with Jack in the hallway nearly every time he came to class. She reported that he was fairly responsive to this “positive attention” but it would only “work” temporarily, as he would usually feel the need to stay in the hallway a little longer or go to guidance following these talks. The teacher reported that she and the collaborative special education teacher, who was also in the classroom, would allow Jack a little more freedom of movement than the other students in the class. She stated that for the benefit of the rest of the class if Jack chose to disengage from the lesson by lying on the sofa and feigning sleep, then the teachers would respect his choice. The referring teacher also wrote she had talked extensively with Jack’s guidance counselor as well as with the administration. Her referral was a direct result of those conversations. After receiving the referral form and prior to convening the initial Child Study meeting, I completed a review of Jack’s school records and found some shocking information. Jack, in addition to failing the 9th grade during the previous year, had also not passed the state’s standardized literacy tests, which students are expected to pass before entering high school and are required to pass before graduating from high school. He also had failed to pass any of the standardized End-of-Course exams administered by the state in the 8th and 9th grades, which students are required to pass in order to receive a regular high school diploma. Jack’s discipline record was also extensive. We were only in the second month of the current school year, but Jack had already been in in-school suspension for 4 days and on outof-school suspension for 4 days. No information was provided in the records about his specific offenses, but teacher reports indicated that Jack had problems with profanity, noncompliance, tardiness, and skipping classes. The records also indicated that Jack had been having behavioral problems in school since the 4th grade. After receiving a referral on a student, I was required to schedule an initial Child Study meeting within 10 administrative days. Because this referral had been initiated at the request of the school administration, and because this student seemed to be having significant problems in school, I expected there would be an impressive turnout of school faculty and administrators at the meeting. For this reason, I was quite surprised that this Child Study meeting had to be tabled because the Assistant Principal, the parents, the school psychologist, and the referring teacher all failed to make an appearance. Following this tabled meeting, my attempts to contact Jack’s parents met with consistent failure. Jack continued to be suspended from school for various behavioral infractions. Finally, the administration required one of Jack’s parents to accompany him to school for a re-entry conference before allowing him to come back to school following an out-of-school suspension. When Jack’s mother came to school with him, the guidance counselor presented her with the form granting permission to evaluate Jack. Jack’s mother, Mrs. Shebly, signed the form without argument. We then had 65 administrative days to complete the full evaluation on Jack and to convene an eligibility meeting. I was completely swamped with students who needed to be tested as part of their triennial evaluations, and the school psychologist, who would complete the cognitive testing component of the evaluation, was also buried in already existing work. Winter break was only days away, so we decided to start Jack’s evaluation first thing when we returned to school from the break. When we returned from break, we received some absolutely shocking news. Jack’s younger brother had been arrested over the break and was being held on murder charges! The story we heard was that Drew and two other teenagers had traveled out of state over the holiday and allegedly had attempted to steal money from an elderly man. When the man refused to give them any money, they allegedly overpowered him and strangled him to death with his own shoelaces, then took his money. Jack was tremendously upset by these events, of course. He blamed himself for Drew’s behaviors and stated that if he had kept a closer watch on Drew none of this would have ever happened. The school psychologist and I decided to postpone administering standardized tests to Jack, as he was too upset for the results to be valid indicators of either his ability or his achievement. Not too long after returning to school, Jack was in trouble again and was sent to the assistant principal’s office. While talking with her, he supposedly became very upset and agitated and asked her if she was afraid he was going to strangle her. The assistant principal perceived this as a threat, and Jack was suspended from school indefinitely, pending expulsion. The school principal instructed us to proceed with the evaluation right away. However, Jack was not allowed in the school building so we had to complete our evaluations at the county administrative building. Mrs. Shebly, Jack’s mother, worked two jobs and was rarely home. Jack’s stepfather, Mr. Shebly, had just recently been released from prison where he had been incarcerated due to assault with a deadly weapon. Jack’s stepfather was also an alcoholic. His driver’s license had been revoked following several DUIs. Transportation was a major problem for Jack. The school psychologist and I spoke with Jack’s stepfather several times on the telephone and arranged for Jack to come to the office building to be tested. Mr. Shebly sounded intoxicated during all of these phone conversations. The school psychologist managed to complete the cognitive evaluation. However I did not have such luck. I arranged meetings with Mr. Shebly three times and, all three times, he failed to show up. The school principal would not allow me to go to Jack’s home to test him because of the stepfather’s history of violent behavior. During this time, Jack placed several phone calls to the assistant principal begging her to let him come back to school and apologizing for his behavior. He also called several of his teachers just to talk with them. We finally decided to hold an eligibility meeting without standardized educational achievement information. The information we did have included a full cognitive and psychological evaluation and sociocultural information, including a great deal of Jack’s family history. The psychological data indicated that Jack had average to above average intelligence, but a considerable amount of anxiety and depression, often manifested by acting-out behaviors. The sociocultural information shed a great deal of light on Jack’s problems. A county social worker went into Jack’s home and interviewed his parents. What she discovered was shocking. Jack’s mother was not his real mother, and this was information Jack discovered when he was 9 years old and in the 4th grade. He and his brother had been at a local swimming pool one day during the summer when they were 9 and 7 years old respectively. While at the pool, both boys were approached by a strange woman. She told them that she was their real mother. According to bystander accounts at them time, this information obviously upset both boys. When they began to argue with the woman, she attempted to hold their heads under the water, perhaps to drown them. In fact, Mrs. Shebly confirmed that the woman at the pool was indeed the mother of the two boys and had been a former friend of hers. She had no idea who the boy’s real father was, nor did their mother. The man whom Jack and Drew had believed for years was their real father was, actually, probably not related to them at all. According to Jack, the Shelby’s home life had been tumultuous as well. He had a vivid memory of his stepfather attempting to push him out of a moving car when he was a child, and he appeared to be haunted by this memory. According to social services records, the Shebly’s home had been investigated on several occasions by a social worker, but nothing was ever reported to be amiss. Jack’s difficulties in school began in the 4th grade and seemed to worsen as he became older. I wonder how so many adults in the schools and in the community could have missed the obvious suffering of a child for so long. Case Study 3: Questions for Reflection: Name: 1) Should Jack have been identified as having a disability? If not, why? If so, what disability and on what grounds? 2) If you think that Jack had a disability, at what point in his school career do you think it could have been or should have been identified? 3) If Jack had been identified earlier in school as having significant problems (or a disability), how might subsequent problems have been prevented? 4) How might the teachers and school administrators have responded differently to Jack’s insistence on being involved in his younger brother’s behavior management? 5) To what extent do you think Jack’s and Drew’s problems were due to cultural influences or to family issues? 
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