Transparent Tuesdays

Issue 239

You guys,

I expected the parent-teacher conference to be a brief check-in—a glowing report—because every time I’d seen George’s teacher she told me he was doing great and “I wish I had all George’s in my class.” 

But as I sat in a small wooden chair, a foot from the ground, across from Ms. Allie, who also sat in a small wooden chair, our knees up at our chests, she said, “He’s behind. Socially and academically.” She nodded as she spoke, as if we were agreeing about something, as if she was telling me something I already knew. 

I saw her two days before, when I picked the kids up early from school because Layla was sick, and she told me we could reschedule the parent-teacher conference if we had to—we could even just do a phone call if we wanted, she didn’t have much to go over.

I thought of the piece of scrap paper in my back pocket. The one with the bullet points Sam had listed for me: 

• Socially: Friends? One day he said they didn’t want to play with him. 

• Learning: Areas to focus? Rate his progress?

I wished he was here. He was supposed to be here but our sitter texted in the morning and canceled—sick—so Sam was home with the kids. 

Sam is better at these things. He asks all the follow-up questions. He’s not emotional. 

I pulled the list from my back pocket, as if it would give me some answers, as if it might act as a stand-in for Sam. Ms. Allie assured me she wasn’t concerned. George just needed more time. “And he’s just so little,” she added with a laugh. She asked if he was a preemie or had any difficulties as a baby. 

George was not a preemie. He had reflux, colic, and at one year old he stopped swallowing food, at which point he had surgery to see if there was anything in his throat causing it. There wasn’t, so we were sent to feeding therapy. After that it was speech therapy and after that occupational therapy. He eventually graduated from all three programs and that’s when he started school. 

“Did you all sign the permission forms for the developmental milestones evaluations?” Ms. Allie asked. 

I had not signed the permission forms. When I got the email that someone was coming to the school to “evaluate children on their progress in relation to developmental milestones in Speech, Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy,” I thought, Cool! And then I just as quickly changed my mind. We had already been through this with George—this was all behind us. And if someone was going to evaluate our son we wanted to be there, and meet them, and see what exactly they were doing. 

I thought back to my own middle school experience, when the D.A.R.E. program was introduced. My entire grade was sent to the school auditorium to listen to two uniformed police officers explain the dangers of drugs, what kinds there were, and how they were used. At the end of the weeks-long program there was a performance in which one student was chosen to act out an overdose. She would be carried away on a stretcher, and all the other students would watch as she was taken away in an ambulance—a real ambulance.

I wanted so badly to be the lucky student chosen to overdose but I couldn’t even raise my hand because my mom had called the school and told them I would not be participating in the program. They’re going to show you how to do drugs?? I don’t think so. So every week, when my entire class was in the auditorium, I sat at the back of Mr. Lindstrom’s science class and did nothing except think of all the fun I was missing. 

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned that the D.A.R.E. program was a failure and had the opposite effect they were hoping for. It did not scare kids away from drugs. It made them curious. And the epidemic of drug overdoses in my hometown worsened.

I felt like my mom when I decided we would not sign the permission forms. I was proud of this, thinking the other parents were suckers for allowing some stranger to evaluate their kids. But now as Ms. Allie asked if I signed the forms it felt like when the dentist asks if I’ve been flossing every day.

I thought of all the times Sam wondered out loud if George was falling behind, all the times I assured him, “He’s fine,” and “If he wasn’t doing well his teachers would tell us.” 

During the summer program George had a different teacher. Two weeks into the program she stopped me at drop-off and told me how much she loved George and wished he was in her class. At the end of the summer I emailed her and asked how he did and all she had to say was that George was wonderful. But I saw him every day at drop-off and pick-up, alone in the dirt, playing with an excavator, never reporting about any friends except the one time a “friend” took a toy out of his hands. All the students are friends, according to their teachers, but I've never met any of these friends. 

The next morning I emailed Ms. Allie. I wrote that I had been under the impression George was doing well and was still processing what she said. I wrote that Sam and I were going to look into occupational therapy, and if there was anyone affiliated with the school that she recommended. 

She called me a few hours later. She apologized for scaring me. She was not overly concerned about George, she just wanted him to have more confidence. Sam and I stood in our bedroom and listened to her on speaker phone—while George sat in the other room cutting paper—and we agreed. The people who tested for developmental milestones would be back next week. George could still be evaluated. 

I said thank you and hung up the phone. I walked out to the kitchen and opened my laptop. I signed the permission form. 

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Until next week,

Charlie