Foster care in DC can't be good

One of my students was taken from class on Friday to be put into foster care. Here's the whole story. It's the closest I've come to crying in class.

From day one, he has been my sneakiest trouble maker. He is the kid who is always watching me because he wants to know when I am looking at him and when he can get away with his sneaky behaviors. I will catch him watching me, look away and as soon as I do, he does something like move seats, sharpen his pencil without asking, go talk to a friend, or take something from the supply closet or library. He is not a violent or really mean kid so when he gets in trouble, he gets this goofy smile on his face and says, "what?" I won't lie, the whole act is extremely frustrating and so is that way he shrugs it off like he doesn't know he was being bad. Still, I can tell he is more of a class clown than a trouble maker and he is doing it to be silly and act like a kid. Nonetheless, I have been toying around with calling this boy's mother. A third grade TA told me his mother doesn't play so I thought she could set him straight. I never made the call and I am so glad I didn't.

This boy's little sister came to school on Thursday with bruises on her back. The school counsellor told me they were so bad it was sickening. This was coming from a woman who has seen this kind of thing many times before. So the bruises were really bad. The little girl, went straight to the hospital and was removed from the home that night. My student left school on Thursday and went home to his mother and other three siblings. (Don't get me started on this bad decision). On Friday, my student came in and was a mess. He didn't want to talk to anyone and he wouldn't participate during Morning Meeting. Who knows what this boy went through that night. He got pulled out of my class and questioned by a detective and examined for bruises by a doctor. They didn't find any bruises on him, but he was the only one without the bruises. The authorities decided to remove all of the children from the house, but couldn't get them all into the same house. My student was so scared when he came back to the room to get his things to leave early. He said he had to go somewhere and wait for a while. I didn't know what to say so I told him to take a book with him in case he got bored and I sent him on his way. What even happens to a child in DC foster care? If DCPS is so bad I can't imagine foster care is any better.

The part of this story that got to me in class was the fact that he was the only one without bruises. I finally understood his sneaky, childish class behaviors. He is the good kid at home. The one sits around like an angle being careful not to do anything wrong so that he doesn't get what his siblings were getting. That's why when he comes to my class, he can't control his impulses to test my limits and push the rule boundaries. All I could think was how glad I was that I had never called his mother. I don't think I'll be making any parent phone calls for a couple weeks.