Expelling, Marrying, and Really Changing

To say that school expulsions are incredibly emotional and traumatic for all parties involved (including students, parents and school administrators) is a vast understatement.  I should know because over the course of twenty-six years I served as the expulsion officer in a public school district with approximately 9000 students who did not always make the smartest decisions.  I have conducted well over one thousand student expulsion hearings and was responsible for the decision to exclude the vast majority of these students from school.

Mind you, there is a limit to the period of expulsion (generally between six weeks and a full year) and ongoing educational opportunities like alternative school, tutor or on-line instructions are always proffered, along with the requirements that enable the student to return to the regular school setting.  Still, it's not a pleasant task to inform the family and child involved that they are excluded and no longer welcome on school grounds.  It was always my objective to be fair, focusing on how to help the student continue to make progress toward graduation and learn from their mistakes while enforcing district, state and federal policies regardless of the decision that was made.

I may not be the quickest learner but after conducting approximately 50 expulsions hearings I began to observe an interesting pattern regarding the behavior and reaction of the parents.  The parents always seemed to fall into one of the following three categories:

1.     Those who were there to defend their son or daughter and always felt their child was being picked on and someone else was to blame - other students, the teachers or administrators.

2.     Those who had given up on their child and would express their disappointment with words like "I've done everything I can and they are on their own", or "they have made their bed and will have to sleep in it".

3.     Those who did not excuse their child's poor behavior and choices, but neither did they abandon their child.  They were supportive of their son or daughter without trying to help him or her avoid all the consequences of his or her actions.  Often the mother would just sit there and cry.  Even now it makes me tear up when I think about those parents and the pain they were willing to endure as they lovingly helped their child learn to be responsible.

It quickly became evident that the parents in group #1 were enabling their child's bad behavior.  The students weren't dumb and knew their parent would lash out about the unfairness of any discipline.  I remember listening to the parents defend their child and seeing their anger focused on anyone else but their child.  The implicit message to their child was that he or she did not need to change because his or her parents would always place the blame on others.  Needless to say, I wasn't much impress by this reaction and it was evident that these parents weren't trying to raise students who would take responsibility for their actions.

If I found the parents in group #1 as being enablers of irresponsible and spoiled behavior, I had even less respect for the parents in group #2.  Often parents who were in group #1 would change to being in group #2 over time as they would return for a second or third expulsion hearing.  At no time did they take any responsibility for their child's behavior and rather than being willing to admit there had been mistakes (in their parenting and their child's behavior) they simply gave up.  Again, the message to the child wasn't that they needed to change, but rather they were hopeless and would never amount to any good.  The parents would rather throw the child away then to try and be responsible themselves and work through the issues.  I realize that this is easy to say when one doesn't have to live with all the disappointments and heartache created by a problem child, but I have a hard time excusing these parents who wish to absolve themselves from any responsibility at such a critical time.

I always wanted to give some kind of award or medal to the parents who were in group #3.  It was evident to me, and definitely to the student, that these parents cared not only about their child, but also that they would grow up to be responsible adults.  I remember watching the mothers cry and seeing the remorse this brought to the students.  I soon realized that it didn't matter what decision I made because these students knew they had embarrassed the family with their behavior, and the sorrow they caused their loving parents was a greater deterrent than any consequence I would enforce.  That is not to say that I assigned them a different punishment than students with parents in group #1 or #2, but I knew these students had learned their lesson and would not embarrass their parents again.

It was interesting to meet students in public that I had expelled.  I always wondered if it was safe to eat the food when going through a drive-in and being served by one of my former expellees.  I have forgotten most of the more than 1000 students and their parents with whom I had to make a judgment, but one tends to remember a few (like the mayor's son I expelled).  There were a couple of hearings which in conjunction with the events that followed were just too unusual to forget and are worth re-telling. 

The first story has to do with a student who I will call Randy (not his real name).  I remember we held an expulsion hearing for Randy two weeks after school was out, which seems a little strange, but it was all a timing issue.  You see Randy used an M80 firecracker to blow the urinal off the wall on the last day of school.  And it wasn't like Randy was a stranger to me.  At the time I had been called to serve as an LDS Bishop (the LDS church as a lay-ministry and I served as the leader of a congregation of approximately 600 for no pay for 5 years) and we welcomed him into our youth programs when he moved to town about February.  I had heard stories about his behavior and that he could be a problem, but he seemed to act appropriately in the church setting and after a couple of months and he quit coming.  It was only about a month latter that he had the brilliant idea to flush a lit firecracker down a urinal.

Randy was expelled for the fall semester (blowing urinals off the wall was not something the school district really wanted to encourage) and it would be almost 10 years until our lives would intersect again.  During this time Randy served in the military, was married, divorced, seriously injured, and confined to a wheel chair.  The LDS Church assigned me to be the leader of a small congregation in a neighboring town and I saw Randy's name on the rolls.  I visited with him, found out what had occurred in his life and invited him to attend church, but he never came.  About a year later I received a phone call from his mother, who said Randy was getting married and wondered if I would perform the marriage.  I met with the couple as we made arrangements and then conducted the ceremony.  Randy was in his military uniform and came down the isle in his wheelchair.

I just find it a little strange that I would be asked to perform the marriage for someone that I expelled, but that is not the end of the story.  Randy's step-sister would become my secretary and when Randy's marriage didn't work out, he actually called me about five years later, saying he was getting married again and asked if I would perform his new marriage.  Unfortunately, I was no longer serving in a church role where I had the authority to officiate a marriage, but I was able to make arrangements for someone else to perform his marriage and I consider it a great honor since I had made the decision to expell him that Randy would even consider me.

While what happened with "Randy" is unusual, the expulsion for Greg (not his real name) and the subsequent events related to him seem like something from the Far Side; and therefore is worth the telling if only to make the point that people can change - and I mean really change.  I can't even remember the reason for the expulsion hearing, but it was evident Greg had a temper that could really get him in trouble.  It was what happened after he was expelled that makes him so memorable.  He threw a brick through the front window of the administrator who brought him to the hearing and then he used his pellet gun to shoot holes in the glass panel by our front door (see the pictures below) and our upstairs attic windows.  He also tried to shoot and break our front yard light bulbs, but they were constructed of heavy duty plastic so there was little damage.  Following this attack we took our address out of the phone book to avoid future problems from expelled students, but I remembered Greg because he knew where I lived and he got to me and my family.

Three years later I read about a shoot out between Greg and the police in a neighboring town.  No one was hurt, but gun shots were exchanged, resulting in Greg being arrested and locked up.  About 15 years later I met an individual who worked for the Oregon Parole and Probation Board, and so I asked about Greg, because I was concerned that he knew where we lived and felt he could be dangerous.  A short time later the person got back to me with the information that Greg had served his time and been released, and was somewhere out in the community, but there was no record where.  I didn't find that information very reassuring.

About a year later, there was a middle school student with the same last name as Greg who was making serious threats in the area.  Since I was on the county Student Threat Assessment Team, I was a part of the discussion and decision regarding what to do with this student.  He was required to meet with a mental health counselor and I asked the counselor to find out whether the student was in any way connected to Greg, and if so, where was Greg.  A couple week later the counselor reported back to the Student Threat Assessment Team and told me the student lived with a step-dad, but Greg (the one who shot at my house) was indeed a very close relative and he was back in town.  The counselor said that perhaps I had seen Greg because he was the person who stands on the overpass in town in a robe and a sign that either says REPENT or Jesus Loves You.

I have attached photos above of our front window that Greg shot and also of the new, improved Greg below.  It just goes to show that people really can change.  Can't you just feel the love?