What do I do Now?

Today was quite weird. The teachers had a meeting about a new program the school wants to implement called balanced literacy.
The balanced literacy is a fantastic idea, but I don't' believe it can be started in the seventh grade. I think that if it isn't introduced in the younger grades, the older grades are just too old to start learning to read in a new way.
But I enjoyed the meeting, it was for all the English teachers and it was informative and exciting. The problem with this meeting was that it took place during class time. The teachers were told to give the class quiet work to do, but they did the work like I'm gonna die my hair blue. The girls had a field day.
The meeting went until the morning recess, and after recess, my co and I were really pressed for time. We decided to split our class time in half. That gave me about 35 minutes in each class.
I had prepared a lot to teach, but once I realized how little time I actually had, I had to think fast.
We did some answering questions in our journals about the letter to self, and then we did a few short minutes of history.
I couldn't start something new with them, so I came up with an idea. I called it "Creativity Sparks."
Each girl took out a clean sheet of paper and I gave them a word. When I said "Go," they had to write down whatever came to their minds. It didn't have to make sense, they just had to keep writing. I told them I didn't care if they started off with the alphabet and ended up with pajamas. They just had to keep on writing.
The point of the exercise was to teach these girls to use their imaginations, and not to be afraid to express their creativity. (I found that was a MAJOR problem when it came to writing in my classes.)
When a girl put down her pen, she was "out." She wasn't allowed to continue writing, not even one word. When a student's mind went blank , she had to keep writing, she could write, :my mind is blank." It was all fine with me.
I didn't collect these. At the end of 3 minutes, every single girl had to put down her pen, even if she was in the middle of a word. We used the word "ice" in one class, and the word "fork" in the other. It worked really well.
And no one wanted to get out. At the ed of the exercise, I told the girls, that whoever offered to read their creativity spark out loud to the class got a plus one on any of my tests. The girls were all begging on me to call on them....even in class 7a!!! Maybe I AM getting somewhere!
I called R.R. over to me after school, we had a little problem with her "forgetting" to do her special homework. I told her that this was only a trial, and if she wasn't going to show me that she was going to try her best with me, I wasn't going got give up my extra time to her.
She basically got the point, but she told me that she threw out her "letter to self." Her reason? She claimed she had nothing to write, and she hated herself. Hmmmmm, haven't I heard that somewhere recently? I told her in no uncertain terms, that it was going to be handed in. I wonder if I'll ever get that letter.
She was walking away when I called after her, "By the way, I remembered about our appointment today, but it seems like you forgot."
R.R. blushed, and half turned around as she said, "I still don't think you'll have anything to say about me."
I answered, " I think you're wrong, and I think that if you'd really sit down and look inside yourself, you'd see all those wonderful things I see in you."
R.R.'s day was made.
Mrs. F, who works in the copy room, also a mother of one of my students, F.F. had called me over earlier that day during recess.
She told me that B.E.D. spent all her free time with F.F. in the F. family's house. She did her homework there, and called F.F. all hours of the day whenever she needed anything. She said that she sometimes spoke of her family problems, but she always told them never to tell anyone anything she said. She was afraid of her mother finding out. And the parents? Mrs. F. lived down the block from the D. family, and she described the mother as being extremely overprotective, and a bit unrealistic when it came to dealing with their kids.
The principal told me the same thing.
She said that a couple of years ago, the school had had B.E.D. evaluated for some strange behavior. The evaluation showed that she needed some serious professional help.
When the report was shown to the parents, they refused to believe it or do anything about it.
The school doesn't want to get involved anymore. They know that at this point it would be extremely detrimental to B.E.D. to talk to her parents again. The school is afraid that should the parents get the wrong idea, they might take B.E.D. out of this school and put her somewhere where no one will ever look at her twice. We don't want that to happen.
This kid is a bigger problem than I thought.
I spoke to F.F., and she told me what was going on. B.E.D. had no friends. She treats F.F. (a pretty popular girl) as her best friend. B.E.D. honestly thinks that her teachers have no idea about anything going on in her house. She's afraid to say anything to anyone, because she doesn't know whom to trust not to tell her parents.
The principal later told me that she had called Mrs. D. on Tuesday to tell her that some teachers had been complaining about her daughter being very reserved and about her not doing any work in class. Of course the mother denied everything.
The principal though, begged the mother to at least tell her whenever there was something going on with the baby, like this we would know when B.E.D. might have a hard time completing her homework, or paying attention in class.
The mother promised whole heartedly to work with the school, but we later found out, from Mrs. F. in the copy room, that the baby had been in the hospital since Thursday, but unsurprisingly, so one bothered to call us.
We're not working with very co-operative people.
I went home later and out of curiosity, I read B.E.D.'s letter to self. It was 4 pages long, and it had a nice long part about her sick brother. The funny thing is, she wrote about her older brother like he was still alive.
When I later asked the principal about it, she said that the evaluation they had done on her showed that this family keeps this boy very much alive. The longer I investigate, the more messed up this situation seems to be.
The bright side to this whole story is that B.E.D. confided in me. She knew that I was going to read her letter, so she obviously wanted to confide in me.
My shoulders keep getting heavier and heavier. I'm just missing that last straw in the camel's back to make me collapse.
Maybe I should give my husband a "piggy back" ride.