. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P A R O L E . C A L L

The day before I left for a four-day weekend, I gave my students a Christmas party, a sugar fest. My current school site is in a rehab facility where parolees are mandated to live, sent by their parole agents or the courts. The average person stays for six months. For my annual party,  I brought in candy canes and sodas and our amazing in-house chef made a hundred cookies and enough homemade strudel to feed a rehab. So the questions today came in whispers and whimpers. “Can I have candy, got anything sweet?” “You got any sodas?”  I guess I gave the addicts a taste and now they are hiding in the shadows begging for more, pleading in small and pathetic ways to get them a fix of what that fat red-suited man makes good on for a short time every December. Meanwhile many students need to see the County dentist and I feel bad drinking a cola on my break. My students survive on a steady diet of rolled Bugler cigarettes, instant coffee and their new drug of choice, refined white sugar.

The first day I started my new job I already saw police action. I entered the small school site in the strip mall close to the parole office. No one had told me the building itself was alarmed and when I opened the door a loud beeping noise began. I ran to the back to see what was going on. Meanwhile several police cars surrounded the front door. I had to explain I was the new teacher and someone from parole came down to silence the alarm. Welcome to teaching adults out on parole. I had to win over support from the parole agents, to get them to refer their caseloads to my school. It was a good start, I’m here–sound the alarm. That was close to ten years ago.