Like Jekyll/Hyde

I wish that subject line were referring to Robert Louis Stevenson's classic book, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Unfortunately, it is not.  I seem to have a Jekyll/Hyde situation with a student.

Her mother has made me aware of her problems, but those problems are occurring at home - they are not spilling into the classroom. And it is like there are two different girls.

Coming to school is a sweet, friendly girl who smiles a lot, has friends, works hard, and never, ever is a discipline issue. She is well accepted by her peers and not isolated socially nor is she a bully target when at lunch recess with students from other classrooms. Academically she struggles - she scores very low in comparison to the rest of my class, and would not be in it except that she moved here from another school in which she had been identified as GT. As such, we had to consider her for placement. But, she has an excellent work ethic and gets her work done and handed in, even if it is of much lower quality than her peers'.

Her mother paints a very different picture of her. She says her daughter has anger issues to the extent that the girl has meltdowns at home and is in counseling. There have been some absences related to this, including a time where she apparently ran away from home, was caught by police, and reportedly taken in handcuffs to Juvenile Detention.

Mom reports other times like last Friday where she had a meltdown at home, ended up in the ER, and then refused to come to school the next day. Or times when getting her on the bus is a real struggle.

During a phone call yesterday, her mom said that when she brought up possibly changing her to a general education classroom, her daughter exploded and did not want a change. Yet she says my student frequently complains that she hates school and has no friends.

What on earth is going on with this little girl? Truly, if her mother had not shared with me, I would NEVER know as the girl seems quite normal and no different from her classmates (aside from not being on the same academic level.)

After a phone call yesterday from my student's mother asking if her daughter was okay since she'd nearly not made it to school again (she was refusing to board the bus), I consulted with our school psychologist, Linda, and our school Resource teacher. We all agreed that something seems very amiss.

Personally, my radar is going off big time, and I have learned to listen to that sense I sometimes get about children. Clearly I need to keep my eyes and ears open.