What is the name of your state? California
Thank you for all the previous responses. I realize now that in order to get an adequate answer to my questions, I must fill in some details. So, with your patience, here goes. I teach in a small independent K-8 school in a very homogenous area south of San Francisco. I used to live and teach in Oakland so I still have many friends and attachments to that area. Last fall, I got a call in the middle of the night from a man that I had been counseling on a volunteer basis years earlier. He is a drug addict and asked me to come up and help him. I should have asked details but I didn't, I just got in my car and drove. When I got there, he was sick from heroin withdrawls. In the morning, I took him to a rehab center but was unable to admit him without his ID. We went back to the house he was staying at, a drug house, to retrieve his ID and, in the midst of the confusion at the house, my car was stolen by someone at the house. I was threatened by the people at the house and told that I could not leave because they were certain I would call the cops, which I would have. For three days, I was guarded until finally, I was allowed to make a phone call to my school to let them know where I was and to ask for help. A friend from school came up and got me, we immediately went to the police station and filed a police report. (Miraculously, my vehicle was found!). Back at school, I told my story to the head of school who found the whole thing to be unbelievable. He said that he needed some assurances from me and from others that I was still the kind of person that could be depended upon to be left in the care of children. I understand now that what he was most concerned with was the fact that I made the decision to help my friend showed a complete disregard for the children that depend upon me on a daily basis. It is an important and valuable lesson but one I have taken to heart. He required me to be psychologically evaluated as to my fitness to be a teacher and to submit to random and periodic drug testing. I agreed to both. I drug tested and, of course, was clean as I do not do drugs although I was somewhat worried about the effects of second hand inhalation from the house I was held captive in for days. As to the psychological evaluation, I looked into it and was told by three licensed psychotherapists that what I was being asked to do was both impossible and illegal. The head of school envisioned me sitting down for an hour and then signing a letter saying that I was mentally fit to be teaching children. The therapists all told me that such an evaluation would take a number of days, thousands of dollars, and even then, would not be definitive. So, the head of school backed off on that demand. The rest of the school year has gone without incident. With the exception of my father dying in December, I have not missed any school and am an exemplary employee. I hold a number of leadership positions in my school in addition to my teaching responsibilities. I am the middle school coordinator and have taken it upon myself to institute a number of new programs in our school to meet the needs of our students. The head of school is an extremely cautious man. No decision is an easy one and often takes so long to be reached that, by the time he is comfortable with a course of action, it is already too late to take action. He rules in secrecy both in terms with how he deals with the staff, the kids, and with the parents. In his mind, and he has actually said this to me, the less people know, the better it is. He recently dismissed a teacher without adequate explanation which sent both the teacher and parent community into an uproar. As a result of his personnel blunders this year, he has resigned from his position, effective June 30, 2005. By the way, this is his first year at our school. The board of education has, however, made it clear that he will continue to make decisions and be supported for the rest of his term. Needless to say, the school community has been turned upside down with all of this. Now, onto the latest matter. A week ago last Sunday, I went up to Oakland to have dinner at a friend's house with his family. I was a little early so I decided to look for a place to buy flowers to bring to dinner. As I was walking down the street, two men approached me from the other direction. One asked me what I was looking at. I replied, "Nothing" and the next thing I knew, he wacked me across the face with an aluminum baseball bat. I must have been knocked out. When I came conscious, I was in a lot of pain, not just my face but other parts of my body as well. I tried to stand up and my right leg kind of collapsed. I limped to a phone and called my friend who quickly came and got me. At his house, he and his family offered to take care of me. I was still a little goofy; I didn't think about calling the police and it wasn't brought up. I have since learned that in my friend's neighborhood, people prefer to take care of their own problems without involving the police. My friend explained later that, as a black man, he has found that involving the police is almost like inviting them into the business of your life and if this can be avoided, it is probably better. As a white man, I may not understand this but have to respect it. The next morning, my jaw was so swollen, I was unable to talk so I wrote out a message for my friend to read when he called my school to tell them I would be unable to teach that day. In the message, I said I would be in contact with the school as soon as I could. The phone call was made before school began, in plenty of time to get a substitute. The secretary who took the call questioned my friend and he became very agitated saying he was just passing along a message. Later I found out that the story the secretary told was that she had received a phone call from a very dangerous black man who made it sound like he and I were involved in some sort of wrong doing. My friend took me to the hospital in Oakland that Monday morning but the ER was flooded. We stayed for a little while but were told that since my injuries were not life threatening, I would probably not be able to be seen until later that evening. My friend said that he could care for me better at home so we went back to his house. I was made comfortable throughout the day, taking tylenol and icing my wounds. The swelling in my jaw went down until I was able to talk without pain. I was relieved to know that I could move my jaw and didn't feel any cracking so I didn't worry about a broken jaw. What did worry me was my leg. I spent the day lying around and the pain in my leg increased. I had been hit in the shin with the bat and I thought it was just a bad bruising. That evening, I called the assistant head of school and told her exactly what had happened to me. She told me to get to a hospital right away. I agreed to do this. My friend was not able to leave his family that night but promised to take me first thing in the morning after he took his son to school. This time we went to a hospital in his hometown, Castro Valley, rather than Oakland. He said this would be better for me as, in his words, I had "the complexion for the connection". I wasn't sure what he was talking about until we got there. The hospital we went to on the previous day was exclusively black both in terms of the people who ran it and the patients. The one we went to on Tuesday was almost exclusively white. Leaving aside all comments or judgements on this, let's just say, it was a reality check to have this shoved in my face. I was officially admitted into the ER on Tuesday evening, cat scanned, xrayed, and brought upstairs to a hospital bed. It turns out that my leg was severely fractured at the tibia. I was seen by an orthopedic surgeon on Wednesday morning who said that, based on the xrays, I would not need surgery to align the bone. I was put in a splint for the time being as there was a slight contusion above the fracture and the doctors were concerned about the possibility of infection. I saw an infectious disease specialist who prescribed some major antibiotics and said that he would monitor the situation on a daily basis. On Friday afternoon, the surgeon and the disease specialist said that things looked under control and that I should be released from the hospital with orders to see an orthopedic surgeon on Monday morning in my area to cast up my leg. By the way, the head of school came to see me on Wednesday afternoon while I was still in the hospital. At this time, I didn't know anything about his resignation and the turmoil at school and he didn't tell me about this. He questioned me for a while and made it clear that he either didn't believe my story or couldn't understand how I could be so stupid as to go to Oakland after my experience in the fall. I didn't feel like it was worth trying to change his way of thinking at the time. He told me that before I could return to school, he would have to have some serious questions answered but for the moment, I shouldn't worry about that, I should just focus on getting better. Hah! That's a laugh. Don't worry, you might lose your job, but just get better. I was devastated by this news. When I got home on Friday afternoon, I called the head of school to find out what the next step was. He told me about all the problems at school resulting from his announced resignation and said that it was going to take some time before he could get together with me and talk. I waited until Tuesday before I emailed him with an impassioned plea. No reponse. I called the school on Wednesday and was received very coldly by the secretary. Understandable I guess. She told me she would tell the head that I called. PLEASE CONTINUE TO PART TWO IF YOU'RE STILL AWAKE.
