Six Months in a Behavior School

Not prisons with gallows for men."

- Bumper sticker (the part that was legible-the bottom part)

It is pretty much out of sight from the public eye. This particular building could be described as innocuous, forgiving or even friendly if someone had such a desire to personify a building. Nevertheless, the inner workings of the building are not easily identified by the occasional passerby. In fact its exact purpose is quite hidden. I'm uncertain if it is intentional or accidental.

Located in Portland; sits this building, a therapeutic school. The sign along the top is almost impossible to see from the road making its location a little more discreet. The former resident of the building was Cascade Athletic Club. The building used to be a racquetball club and back in 2008, it was purchased by the school district, and converted into a therapeutic school for children with emotional and behavior needs that are unable to be in a regular classroom setting.

Upon parking in the lot, which was designed to hold around 25 cars or on street parking if the spots are occupied; one would approach the front glass doors and probably notice the buzzer and the sign informing them that they needed to push the button to enter the building. If the individual looks to their left, they would notice a very peculiar looking window. It runs horizontally it is about fifteen feet long and about three feet high. Although it is a strange shape for a window, the shape itself is not the peculiar aspect of the window. The thing about this window is that the glass is so thick that the images through the glass appear distorted. Every morning when I go to work, I look at that window as a "literary element" that exists in real life. For what is on the other side of that glass is truly distorted from the outside. I have also noticed that it distorts both ways. When I am inside looking out things do not quite look right. The colors are not as vibrant and the people outside appear distorted.

After the secretary buzzes you in, the doors rapidly slam shut behind you and make this loud "CLICK" sound. The doors are now locked from the inside and outside. There are panic bars on all the doors to get out in case of a fire. The thing about these panic bars are that they have to be held down for fifteen seconds before the doors will open. Whenever the bars are pressed an alarm goes off, informing staff members that a child is attempting to escape.

There is another door that requires an identification card to be swiped across a black box. After the ID is swiped, the door will unlock and allow the individual to enter the hallway. This hallway has six classrooms on the left and a gymnasium/cafeteria on the right. All the classrooms are identical. Entering the individual classrooms require the use of a key. All of the doors are self closing and self locking. Upon entering any of the six identical classrooms, you would notice a small room on the right. This room is known as the "side room." The purpose of the side room is to give students an opportunity to be alone. For example if a student was being "a good student" and the noise, of the other students were disturbing him/her the student could ask to use the side room. These rooms lock from the outside but they do not lock from the inside. Children cannot, be locked in these rooms. The entire building is concrete as well as the walls of all the classrooms. The concrete walls are covered with wood paneling that appears to have been reused form the original racquetball court. All of the windows also appear to have been salvaged from the racquetball court as well. These Plexiglas windows are extremely strong and will not break.

After leaving the classroom if one would continue down to the end of the hall, one would notice another door that requires an ID badge to open. After entering that room there is another door which is keyed. After passing through that door, there is yet another door that leads into the ante' chamber. Beyond that door, is a stainless steel door…keyed and dead bolted. This room is concrete and lined with white plastic walls. There is an advanced fire suppression system designed to protect children that are unwillingly placed in this environment. The children are observed through the small window in the door. This window can withstand forces in excessive of 600 pounds of pressure per square inch. The internal camera has been desecrated. It seems rather strange that someone would install a camera in a location accessible to violent, angry and unstable children. The un-violated cameras located outside the room, are untouched and are pristine in appearance. The virtually unnoticeable little red lights, on the underside of these cameras dance around as these sterile, panoptic eyes remain looking through the thick glass. Although I wonder where the feed from these cameras goes. Who watches the "tapes?" Are there tapes or is it digital? Are the cameras even real? Those are just some of the questions that I have; however, I am not certain that the answers would be of any benefit to me. The view through this tiny rectangular window in the door is also limited in both directions. The children held captive can only see who ever is standing in front of the glass. If the door is shut to the ante' chamber; both the prisoner and guard have equal yet diametrically opposing views. From most points of view, it is difficult to ascertain who the prisoner is and who the guard is. The cameras aiming into the room and the keys to the door are the only things that separate the two sides.

The purpose of the building is clearly laid out in the architectural design. If one were to walk through the building while it was completely unoccupied, the individual would clearly see that this was laid out as a prison and masked as a public school.

At 8:50am the building comes to life. The children are whisked in through the multitude of security doors. They do not seem to notice that they are in a slightly different learning environment then the majority of students in the county. The main congregating location is usually referred to as the MPR room. I have been under the assumption that this acronym stands for "Multi Purpose Room" but have not the desire to confirm my suspicions. The thirty boys and five girls gradually enter the MPR and sit down. They are individually escorted through the line by one of about 60 different staff members assigned to work in the building. After getting their breakfast, they sit down and eat. On this particularly normal day at about 9:05 am, a little boy named Randall decided to hit another child over the head with his tray. The normal security people were not around and I restrained the 65-pound second grader the best I could. I had him pinned to the ground until someone came to help me; it was the principal of the building. Randall bit me on the back but his teeth never broke through my skin thanks to the fact that I was still wearing my jacket. I was glad I was wearing my Columbia Sportswear jacket; I have noticed that it is particularly difficult to bite through and offers additional protection against children excessively spitting. In fact, the children always run out of saliva before it is absorbed through the material. The only protection for the face is to look away the best you can. We dragged Randall towards one of the "white rooms." Through much of my bewilderment, all the white rooms were already occupied with children. The eerie stereophonic screams of "FUCK YOU" were echoing through the halls and into the MPR room. Upon the principal's, realization that all the rooms were full I was instructed to lock this child in the side room of the classroom. I did not want to do it so I pretended that the child escaped my grasp. It was at this moment that the principal shoved the child into the side room of this classroom and ordered me to hold the doorknob shut because this door did not lock from the inside. There was no light in this room; essentially this child was locked in a dark room. I held the doorknob for around forty minutes, talking to the child the whole time. He had overheard what the principal had told me and we spoke of that. I was told if I let him out, I would lose my job; such a threat that is unheard of in a public school, especially with unions and legal rights that should protect me in instances like this. Why an English major with a particular fondness for renaissance literature was transferred into this environment is beyond me. After much insanity, the principal was "released" from her position.

After being involuntary transferred into a school that I did not know existed within the framework of the public school system; I concluded that the view inward, through the long rippling horizontal window, is deceiving. With that in mind, I am transferring to a new school, hopefully an institution with a better "front window."