Across the Great Divide

Flag City.

You can’t miss Flag City. It’s the one with the stars and stripes big as a front lawn between the Futon Factory and Boston Market on the strip mall they don’t want us to call a strip mall, but it is. You can hear the dogs barking from the doggie day care place behind us, though we’re not supposed to call it that, either. It’s the Rover Room.

We sell state flags and country flags and Jolly Rogers and flags that say Open and flags that say Open House. Just about anything you can say on a flag, we got it, and if we don’t, somebody in China’ll make it for you. We got bunting and party flags, even little ones on toothpicks you can put in drinks. Then there are the red, white and blue pennants on a streamer like the car dealers use, or other color combinations if you want. We’ve got surveyor’s flags and find your car in the parking lot flags. Poles of course. Military flags and POW-MIA flags and the fancy ones for the color guards. Christian flags, Catholic flags, Episcopalian flags. Did you know the Jews have a flag? Or maybe it’s just for Israel, I don’t know, but we have it. Muslim flag? Don't ask. Seriously — do not ask. We have number to call when that happens.

I know I’m missing some. Flags with the outline of Playboy Bunnies. NFL team flags with suction cups you put on your car roof. Lapel pin flags. Confederate flags, behind the counter. You’d be surprised how many people are looking for Swastika flags. Tibetan-type flags that look like a bunch of tie-died ribbons on a stick. Butterfly flags. Flowers. Like I said, a lot of kinds.

Then the owner sells seasonal inflatables. They’re not exactly flags, but you can see what he was thinking. A little fan fills them up and you put them in your yard. Snowmen. Leprechauns. Easter bunnies. Jack-o-Lanterns. Turkeys. Santas in all kinds of situations — like coming out of an outhouse, 20 bucks more if you want the laughing elf. They’re an impulse buy. Nobody goes out shopping for an oven where Hansel and Gretel pop out. You just have to put them out there and see who bites.

So my job is to raise the outdoor flags and put out inflatables in the morning, then take ‘em in at night. Otherwise, there’s vandalism, you know. Kids think it’s funny to shoot Frankenstein with a pellet gun or steal Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and then the next thing you know, somebody’s got it tangled in their boat propeller.

It’s not full-time, my job. They don’t have enough in the warehouse to keep me busy, they say, which I guess is true, but then they don’t have to pay benefits, either. I’m not stupid. So middle of the day, I go over to Rover Room and walk the dogs, pick up poop. I like the dogs better than the inflatables, but it’s part-time, too. You just do what you gotta do.

That’s America. I mean, you’re free to work as many jobs as you want, to buy anything you want. An Uncle Sam on a rocket for the Fourth. Or a Patriotic Bald Eagle or an Elephant. Near as I can tell, they don’t make a Patriotic Donkey, which I guess you could take two ways. The day they come out with a Jesus or a Martin Luther King, though, is the day I’ll have to quit.

Shelter Report: Looking Through Spreadsheet Spectacles.

Today we had 19 kids in the preschool.

M and his sister J are back again after being sent home after violating their behavior plans. They were both doing better today. M came close to having a meltdown just like the last one that got him booted out of class, but the teachers worked to bring him back down to neutral.

I'm not sure what sets him off at snack time. Today, the kids got to eat like dinosaurs, which meant eating melon chunks and Cheerios off paper plates without using their hands. It was supposed to be fun, but something wasn't happening the way he wanted, and he lay screaming in frustration on the floor.

Running the classroom involves a constant flow of maintaining the familiar — the "Start Your Day" song, the "Say Your Name" circle, the weather report, snack time — with new material. The familiar stuff grounds the kids, lets them all participate, helps them socialize and brings the slower ones along while learning from the others. The new stuff keeps the day stimulating, introduces new cognitive and motor skills, etc.

G, who I introduced several posts ago, continues to make progress. Since I'm only there once a week, I can really notice the difference the minute I walk in the door.

Nineteen kids may not sound like a lot in these days of larger public school classrooms, but I assure you, when preschoolers ranging in age from 3 to 5 are involved, it's a handful to manage.

Today, because of the iffy weather, we tried an experiment. Instead of going outside to the playground, we split the class in half, sending 10 to the "gym" and keeping the others in the classroom to string beads. After half an hour, we flipped the two groups. In contrast with the regular hour on the playground, this structure for play time produced less conflict among the kids, but it also meant they got half the normal physical activity.

I'm sure we'll do it again this winter when we have a larger group and can't go outside. The split wasn't just an innovation out of the blue. It was made necessary by the number of kids we're serving.

Last year, the size of the gym was cut in half to add another classroom to buffer kids coming out of the toddler room and give them more time to catch up to the older kids they'd be around in the preschool. The extra class seems to work well for the kids, and it allows us to handle more children than before.

But it also means much less indoor play area for physical activity during the winter months when it's too cold to go out. Although we have trikes and some climbing equipment, it's crammed into half the space, making it difficult to safely use it all with a full house — of even a partial one. It has also meant hiring more classroom staff and needing more volunteers.

If you were a school board member or a legislator looking at a school like this through spreadsheet spectacles, you'd see more kids being served but also higher staffing costs. You would not see that the new classroom was smaller, limiting the number of children it could accommodate, while still requiring two teachers in the room.

You'd also see the increased capital costs, but not see the reduction in space to play. And with one more group needing to use the play area, you'd probably overlook the impact on how their respective days had to be restructured.

Finally, if you're just looking at costs, you might see a good efficiency ratio in that classroom with 19 kids, but from the children's and teachers' standpoints, it's not ideal.

Now, suppose it's next year, and new adults are overseeing the budget. The housing crisis has gotten worse, and there are more kids living in the shelter. Healthcare costs for staff have risen, so have energy costs. All the books and equipment have another year of wear and tear. There's no more room in the building.

And our overseers ask, where can we cut? Why can't you do things smarter?

If you're just looking at a spreadsheet, those questions may make perfect sense.

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On a side note, People Serving People was featured in this article about the affordable housing crunch. Doobie Lenear in the photo is one of my former kids.