The Spider's Fly - Page 20/49

Over the next few months, Lindsey focused most of her attention on strengthening her reading and comprehension skills. While the others were right on task, Lindsey was still struggling to catch up. Unfortunately for Lindsey, one on one tutoring was not provided to students above the third grade. The only option for students that were struggling in the higher grades, was to either be held back until they are able to catch up with the rest of the class, or to accept transfer into special education classes. With the much improvement that Lindsey was making, her parents were still set against either of those options. With the fourth grade almost half over, Lindsey didn’t have much time to prepare for the fifth grade. She knew that she was going to have to do everything that she could to make it. The next few months were far from easy. As Lindsey was doing her best, her classmates and other peers at the school weren’t making it any easier for her. They teased her, calling her stupid, retard, and other names that hurt her feelings. And though Lindsey was beautiful, they even made fun of her looks. They called her ugly, stinky, and other hurtful words. Lindsey wasn't aware of it, because she really thought that she was ugly, but they were jealous of her outter beauty and the attention she was getting from her teacher Mrs. Count. The ongoing teasing was having a huge negative impact on Lindsey’s mental and emotional health. Each day after school, Lindsey would look in the mirror and say things like “You’re ugly” “ I hate you” "You're stupid”. With all of this going on, it was becoming more and more difficult for Lindsey to catch up. Mrs. Count felt very bad for Lindsey. Seeing how hard she was trying, and still not able to catch up, Mrs. Count decided to offer to tutor Lindsey on her own time after school. Lindsey's parents were very grateful of the offer, and decided to accept. For the rest of the school year, Lindsey spent 2 hours, every week day, after school, with her teacher, doing their best to get caught up with the rest of the class.