It turns out that, over the weekend, one of our 6th grade students was killed in an automobile accident and his 3 siblings were left without a mother. We were called together at 8:00 am and given the news. It was really a gut punch.
Around 9:00 am I got an email that instructed me to take the “appropriate actions” in Powerschool. i realized that this never happened before, and I had no idea what the appropriate actions are. I sat depressed for a while and then did the research. It turns out that, among the several reasons from which we can choose as to why a student is dropped, “death” is actually one of them. Students are never eliminated from the database from here all the way up to the ISBE database so, I was informed, his State ID will be deactivated in perpetuity under the category of “deceased”. I felt like he was declared dead a second time. It’s been a shitty morning.
No, I’m tech. I feel like I declared him dead for a second time, ending his existence forever. There was a finality to it. He had ten years on this earth.
But honestly, death in a civilized (bureaucratic) society is always like this. There’s the reality of personal death, and then there’s always a multitude of bureaucratic declarations of death.
Always brought to mind the relevant metaphor of “more nails in the coffin” as the reality of death spreads further into the mechanics of society.
I’m so sorry to hear that. I work in payroll and have had similar experiences. The knowledge that there was a human with a personality, thoughts, and hobbies, who has left behind a grieving family and friends, juxtaposed with the utter mundanity of following a protocol for closing out their electronic records is always borderline surreal. Take care.
I’m so sorry, Jasmine. Having been there, only with high school kids, I can empathize. I had a student who died of a sudden illness, and his name on my roster every day was like a little land mine. I couldn’t bring myself to delete it, as like you said, it felt like a second death, so a tech did it for me.
Such a tragedy for everyone.
Such a young child and mother lost to the world.
And now the rest of the family left to deal with the trauma.
Rough days ahead.
It is difficult to enter these kinds of events into a system that needs its updates.
It feels so disconnected.
