Swimming against a tsunami

My students come to school filthy. They come in shirts covered in foodstains. They smell like body odor. Their pants are torn and dirty. Some of my students come to school sick. One of my students came last week with a swollen eye the size of a tennis ball. He didn't seem too bothered by the eye when I asked him what had happened to him. "My eye? I dunno."

It's a shame and a travesty. Sending a kid to school with tennis ball eye or clothes covered in a week's worth of meals. Allowing a student to leave the house without a jacket on a day when it is snowing and sleeting, not mending a child's torn blouse or pants. It's a disgrace. It isn't their fault.

No one has time for my kids and they know it. Their parents don't come to school for their report cards. They don't come when the kids are in trouble. They don't come when the kid needs an emergency change of clothes. They don't answer the phone when I call to discuss their child's performance and they don't respond when I need the parent to come for a conference. It really bums me out and breaks my heart the way my kids get the shaft. They live in a crap neighborhood, go to a crap school, eat crap food, and have crap parents to neglect them. It's not fair. Their lives are filled with pain. I want more for them but have no way to give it to them. I would cry but don't seem to have any tears at the moment.

I'm feeling very down after the way things went today. The kids beat me up from the moment they got here. I sent the same people to the office again and as usual nothing happened. No one listened or cared or learned anything. One student got a punch in the kisser from another delightful student. Students from other classes mixed it up with my kids. Everyone yelled at everyone for everything. It was a loony bin instead of a school. How can I make it better when I am swimming against a tsunami?