Loooooooooooong week!

We are housed in temporary quarters for this year and next as our new "state-of-the-art" school undergoes construction. Actually, though, the old building (mold and all) has been torn down and dutifully carted off to various recycling facilities, but there has been no progress made on the construction of the new facility.

Bussing is a rarity in this city because there are lots of neighborhood schools that the kids can easily reach by foot. Obviously, though, as the temporary schools are in different neighborhoods, the city has to offer free transportation to the displaced kids.

A few things suck about the bus situation. First of all, the teachers have to rotate "bus duty" which involves standing around outside with massive groups of kids waiting for the busses to arrive. It is no secret that in New England, the weather is often unpleasant and therefore it should come as no surprise that standing out there on those freezing cold, snowy days absolutely stinks.

The other real bus-related hardship comes in the form of the school day starting much, much earlier for us teachers. Our contract states that we don't have to come into contact with students until 8:06 A.M. The busses drop the kids at school at 7:30. We have an amazing free breakfast program (every kid in the city can come and have free breakfast, regardless of family income, etc.) or the kids can go play in the gym. Of course they rarely go to breakfast or to the gym. Instead, they come straight from the bus and into the homerooms.


They are not there to work. They are not there to read quietly. They are not there to help me. They are there to socialize, run around, slam in and out of their lockers, use fowl language and spread vicious rumors about one another. They are there to cheat on their homework. They are there to sneak onto inappropriate websites. They are generally there to cause trouble.

Whereas in the old school, I could go in early, get my copying done, correct a few papers and complete a bit of lesson planning (because I knew the kids wouldn't start showing up until just shortly before 8 and would not be allowed into the rooms until starting time at 8:11), in this school, I am literally on crowd control duty from the second I walk in the door at 7:30 AM.



My contract says that I'm not even required to be in school until 7:45, but we have literally all started getting there by 7:30 just to be able to police the kids as they disembark the busses.

All this is a lead-in to the point of my story...

A couple of days ago, our district superintendent was in school at dismissal time. He made a comment to the principal about the fact that we start getting kids out the door and into the busses by (and he literally looked at his watch to make a point of noting the time for her) 2:29 instead of 2:30. He reminded her that dismissal is at 2:30, and not a minute before.

Funny, I don't see him there when I am reporting to work 15 minutes ahead of contract time and babysitting kids 36 minutes ahead of contract-designated student/teacher contact time. No, of course not!

Then he further complained that several of the students in 8th grade were "fooling around with wires" on the laptop cart. A little background. In our temporary school, we do not have a proper computer lab. We have a cart full of laptop computers that we can sign out and take into our classrooms. We have been pushed and prodded to incorporate technology into our lessons, and we have trained 3 of our nicest 8th grade boys to be in charge of getting the cart to and from the library and into our rooms. These kids know how to use the technology, they put it away correctly, and they can be trusted with the machines and keys.

My colleague saw the kids putting the cart away at the very same time that this idiot was there watching them. She said the only "out of the ordinary" event occurred when the cart got tricky to move over the lip of the carpet leading from the hall into the library. She said one of the boys did chuckle a little because the other tripped a little, but that was the extent of it.

Jesus, they're kids. They can't laugh a little and be goofey???

How ridiculous!!

I love that our bosses want more control over us than we try to exert over our teenage students! Wonderful.

The other tough aspect of this week was the full Wednesday. Every other Wednesday is an early release day for kids, but teachers have to stay and do prep work and have meetings, etc. It is actually very nice. None of us have gym/art/music, etc., planned on Wednesdays, because on half days, the kids would miss that particular specialist. Not a big deal on half days, but on those full days, where there isn't a minute's break and no prep period, just non-stop kids, it is MURDER!!

I was drained at the end of this Wednesday. I mean, really. I have a 30 minute lunch break. Usually 10 minutes of that is spent bringing the kids to the caf, quelling some riot, explaining to the lunch lady that somebody lost their ticket, etc.

On those long Wednesdays, it is such a joke! We have about 15 minutes to eat lunch, use the bathroom and relax. Unreal!



I am going to the cabin with my boyfriend this weekend. I wasn't really terriblyl sure whether I wanted to go. Leaving tomorrow afternoon will preclude my beloved Friday at the gym, but I will eke a workout in after school at home.



We will undoubtedly walk around the cute little town of (appropriately) Littleton on Saturday. There are some cute little shops and cafes. You can also bet your ass that there will be plenty of.....



going down, too!

Happy weekend.