How is it only Thursday?!

This is pretty much the message I got from the Universe yesterday! Thanks, Pissed Off, for this laugh. Why is that every time we have a Monday off, the rest of the week just drags on and on?

And, the warm, fuzzy feelings just keep going. Today was not much better than yesterday, except that there were 5 kids out, so that was a little better. But, my two little trouble makers from yesterday were both there, so I had my fair share of stress today. They ALL were a little nuts today. Even Ms. H. had it with them today. She said, due to their behavior yesterday, she was going to make them have silent lunch today. I made a point of walking all the way into the lunchroom with them, and reminded each and every one of them that it was to be a SILENT lunch period. I left them with Ms. H., as usual, and thought they understood. Well, when Ms. H. brought them back, she was beside herself. Long story short, I told them they would be having silent lunch again tomorrow, and that I will be sitting with them. So much for getting a break tomorrow....

I woke up in the middle of the night last night because I couldn't breathe. All day today, my sinuses have been doing that delightful little dance that goes, "Stuffy nose, runny nose, stuffy nose, runny nose, 1, 2, blow, blow, blow, 3, 4, breathe through your mouth..." You get the picture. So, in addition to dealing with my little darlings and their poor behavior, I was dealing with my nose issues and a head that felt like it was literally going to explode. Oh, and don't forget the friggin' 8th grader I got to babysit all damn day!!

Thank God tomorrow is Friday. I was really tempted to stick around after school and prepare a sub folder, and just take tomorrow off. I'm sure this is just the beginning of my misery with this cold, and it would probably serve me well to have a whole day to stay in bed and rest tomorrow. But, I just couldn't bear to stay long enough to put the folder together, plus it's just more a hassle than it's worth to take a day off. Besides the time it takes to prepare the folder, 95% of the time, the sub ignores the damn folder, and doesn't do anything I spell out in my lesson plans. Plus, they usually let the kids run wild and destroy my room. On top of all that, Ms. H. doesn't work on Fridays, so the sub would be alone, which spells certain disaster for my classroom. If Ms. H. was going to be there, I just may have taken a sick day. I guess I'll just have to suck it up. And, no, I'm not referring to the snot running down my face.

Warning - This post may contain an F-bomb or two...

I haven't bitched about the Hell-Hole in a while, but there's some crap bubbling up right now that I need to spew, in hopes that my eye will stop fucking twitching!!!!!

First of all, did I mention I'm back up to 32 fucking kids?!? It was 33 for a day, until I realized that one of the new kids was actually supposed to be in 1st grade. Guess it was too fucking hard for the office to figure that out when they made a copy of her fucking birth certificate, huh? Thankfully, I've had, on average, at least 6 kids absent every day since we came back from break, so I've been able to squeeze them in at the tables. Today, however, all but 2 showed up, so I had to break down and set up a 5th table.

Latina Girl is lucky she didn't go home with my foot protruding from her ass today!! I tried to call her mother several times, so she could come get her, but of course, I couldn't reach her. God forbid there had been a real emergency! (You know, like needing a foot surgically removed from her rectum!) The final straw, that made me call her mom, was when she stole something from one of my little darlings. Two tables of babies displayed some wonderful behavior right before lunch, and each of those babies was given a treat to eat when they finished their lunch. Well, Latina Girl took one of the other girl's treats right off her plate and ate it!!! And THEN, she tried to say she didn't know it wasn't hers!! WTF?!? I wanted to punch her in her face!

Besides Latina Girl pissing me off all day, AM was really pushing my buttons, as well. (How do I NOT have a label for this PITA on this blog? It's not possible that I haven't bitched about her yet! Oh, well, there's a first time for everything, right?) She has been a HUGE PITA since the very first day of school. When her mother brought her to school this morning, she came to me and asked if I would send a note home at the end of the day to let her know what kind of day she had. Apparently, it's AM's little brother's birthday today, and if she had a bad day, she wasn't going to be able to go out to celebrate tonight. Well, of course, I figured I would sugar-coat the report so she wouldn't miss the party. Yeah, well, that lasted about 20 minutes!! Between her and Latina Girl, I don't know who was making my blood boil more. (When her mom came to get her at the end of the day, I didn't sugar coat a damn thing. Then mom tells me that she already was having a bad day before she came to school. I guess she shoved her baby brother - the birthday boy!- off the bed this morning. But, apparently Mom wanted to make ME the bad guy, cuz she didn't have the backbone to just tell her she was going to have to miss the celebration. Her mother's shitty parenting is exactly why this child acts the way she does!!!)

When we were coming back from our afternoon bathroom break, Ms. H saw us in the hall and asked if I wanted her to take a couple of them off my hands for a while (since I had 30 freakin' kids by myself all damn day!!) I didn't even have to say anything, she knew which two to take! About 15 minutes later, she comes to the room with the two brats, and says that New Principal said they had to come back to the room. WTF??! She said they couldn't be out of the room missing instruction. Yeah, well, when they're IN the room, there's very little instruction going on, because I spend all my fuckin' time dealing with their bullshit!! ARGH!!!! In the short time they were gone, we were able to do an awesome lesson about graphs that was tons of fun, and had the rest of the babies on the edge of their seats. Whatever! I put them in opposite corners, and tried to just trudge on with the day.

I was seething, though, on the inside about New Principal, and the stupid statement she made about them missing instruction. I haven't bitched about this yet, but there's no time like the present, right? Almost every fuckin' day, I have at least one 8th grader sent to my room, so that I can babysit. And 99% of the time, these kids have been kicked out of their rooms for being out of uniform. Seriously?!? Not because they were disrespectful, or disruptive, or any kind of discipline problem. No, they have on jeans!! Have you ever heard anything so fucking ridiculous?

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad she's actually enforcing the uniform policy. That's always been a HUGE problem at the Hell-Hole. So, yes, please enforce it. However, how does she justify making an 8th grade student, who is supposed to graduate in June, miss an entire day of instruction?! Make these kids stay after school for detention, or come in early for morning detention, or some other appropriate consequence. DO NOT keep them out of class for a whole day. And DON'T make ME babysit them!!!! She's under the delusion that it embarrasses them to have to sit in kindergarten. Yeah, right!! They love it. And, it's one more body I have to be responsible for, one more kid I have to keep busy all day. The day I was out for Bestest Friend's mom's funeral, there were THREE of them sent to my room. Apparently, the sub paid them no mind, and they played with my computers, messed up my games, rearranged my books, ugh!!!!!!

Did it ever occur to New Principal that these kids purposely come to school out of uniform so they WON'T have to go to class? DUH! These kids aren't stupid, ya know!

Ugh, I could go on and on, and I definitely have more to bitch about, but I'm going to stop for tonight. I'm going to make myself a yummy cup of hot cocoa (sugar-free Swiss Miss with a shot of sugar-free hazelnut syrup. YUMMY!) and curl up on the couch. I'm sure there's some mindless TV I can watch for a while to lower my blood pressure. Man, I wish Glee was on...oh, wait! I just remembered it's Wednesday, and I love the line-up on ABC! Modern Family is one of the most hilarious shows on right now. I love it! The Middle has some pretty funny moments, and I love Cougar Town. Then, one of my all-time favorites, Ugly Betty, has just moved to Wednesday, so that'll round out my evening of mindless TV. Yay! Good thing Stud went with CSJ, otherwise I'm sure I'd be ignoring him tonight. Oh, wait, isn't that what teenagers WANT their parents to do?

What a day...

This morning, before school started, the older sister of one of my little girls came to my room and said, "AP won't be here today because she went with her dad."

OK, she wasn't here yesterday, either. I was feeling really annoyed, especially because I just told her mom, less than a week ago at report card pick-up, that her daughter has missed far too many days of school (15 out of 36 days!!) and she MUST be here everyday. She's drastically behind in every area.

Well, a few minutes later, the mom came to my room, and proceeded to explain to me that AP's dad picked her and her siblings up on Saturday, and has yet to bring them home. WTF? She started getting upset as she told me about how she has no phone number for him, nor an address. THEN she tells me that the dad is ON PAROLE!! Seriously, WTF?! I didn't ask what for, but does it really matter? She said she talked to his mother, who said, "Now, I told him to bring those kids to school on Monday!" She said that he had been threatening to take her to court for some kind of "fathers' rights" thing, so she got scared and let the kids go with him. Now she's wishing she never had.

By now, she was getting teary eyed. I asked if she had called the police, and she said she called them this morning, and that they were on their way to the school. I put my arms around her, and tried to comfort her, but all that seemed to do was make her cry harder. I told her that chances are, being that he's on parole, he has a parole officer, and the PO must know his address and phone number. Unless of course, the guy's a total assbag, and decides to do something really stupid. Good Lord, let's hope that's not the case.

Ms. H. (my wonderful assistant) happened to be around when the police came. She told me that one of the officers was someone who comes to our school a lot and that he was an absolute jerk to the mom. He was yelling at her and telling her she was stupid for letting her kids go with this guy and not getting his phone number and address. And, the worst part is, he was doing this in the middle of the hall, with other parents, as well as staff members, standing there. What an assbag! I hate to sound like a bitch, but a woman who has children with a criminal is probably not the brightest bulb in the chandelier to begin with, so what's the point of humiliating her like that in front of other people? How 'bout you just take the information, tell her you'll do what you can, and shut the hell up? ASSBAG!

Later in the morning, I saw my friend/neighbor Mrs. J., who told me that our friend BJ passed away last night. I just pray that she has a peaceful passing. Mrs. J. said that her family was donating her brain to science, apparently so they can study the effects of Mad Cow (it's actually vCJD) on the human brain.

Maybe tonight, when you say your prayers, you can say a couple extra for AP and for BJ. Thanks.

Jumping for Joy

This was me at 2:45 this afternoon. Tomorrow is a teacher institute day, so I won't have to see my little darlings again for 18 days!! Woo-freakin'-hoo!!!! I'm seriously considering taking tomorrow off, just so I don't have to sit through 6 hours of boring meetings. Then again, I hate to "waste" a sick day on a day when the kids aren't even there. I suppose I'll muddle through....
~~~

Ms. C., one of our clerks, let me know today that, despite being told by New Principal that I could attend the Kindergarten Conference in December, it's not gonna happen. Someone was in today from central office to do a major audit of our books. (Surprise, surprise!) Apparently, there is no money available for outside PD right now. I'll be honest, I was very disappointed. I'm considering just paying for it myself, and taking a couple of sick days. It's just over $300 for the two days. I have time to decide, I suppose, since it's still months away.

~~~

The end of the day was a bit bittersweet today. After Ms. H. made up little goodie bags for the babies, and gave them out, she gave me a BIG hug, and told me to have a great break. I'm going to be so sad when we get back from break. Oh, and I didn't mention yet that I, more than likely, won't be getting Ms. M. (the displaced teacher who has been helping me) back either after break. While we're out the next two weeks, she'll be subbing somewhere else, so there's no guarantee she'll be back at the Hell-Hole. It more likely than not that she won't be back.

~~~

Late in the afternoon, a letter was sent out for the kids to take home letting parents know that some major changes will be happening when we return from break. If I were a parent in this neighborhood, I would be getting more than a little perturbed. How many times are these kids going to have to change rooms/teachers in one school year!? Then again, 90% of our parents don't even read these notices and have NO FREAKIN' CLUE what the hell is going on at school. It's pretty standard that when a parent comes to school for any reason (parent conference, early dismissal, etc.) they haven't got a CLUE what room their child is in, or even who the teacher is. Hell, half the time, they don't even know what GRADE their kids is in!! Argh!

~~~

As I was dismissing the babies, I was, naturally, giving them all hugs and kisses, telling them I'd miss them (what a liar!!), and I'd see them in two weeks. There was a parent out there listening, and she turns to me and says, "Uh, why there ain't no school for two weeks?!" Um, ok biz-nitch, where have YOU been the past 7 weeks!!!!!? Even after I told her it was Fall Intersession, she just looked at me like I was crazy and says, "Yeah, but why?" In my head, I said, "Get the fuck out of my face, you stupid crack whore!" But, my teacher face said, "Well, that's because we are on a year-round schedule now. That's why we came back to school 7 weeks ago, instead of after Labor Day like other schools." Even I was impressed with myself for saying it with a smile and a calm voice. My inner voice was still spewing nastiness, of course.

~~~

Time to get caught up on some laundry, since it's a big TV night for me tonight. Grey's Anatomy premiers tonight! Woo hoo!! Hell, I may even bake something to share tomorrow, since it's been so gloriously cool here in ChiTown lately. :)

~~~

*Thanks, Suz, for letting me steal my title from you today! :)

~~~~ARGH!! Fuckin' Blogger!!! WHY, WHY, WHY does it always want to delete my spacing!!!???

What am I getting myself into? (updated)

OK, this has NOTHING to do with school, but it made me laugh!

I talked to New Principal very briefly this morning. I know I mentioned that she wasn't at school Friday. I ended up leaving her a note about this K/1 split that she's been talking about. I already did my venting about this, so I won't rehash it, but I told her pretty much all my thoughts on the subject, and basically asked if I could just keep all of my babies, as to avoid the K/1 split. She said she would think about it. I'm hoping she'll take my suggestion, and use the new teacher position to make 2 1st grades, and 2 2nd grades.

I don't think I've posted about this yet, and I'm surprised I haven't. My wonderful parent volunteer, Ms. H., who has been helping me every single day, doing lots of "grunt" work, handling the homework packets, taking my kids to all their preps, etc... has YET to be paid one cent this school year!! (Maybe I'll post the whole story later.) She told me today that if the pay situation isn't resolved by the end of the week, she won't be returning after our fall intersession. OMG!!! I'm so upset about this. I wish to God I could find some money to pay her out of my own pocket. I was shocked (and, quite frankly, disgusted!) to find out that all Big Cheese had been paying her (and the other "volunteers") was $125 a week. WTF!! I can't believe she would work 35 hours a week for $125!!

I'm seriously trying to figure out a way to find this money. I've considered going back to working on Friday nights at the bar just to make the extra money to pay her. But, at the same time, I know this would kill me. I'm so torn about what to do. I've even considered talking to my dad to see if maybe his company would consider donating the funds to cover her pay. It would come to less than $5,000 for the whole school year. And, hey, they can write it off!

OK, I'm tempted to keep complaining, so instead, I'm going to go watch Night #1 of the Dancing with the Stars 3 Night Premier. woo hoo!

****

Ok, after reading the first few comments, I realize I should clarify something. We have two different kinds of "assistants" at school. There are 5 or 6 people who are "parent volunteers." This is not a true 'volunteer' position. There is a stipend involved, albeit a small one. I always thought it was around $5 or 6/hour. (Imagine my surprise when I realized most of them made less than $4/hour.) It's not the kind of "volunteering" your mom, or some of you, may have done in your child's classroom. It is essentially a job. A very low paying job....

Then, there are "instructional assistants" who must actually have some schooling. They make more money, I want to guess around $10-12/hour. Now, the real shame of it all is that the "volunteers" do about 100 times more work than the IAs. They have morning duty on the playground, lunchroom duty, hallway duty, after school duty outside, on top of helping in the classrooms. The IAs are almost all assigned to SpEd now, which means they do even LESS work than they used to, as they're supposed to be pushing in to classrooms and working with SpEd kids. Yeah, how convenient that no one actually knows where they're supposed to be at any given time. They essentially just walk around all day, pretending to be moving with their students. It's infuriating!

Anyway, that should clear up why the "volunteers" get paid. :)

Yeah...um....

...so, guess who left her dome light on in her new car, and drained the battery, so the new car wouldn't start after school, when she was in a mad dash to get the hell out of Englewood, to pick up her son at school? What, no guesses? Yeah, I don't know anyone that dumb, either....

Today was actually an OK day. The morning started with an unexpected staff meeting for primary teachers(K-2) in MY ROOM! I walked in just as the 8:30 bell was about to ring (which made me feel late, even though 8:30 is technically our start time) and New Principal had hung a sign on the time clock about the meeting. So, I rushed down to my room to gather together the handful of "grown-up chairs" I have in there.

The meeting consisted of us walking around each other's rooms with a checklist, critiquing and commenting on what we did or didn't see. (for example, word walls, student work, classroom libraries, etc.) Each category had sub-categories (Classroom Library-Is there a check out system in place? Does it have a large number of books? Are there a large variety of genres? Is it comfortable and inviting? and so on) My room right now is a hot mess (as we would say in Englewood) because I've just been trying to get through one day at a time, with too many babies crammed into too small a room.

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but for the past 8 years, my room has frequenctly received compliments and high praise for being so colorful, exciting and inviting to students. However, after the beginning of the year fiasco (cleaning issues, etc.) much of my stuff had been taken down, some thrown out (and NOT by me!!), and most never made it back up. I normally have everything that can possibly be labeled labeled. There are usually posters and so on all over the room.

My classroom library was actually organized, with every basket labeled according to genre. Unfortunately, when my stuff was moved out into the hallway for cleaning, my books were just randomly dumped then shoved back on the shelves, so it's just a disaster now. I was actually embarrassed to have my colleagues looking around.

Oh, and you'll love this one! I still don't have a word wall going. I covered my back board before school started, and put up a label that says "Word Wall," but never did anything else to it. I JUST yesterday put up the letters of the alphabet so that I can start putting up the words under each letter. That's ALL that is on there right now. Talk about doing a crappy job!! I was mortified. I thought for sure New Principal would have a lot to say about that. We were all given a checklist for each room we went to, and we were to fill it out and then leave it, face down, on each teacher's desk. I was dreading looking at the sheets on my desk.

New Principal must not be as upset with me as I thought, though, because just after school started, she came to my room with a woman and said, "This is Mrs. C., and she'll be here to help you all day, in any way you need." I almost kissed her right then and there!! Turns out, the woman was called by sub center to sub in our preschool today. However, when she went down there, no one was there. Turns out that, for some reason, there is two days of in-service scheduled for preschool, so classes were cancelled for today and tomorrow.

So, she was mine all day! It was awesome having an extra teacher in the room. Trust me, I SO appreciate having Ms. H. for the couple of hours a day that she's with me. But, having someone who actually knows how to deal with the babies was a blessing. The poor thing spent most of her day basically serving as a personal aide for one of my boys who really ought to be in a self-contained SpEd room. (Too bad we don't have those anymore at the Hell-Hole!) It was so great to not have to continually stop teaching to deal with his disturbances. Ms. H. does what she can, but she's had no formal training, obviously, to deal with these things. (She did, however, take him out of the room for me yesterday, which was nice, too.)

We had our first fire drill today, which was a bit of an inconvenience. Naturally, it happened during my prep. Now, at a normal school, the prep teacher would take the class outside and deal with things, right? Well, not here. We were told, by the parent volunteer who was walking around giving teachers the heads-up, that we needed to go up and get our kids for the fire drill. WTF? I was on my way up to the freakin' 4th floor when Mrs. H. passed me and said she was on her way to get the babies. God bless her heart! I told her I was going to duck into the bathroom real quick (cuz I'd been holding it for about 2 hours!) and I'd meet her up there. Of course, the alarm sounded as I was half-way there. I was AWESOME having another adult, in this case 2 adults, to keep the kids in line and quiet. What we're supposed to do is walk at the front of the line and guide the babies to our safe area. But, anyone who's ever walked little ones anywhere knows that you need to lead, bring up the rear, and occasionally attend to the middle, all at the same time! Now that I think about it, there were actually 4 adults because the gym teacher was with us, as well.

Luckily, the drill only lasted about 5 minutes, which meant there was still 20 minutes of gym left. I think the gym teacher thought I was going to take them back to the room, but he was sadly mistaken!! The rest of the day went pretty quickly. After gym, it was snack time. I took a small group of 6 back to the carpet with me to work on drawing and labeling a goldfish (our current science unit) while the rest ate their cookies and watched Chicka Chicka, Boom Boom. (Yes, AGAIN! They adore it, what can I say? And, I can seriously tell that it's having an impact on their letter recognition.) Before I knew it, it was time to go!

Now, you KNOW this day went to smoothly too be a day at the Hell-Hole, right? So go back up to top and remind yourself how the school day ended...go 'head, I'll wait....yeah, that's right. I'm a dork!! But, seriously, I didn't even sweat it. It took all of 5 minutes to jump it with the car parked next to me, and I was on my merry way. Right now, as I type this, there's a cool breeze blowing in my kitchen windows, and I can smell the chocolate chip cookies baking at the Nabisco factory. It smells like heaven!! I'm about to go down in the basement and do about 5 loads of laundry so I can pack for this weekend. I want to pack tonight just in case I decide to leave straight from school tomorrow.

I hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day weekend. See you when I get back. :)

Wow, I just realized that I started this post over two hours ago, but half-way through my sister called me from Italy, and we talked for nearly two hours. I think my Sissy is lonely. :(

She's trying to kill us...

Oh my hell. I know I have absolutely no right to do so much complaining, given that I prayed for a long time for Big Cheese to be gone, but Lord, I don't know how much more I can take.

I forgot to mention something that happened last week. My little darling, A.G., of The G Family, was moved to 1st Grade. Yay! You may remember that she and another little boy were in my class last year for half the day. They both spent their mornings with me in kdg., and then went to pre-school in the afternoon. They both have late birthdays, so they technically weren't old enough to be in kindergarten. However, D.F.'s grandma, who is our security guard, arranged for D.F. to be placed in a 1st grade class this year (with my approval). I thought A's mom was going to do the same, but she never talked to anyone in the office. I ended up going to the office for her, and was able to get her moved. As much as I'm going to miss her, I was glad to have one less baby.

I also found out that one of the boys who had been sitting in my room for 3 days was also supposed to be in 1st grade. The 1st grade teacher had been listing him as a "no show." That's 2 babies in one day! Woo hoo!

But, that excitement was short-lived. I immediately got 2 more babies the next day, so I was back to 29. Then, this morning, when I went out to pick up my class, a woman walked up to me and essentially handed me her child, saying that she was going to be in my room. Yep, the 30th baby had arrived.

On an up note, preps started today. My babies went to computers today. Yay! And, Ms. H., my parent volunteer, stayed with them and brought them back down for me. She's awesome!

OK, time to bitch about a stupid parent...
One of my babies was still standing outside with me at 3:00. He was the last one, and was waiting for his brother. Turns out the brother's teacher had kept them late, and I obviously missed them coming out, since I was already on my way to the office. I HUGE thunder shower hit as I was walking back into the building, so apparently the brother just went home instead of looking for his baby brother. I sat with him for a while, and finally at about 3:25, I called his house. I was surprised when his mother answered the phone. I identified myself, and told her that T was still sitting at school, despite school ending nearly 45 minutes ago. She goes, "Oh, I didn't even know." WHAT?!?! I mean, seriously, WTF? How do you NOT know that your 5 YEAR OLD still isn't home 45-freakin'-minutes after school got out!? THEN, she has the balls to tell me, "well, he can just walk home by himself." I wanted to reach through the phone and slap a bitch!! What part of HE'S FIVE YEARS OLD did that moron not understand!!?? Argh!!! Ok, I feel my blood pressure rising, so time to move on...

In my never-ending quest to end on a positive note, let me just say again how nice it is to have Ms. H. helping out. It's been working out to about an hour in the morning and about an hour in the afternoon, which doesn't sound like much, but it makes a world of difference, trust me! And, the best part is that she told me she doesn't mind taking my class to their prep and bringing them back when it's over. Woo hoo! You have no idea how wonderful that is for me!! That means I will truly get a 40 minute prep!! Normally, by the time I get the babies together enough to walk, then get them up (to either the 3rd or 4th floor!) to the prep, and come back down, anywhere from 10-15 minutes of my prep is gone. God forbid I have to do something crazy, like pee (!), I end up with about 20 minutes to actually do some work. This is going to almost double the amount of time I have to get things done. THANK YOU, Ms. H!!

Holy Hump Day!

I'm really gonna need to figure out a way to find some patience with this class! They are driving me freakin' crazy!

Ms. H. was able to help out for about an hour this morning, thank God. I simultaneously felt bad for her, and wanted to laugh out loud. She was trying to help some of the kids write their names, and they were making her crazy. I must have heard her say at least three times, "There's only ONE of me!" I probably say that 100 times a day!

These babies need a LOT of help. I'm trying so hard to not get discouraged. I'm tellin' ya, that last group spoiled me rotten! They were so smart. AND sweet and well behaved (for the most part.) This group, jeezaloo! None of them want to keep their mouths shut, nor keep their hands to themselves. I have at least 3 little Bossy Bessies. Oh, and I'm now up to 29 kids (plus about 15 no shows. Believe it or not, people have been making home visits to find out where these no shows are. I hope they find about 20 more kdg. kids so we can open another room!). Yeah, good times, good times....

Ms. H. also came for about an hour this afternoon, but surprise, surprise, she wanted to help me with something OTHER than the kids. tee hee! She put the labels I made on the mailboxes, then made me folders for all the babies so I can start their portfolios. I'm embarrassed to say I already had to resort to using a video today. I actually was close to wetting my pants over it, since New Principal made it pretty clear that she doesn't want us using our TVs. However, I had an "excuse" all ready to go, on the off-chance that she happened to walk in the room. We've been spending quite a bit of time each day with Chicka Chicka, Boom Boom. Naturally, they love it as much as every other class has. I put the video version on for them so that I could start assessments. It kept them very quiet, which was a nice change! I'm tempted to put it on for about 6 hours tomorrow!

What the....?

Wow, talk about a doing a 180! Today was NOT at all like yesterday. Those kids drove me freakin' crazy today!!!! I actually could feel myself raising my voice by the end of the day. I NEVER like to raise my voice the first week of school. I don't want them to think their teacher is some big, scary dragon. She's supposed to be The Queen, remember? I'm up to 25 babies now (with about 17 "no shows" on my list.) As much as I'm not enjoying having such a full class, I'm still wishing that about 25 more would show up, so that New Principal will open the other kindergarten class again, and put my friend back in kindergarten with me. I have a sinking feeling that the majority of the missing kids will show up after Labor Day, since their parents don't think school starts til then. I'm just afraid that by then, it'll be too late to open up another position, since it will be after the 20th day of school. (That's the 'magic day' that most of our funding is based on.)

I forgot to mention yesterday that one of the things New Principal told me at the end of the day was that she was going to send one of our parent volunteers to help me out during the day. She's one of my very favorite volunteers, so I'm very excited. She's actually worked for me in my afterschool program for the past couple of years. New Principal mentioned that if I kept getting more kids, she would send another person to help, as well, until she can reopen the other kindergarten. I'm glad she's as hopeful as I am that this is going to happen.

Even with Ms. H. to help me, the babies drove me nuts today. Even she couldn't believe how they were acting. We couldn't keep still, keep our hands to ourselves, or keep our mouths shut, to save our lives today! It was infuriating! I wonder if part of my lack of patience comes from the fact that I was just so very in love with my last class. They were phenomenal!! And, with the very short break that we had, I didn't have a chance to "forget" how wonderful they were. I don't know, whatever it is, I hope I can find some extra patience to deal with this group. The fact that I've been spending my days drenched in sweat is doing nothing to improve my mood, either!

Oo, Big Cheese news! I found out from my favorite mom, Mrs. G., that ever since Big Cheese was "evicted" from our school, he's been over at another school, doing absolutely NOTHING! This particular school isn't actually a functioning school with students. It's used for professional development, and as basically a holding place for displaced principals! His plan is to wait out his time until the end of the month, and then he can officially retire. Hopefully, the board will get their investigation going by then, or he's gonna get off scott free!

Welcome...

...to The Bus Driver. I discovered this blog a few weeks ago, and I've thoroughly enjoyed reading it ever since. All of my friends in the education field should check it out, (as well as the rest of you!) because it's really interesting to see another point of view for what happens in our schools.

Just for the record, Twin Boy has been back to his old tricks again for the past two days. Ah, it was great while it lasted...Tuesday, the one boy who had asked to high five him the day before actually said something in the morning about how he hoped Twin Boy was going to have another good day. It was so precious. The morning was ok, but as the day went on, it got progressively worse. By the end of the day he was back to punching people. Today was a train wreck from start to finish. I can't even count how many times he hit someone, and he was disruptive all day. It was very difficult to get our lesson finished, because the other babies were having so much trouble hearing me. Plus, it's hard to concentrate on what The Queen is saying when there's a boy rolling on the floor, throwing things, yelling out, and so on. If only there was another adult in the room, it would change everything.

Another big "break through" with D.B. yesterday. I was making the rounds at lunch, opening milk, ketchup and mustard packets, and sporks. D.B. held up his ketchup packet for me to open, which I did. Then, he held up his mustard and very clearly said, "I don't like this." I almost had to sit down. I've continued to ask him to talk to me throughout the day. If he wants to switch centers, he'll normally come over to me, bang on my arm, and then point at the center he wants to go to. I'll say, "Do you want to go to ______ (dominoes, counting bears, links, etc.)?" He'll nod his head, but then I'll say, "Tell me 'I want to go to dominoes'." He usually will just get out "dominoes," but still, it makes me happy.

When Mom came to pick him up today, I told her about yesterday's sentence, and how he's come so far. She was so happy, and relieved, to hear it. She said D.B. told her "I have to get used to the other kids, Mama." So, naturally, I asked her if he speaks at home, and she said he did. Now, obviously, I have no idea what that really means. He's able to make himself understood without being verbal. I told her that I'd keep working with him, and I joked that I hoped soon enough I would be complaining to her that D.B. can't keep his mouth shut! :)

Memorable Monday

I mentioned Thursday that I had a rough morning with three boys, one who was punching people all morning. This is J.F., who I think I'll call Twin Boy. (He and his twin sister are both in my class.) I just went back and reread all the posts from this school year so far, and I see I haven't written about Twin Boy yet, so here goes...

Twin Boy has had many "issues" since school started, the most troublesome one being his aggression. The very first day of school, he hit me at least three times. And, for seemingly no real reason. The first time, I simply asked him to find his name tag. He kind of grunted, then punched me. WTF?! It happened a few more times, like when I asked him to line up, and when I told him he had to wait his turn for the bathroom. Naturally, I spoke to Mom immediately about this. I had one of his older brothers a few years ago, so I'm familiar with the family. I believe there are about 9 kids in the family (all with J names!) and the twins are the babies. I've been really struggling to figure out how many of these issues are simply due to being babied for the past 5 years.

Over the next few days, Twin Boy hit me several more times, as well as many of my babies. I spoke to Mom every morning about it. Mom strikes me as being a bit "slow," (I promise I'm not trying to be funny) which I noticed several years ago when the brother was in my room. The father of this brood is about 70 years old, Mom is probably younger than me, so it's an interesting coupling, to say the least. I wish I knew the back story there.

The following Monday, Twin Boy had an explosive episode in which he beat the living crap out of his sister. He was kicking and punching with both hands and both feet. I literally lifted him up off her, and then removed him from the room. I went straight to the office and called home, hoping someone would be able to come get him. Dad answered, I explained what happened, and filled him in on what has been going on for the past week. He immediately started telling me about how Mom babies Twin Boy, and doesn't discipline him like she should. He told me he was from Nigeria, and he believed in spanking his children, but Mom doesn't do it like she should. Then he says, "I'm giving you permission right now to spank J anytime he needs it!" I almost laughed. Trust me, he is FAR from the first parent who has told me the exact same thing. Not that I haven't thought about smacking a few of the babies on the bottom over the years, but I would NEVER do it. Besides, I know that if I did, the very parent who gave me permission to do it would be suing me faster than I could blink an eye!!

Anyway, Dad said Mom wasn't around to come get him, but he wanted to speak to Twin Boy. I don't know what he said, and Twin Boy didn't utter a word into the phone. The next day, he had a MUCH better day. Wednesday, again, a fairly good day. Thursday morning, Dad brought the twins to school, and asked how Twin Boy has been doing since Monday. I happily told him that the past two days were much better. He says, "Ah, that's good. I've been whooping him in the morning before school." Jeez Louise!! NOT what I wanted to hear. Hopefully, after a "good report" that morning, Dad stopped with the morning beatings.

So, over the past four weeks, Twin Boy has had some bad days, even more really awful days, and a couple of good days. Thursday, obviously, was one of those awful days. When I called home, Dad said he would send Mom to come get him. That was at 11:15. Nobody ever showed up. Around 12:30, I knew I was reaching the end of my rope with him, so I asked Ms. W. if he could sit in her room for a while, which gave me the respite I needed, especially because I was still dealing with the other two boys. (This may be a good time to remind everyone that I have NO ASSISTANT again this year. Ugh!) I was hoping to talk to Mom and/or Dad the next morning, but neither of the twins came to school that day. Truth be told, I wasn't that upset about Twin Boy being out, but I missed Twin Girl. She has her own "issues," (for another post!) but she's generally a very sweet little girl. I guess Dad decided to keep them home after what happened the day before. I just hope it wasn't a day filled with spankings....

Today, Twin Boy started out a little rough. Before lunch, he punched two boys. Then, during rest time, he absolutely would not be still or quiet, which is annoying enough, but I was trying to DIBLE some of the kids. Finally, I had him come sit on the floor next to me, and warned him that he needed to be absolutely quiet because I was testing at my desk. Believe it or not, he was actually pretty good. Granted, it was only for about 10 minutes, but still, not bad! After I finished the last test, I had Twin Boy come stand next to me and have a little chat. We decided that he could be quiet when he tried, since he just did it, and that maybe he could try to be really quiet for the remainder of rest time. We talked about why he needed to be still and quiet, and how it was hard for his friends to rest when he was disturbing them, etc. I wasn't really sure how much of what I was saying was sinking in, but I hoped for the best. I made sure we only had a couple minutes more of rest time so that he could be successful at his first attempt. He was!

After going to the bathroom, we started our Math Centers. Usually, there is a LOT of fighting during centers because Twin Boy doesn't particularly like to share all the time. This is when he normally does most of his hitting. Today, he chose the center he wanted, and actually played nicely for a quite a while. The fact that I was sitting next to his center may have helped, but I was still impressed with him. Even better, the two boys he was playing with noticed how nicely he was playing, and said so! It was great!! This was done with absolutely no prodding from me. It came directly from the babies, which just made me beam with pride.

We continued our afternoon without any problems, and before I knew it, it was time to go home. I was calling tables to go to the coatroom, and suddenly one of the boys who had been playing with Twin Boy earlier again made mention of what a good afternoon he was having, and told me he wanted to give him a high five! I almost fell off my chair. It was one of the sweetest things I've ever seen. Then, naturally, ALL the babies wanted to give him a high five. Too cute! So what if we were going to be late for dismissal today, Twin Boy needed to get his props!! What a great way to end the day. Especially a Monday! Maybe it's a sign of what the rest of the week will bring...

That's when it occurred to me that I needed to thank all of my longtime readers/friends who must have been praying for me all summer. I know we all were hoping I would find myself at a new school this year, but I'm just as happy to be having such a great year so far, even if I am still at the Hell-Hole. (Good Lord, I hope I didn't just jinx myself!!) I think I'm really going to enjoy the 2008-2009 school year :) Just to be safe, feel free to continue those prayers ;-)

Day 6

Things have been....I don't know....odd (?)....at the Hell-Hole so far. I still only have 20 babies. Ha! ONLY!! If I thought it would stay that way all year, I would promise right here and right now to NEVER, NEVER, NEVER complain about the Hell-Hole for the rest of the year. But, I'm sure that's not the case, so I plan to continue my complaining ;-)

I have some interesting characters this year already. One of my boys came to me from a therapeutic school. WTF was his mother thinking?! Why, oh why would you take him out of that school to bring him here!?

Another of my boys has some serious issues. Developmental delays, for sure, among other things. His brother was in kindergarten a couple of years ago, and was in Dori's room. She worked her rear-end off all year trying to get this child staffed and into special ed to get him some help. She finally got him placed in a therapeutic day school, but his mother never took him. The mom used to come sit with him most days, which I think actually made it worse because he would pretty much do whatever he wanted and she allowed it. She very much babied him, and I see she's doing it with his little brother, too.

So far, she stayed in my room yesterday and today. His first day was actually Friday, and she didn't even bring him to class. His older brother, who I believe is in 6th grade, brought him. This baby then proceeded to scream bloody murder because he didn't want his brother to leave. He was screaming so loudly, that Big Cheese heard him all the way from his office and came down to see what the hell was going on. I know I've mentioned before that Big Cheese doesn't have much patience for this kind of stuff, so he immediately started yelling at this child. He then took him out of my room, and sent the brother up to class. I have no idea what he said or did, but about 5 minutes later, Big Cheese brought him back, and he seemed to be OK. At least for about 10 minutes. Then the screaming/crying started again.

I eventually had to have our security guard take him for a few minutes. He brought him back after a while, and things seemed ok for a bit. We went to lunch, then off to gym. Well, half-way through my prep, there's a knock at my door. I open it and this baby is standing there with his brother. Apparently D.B. took off out of the gym, which you may recall is on the 4th floor (!) and somehow, found his brother. So, his brother brought him to me! Well, I had just about had enough, so we all went down to the office so we could call mom. Naturally, no answer. Big Cheese happened to come in the office, and saw D.B. and asked what the problem was. I told him how he took off from the gym (which makes me wonder when the hell the gym teacher was gonna let me know about it...) and he told the brother to take him right back up there and bring him back to the gym. Yay, Big Cheese!

After gym, we were going to have quiet time, and D.B. started his screaming again. He kept trying to leave the room, and obviously I wasn't going to let that happen. He finally threw himself on the carpet, and then screamed/cried himself to sleep. Thank goodness! The rest of the afternoon went so smoothly! The rest of the babies were so funny. No one wanted to wake him up, so they were extra quiet, even during centers.

I realize this sounds like I didn't have a lot of patience for D.B., but remember that in between all this fun, I still had 19 other babies to take care of, assessments to administer, teaching to do, 100 bathroom breaks to take, all without any assistance. We don't have teacher aides AGAIN this year, so this is just really way too much to deal with for one person. Believe me, I would have loved nothing more than to take D.B. aside and talk him through his fits, and try and make him more comfortable, etc. But, how do I do that without ignoring the other 19? The answer is, you don't! Thankfully, I only have 20 instead of the usual 30, cuz then I'd really be screwed!

I found out today that this mom has 7 sons, and they are almost all this way. The talk around school is that she did a lot of drugs when she was pregnant, or more precisely, she just didn't stop doing them while pregnant. So very sad... D.B. has only been with me 3 days, so I'm curious to see how the rest of the year will go. Hell, I'm curious as to how the rest of the week will go, since Mom said she isn't coming tomorrow.

There are many other things I wanted to write about tonight, but I'm too beat. I actually was able to get up a few minutes early this morning and stuff my crockpot with deliciousness, so I had my sister, two nieces and my dad over for dinner tonight. I haven't cooked like this since probably before we opened the bar. (Chicken w/mushrooms, onions and diced tomatoes, steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, tomato and basil salad, tossed salad, whole wheat pasta and the most delicious Butterfinger cake for dessert) Yesterday was my sister's birthday, and the Butterfinger cake is one her favorites, so this was sort of a birthday celebration, even though we all went out for dinner last night. Today is my mom's birthday, so we sang to her, even though she's in Italy. Then, my niece started crying because she misses her grandma! Ah, good times, good times...

Anyway, I have many, many dishes to do, so I'll tell you about the rest of the babies next time.

When teachers are mad, they don't blink.
---William, age 12

It was another one of THOSE days...

I have no idea how I kept myself from walking right out the door today. GOD, I HATE THAT PLACE!!!! Let me give you a few of the highlights...

As we were coming out of our room to use the bathroom and go to lunch, I opened the door to see FIVE people sitting in the hallway at the "security desk" doing NOTHING! FIVE! Both security people were there, as well as three assistants. They were all sitting around, chit-chatting, having a gay old time, while I struggled to get 27 5-year-olds in and out of the bathroom and to lunch BY MYSELF. Ugh, it was so infuriating! But, wait, it gets better. Suddenly, El Queso Grande comes walking down the hall, toward where five of his employees were all sitting around doing NOTHING, and he simply waves and smiles! WHAT THE FUCK!? That would have never happened at a "real" school. No principal would tolerate that type of behavior from any employees. They're getting paid to WORK, not socialize, for God's sake! What's worse is that he takes part in the socializing! ASSHOLE!

After lunch, my class went to library. By now, you all know that the entire library curriculum consists of watching movies on the big screen, right? My prep time was over, I sat in the hall waiting, waiting, waiting, no babies. After 5 minutes went by, I walked up to the door to see that the movie was still on, and the kids were still sitting. So I walk in to start lining them up MYSELF (cuz, God forbid, I wouldn't want the librarian to do it!) and I see the librarian and the Big Cheese both sitting together in the back of the room playing on a computer!!! AUGGHHH!!! How dare he have the audacity to EVER say anything to me about ANYTHING he thinks I'm missing in my classroom, when he thinks it's perfectly acceptable for the library curriculum to be watching fucking television! And the art curriculum is passing out a fucking blank sheet of copy paper, day after day after day. And the gym curriculum is let's all run around and act like animals for 40 minutes. And the mother fucking assistants don't have to do ANYTHING! I HATE THIS FUCKING PLACE!!!!

OK, as you can see by the "salty" language above, I got a little worked up just thinking about my day, so I stopped and had a lovely little cup of orange tea. I'm feeling a bit better now. Still pissed, but not ranting.

While I was having my tea, I downloaded the video I took of the babies today singing their song for the assembly. I was in such a pissy mood all day today, and I didn't realize how damn cute they sounded until I watched the video. Remember, I was trying to keep the anonymity of my babies, but I wanted you to hear them, hence the goofy video of my Christmas decorations:

And, here are a few shots of the stockings they've been working on this week. After they left today, I wrote their names on their stockings with some green glitter glue as a little surprise for them for tomorrow.

Now I just need to remember to pick up some candy canes to stuff into these little babies before Friday. I think I'll stuff them Thursday night and leave them at each child's seat to find in the morning.

I've had the Biggest Loser Finale on for background noise, and it's starting to suck me in. I've never seen a single episode of this show, but I just may have to watch next season. Hell, I need to be ON it next season! I'm going to see who wins the $100,000. Good night!

Probably no greater honor can come to any man than the respect of his colleagues. ---Cary Grant

I came across this while looking for tonight's quote, and it instantly made me think of the Big Cheese. And what an ASSHOLE he is, of course!!

I hate this place, I hate this place, I hate this place....

dorMy Dori was out sick today for the second day. I'm really missing her. She had a total loony bird for a sub (no surprise!) who seemed almost normal in the morning, but then turned out to be crazy like all the rest of the subs we have. The sad thing is, we're just happy when a warm body shows up to sub, so pretty much any nutjob can show up, as long as they have a CPS subcard! As an added bonus, the freakin' office sent a new student to her room today. That makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

Lunch wasn't as horrible as it could have been today, considering my helper grandma didn't come early enough to cover lunch. Usually 1st grade has lunch at the same time as us, but they were on a field trip, so there was no backup at the lunch line, which was a nice change. I went in, got the babies settled in their seats, but figured I should stay, since Dori's sub was already told by the lunch ladies that she had to stay! Well, as I was sitting there with the babies, I was looking around the room at the 5 lunchroom employees (who are now doing NOTHING since the kids were already served) one of the janitors, two of the assistants (specifically the ones who bitched about the kids in the first place and caused this change!) Dori's sub and myself. 10 fucking adults!!!!! So, being ever the bitch, I say to the assistants, "Does it REALLY take 10 adults to sit here and watch these babies eat lunch?! This is stupid!" I don't think they appreciated my opinion. Oh well, tough shit!! The other 8 people were all sitting together, bullshitting, while the sub and I were opening milk cartons and ketchup packets. I had to literally tell one of the damn lunch ladies she had to get her ass up from the table where my kids were eating because they needed to sit down!!! She was sitting there eating herself!! What the hell!?! A grown woman can't figure out that gee, there are kids standing here holding trays, the rest of the class is sitting around me, hmmm, maybe I should get the hell out of the way!!! AAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHH!!! I just want to scream at the top of my lungs when I'm there!

That's precisely WHY there are discipline problems in the lunchroom in the first fucking place. You can't sit there and bullshit with your friends, while eating the kids' food, and expect the children to behave on their own. They're KIDS, for Pete's sake!! Kids will do as much as you let them get away with. It's their nature! There wasn't a peep out of them today, because I actually SUPERVISED them. Wow, what a concept! We all sat together, we talked, they ate, it was actually kind of nice. Do I want to do it everyday? Hell no! But, why the hell can't the other supposed adults in that building figure it out?!

Today was Principal For A Day day at all CPS schools. Can you imagine walking into that cluster fuck as the guest principal?! We had a bunch of people come today from some organization (but for the life of me, I can't remember the name of it!). They each went and visited a few classrooms. The woman who came to my room was very sweet. She actually brought Halloween pencils for my kids, which was an unexpected surprise.

Another stupid thing about this joint...there was a list given to us of which visitors would be going to which rooms. The same woman was scheduled to come to both kindergartens. Well, since Dori wasn't here, I told the woman who was coming to our rooms that she could just come to my room the whole time if she wanted, since really, what was the point of hanging out with the sub? The kids weren't going to be doing anything they would normally be doing, etc. So, Ms. V. came to my room. About 10 minutes later, Mrs. T., our "Reading Interventionist" comes into my room, disrupting the whole class, to tell Ms. V., she has been looking for her, and she should be next door, blah, blah. Ms. V. tells her that because there's a sub in there, she was just going to stay in my room. Mrs. T. tells her, no, she needs to go in there. Whatever!! Then, Ms. V. comes back a little later, gets herself settled in again (did I mention she's about 8 1/2 months pregnant?) and a few minutes later, knock, knock, knock, it's Mrs. T. AGAIN! Not only does she interrupt, she proceeds to go to the back of the room where Ms. V. is sitting and starts up an inappropriately loud conversation!! At this point, my babies were all doing quiet centers because I was trying to finish testing them at my desk, and now I can't even hear the baby who is standing in front of me! Naturally, because the grown-ups were being loud, the babies assumed they could be loud, and the noise level just escalated. You would think Mrs. T. would get a clue when I continued to scold my children for being too loud and I kept reminding them I was trying to TEST! Does anyone else in that place have a damn brain cell in their head?!

I really wish I had written down the funny answers from today, but of course, I didn't. One of the girls, though, had me just cracking up the whole test. You really had to be there to see the faces she was making and such, but she was just so cute. There were a few letters she didn't know, and when I pointed to "K" she says, "um...h-something." I guess you had to be there. It was funny to me!

At least my day started on a high note, because as I walked into the library this morning to get coffee and a donut (thank you, Principals-for-the-Day!) I got a great big hug from my upstairs neighbor. And, Ms. R., one of our brand new teachers (who probably wishes every minute that she hadn't accepted this job!) made me laugh. She asked, "Is this the line for coffee?" Naturally, I started to give a smart-assed remark. "No, this is the line for..." and I caught a glimpse of the Big Cheese, so I didn't finish the sentence. But, Ms. R. leans over and says, "the people who want their 20 minute break!" She read my mind! That's exactly what I was going to say. Too funny.

Well, as much as I'd love to keep bitchin' up a storm, alas, I must go help my son with his science fair project. Trust me, I'll be doing a whole different kind of bitchin' in a minute :(

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. --James Baldwin

So perfect for today's rant, because it's so obvious to those of us who have a clue. The kids are so rowdy and out of control because the adults that are supposed to be in charge of them act that way!!

He's reached a whole new level of asshole...

OK, so I checked my CPS email yesterday, just for the hell of it, and I found the most ridiculous email from the Big Cheese. Apparently he sent it out Friday afternoon, which is pointless since most people don't even check their CPS email during the week, let alone on a weekend! Anyway, the email basically said he was taking our freakin' lunch breaks away!!! I wish I could post the damn memo here so you could read it yourself. I'm going to try to cut and paste it...

October 26, 2007

IMPORTANT BULLETIN

1. Beginning Monday, 10/29/07, Teachers will be required to remain in the lunchroom with their students during their lunch period. The reason for this change is student behavior in the halls and during lunch. It is the teacher’s responsibility to establish classroom management rules with their class, in the classroom, halls and lunchroom. Teachers have been bringing their classes to the lunchroom disorderly, and then leaving them in the halls disorderly. We do not have the staff to monitor the halls and the lunchroom at the same time. The administration tried to provide teachers with a twenty minute lunch break, in addition to the five preparation periods this year. Unfortunately it is not working out; there is too much noise in the halls and lunchroom. We will either have to take away the fifth prep or the twenty minute lunch break. Teachers will still have to stay with their class during lunch. We will have to work out a schedule to give you the twenty minute daily break, if you choose the twenty minute break.
2. Wednesday morning, at 8:30am, 10/31/07, I need to meet with teachers in grades 1-3 to discuss classroom management strategies. Several teachers in these grades are experiencing classroom management problems. We need to brainstorm and come up with some strategies that can elevate these problems. Please meet prior to coming to this meeting, so you will have some ideas. More suspensions is not an option. We will no longer suspend any students under
fourth grade. Any other staff members are welcome to attend this meeting.
3. Tuesday, 10/30/07, is Principal for A Day. We will have representatives from MGR Foundation as our Principals. Be prepared to meet with them Tuesday morning at 8:30 am, in the Library.

OK, it didn't paste very well, but at least you can see what we got. I didn't edit a thing, so you all can enjoy the grammatical errors. God, this guy is such an asshole!!! I'd love to know how the hell he thinks he can just eliminate our lunch break! I have no freakin' clue how giving up a prep will offset taking a lunch break everyday. One has nothing to do with the other! All that's gonna do is give the prep teachers even MORE time to sit around and do nothing. If he wants us to give up a prep, then the prep teachers damn well better have lunch duty instead. There is absolutely NO planning involved in handing out sheets of blank copy paper, passing out basketballs, or turning on the TV. That describes the entire curriculum of all of our preps. There's absolutely NO reason they should be given any more free periods.

Now, let me start my bitching about the assistants. The reason that there is NO order or discipline in the lunchroom is because the people who are supposed to be supervising the children are busy acting like children themselves! They are under the delusion that this is their lunch/social time. They are far too busy eating the disgusting school lunch and chit-chatting with each other to pay any attention to what the hell the kids are doing! No wonder there's always chaos! WE did not give birth to these children, WE are not solely responsible for their lack of discipline and WE can not be with them non-stop from 9-2:45! If these people think it's hard to deal with these kids for 20 minutes, how the hell do they think it is for us to be with them the rest of the damn day?! Augh!! Get a fucking grip!! Once again, the assistants are allowed to dictate what happens in this hellhole. They don't like actually having to do something with these kids, so BOOM! We lose our lunch break. What the fuck is that!? It took the Big Cheese 7 fucking weeks to finally make a decision about getting rid of the kindergarten sign-out system, but it took him, what, 5 minutes to decide to do what the assistants want?!?!?! Fuck that!

He's even dumber than we think if he doesn't realize he's going to have teachers going to the union about this bullshit. I plan to email my union rep tonight to let him know what the hell is going on around here. I'm so pissed off right now, I can't even think straight!!

I've got to try and stop stewing about this, so let me think about the cute things that happened today. While I was testing the kids today, I got a few more really funny answers. One of my little girls, when asked what shape an oval is, replied "yo-yo." The funniest thing is, she knew, even before it came out of her mouth, that it wasn't right, and she had the cutest little questioning look on her face. She actually giggled after she said "yo-yo." Then, after she finished, she went back to her table, and I overheard her telling her friends that she "called the oval a yo-yo!" Then they all had a good giggle.

I'm still far too pissed off to remember any of the other cute things I wanted to write about today, so I guess I'll just sign off. Besides, I've got to get emailing my union rep!!

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
---George Santayana

I'm pretty sure I've used this quote before, but it's so fitting. Why can't he figure out that what they're doing isn't working!! Maybe we should try something new. You know, like growing a set of balls, and telling people to either do their damn job, or hit the bricks! I can't believe how afraid he is of the damn assistants. He ought to be more afraid that all his teachers are going to walk out! God KNOWS I'm more than ready to myself.

Hello...does anybody else work here?

OK, so I go to pick up my kids at our new lunch ending time, 11:10, and as I'm walking to the lunchroom, I see the art teacher in the hall outside the lunchroom. He was hanging up pictures on a bulletin board. OK, that's nice, the kids' art should be displayed. However, it's now time for my kids to have art, so why the hell are you still down here on the 1st floor, instead of in your room on the 3rd floor? As my kids line up, I say to them, a little louder than I needed to, "Come on guys, hurry and line up. We're late for art." I'm thinking, maybe he'll realize how late it is, and he'll skedaddle upstairs. No such luck.

So, we start trekking up the 3 flights of stairs. Suddenly, I realized that the lovely woman who helps him in the art room was eating lunch in the lunchroom when I picked up my class. So now, I'm really annoyed with Mr. L. for not having his rear end up in his room. Just as we reached the door of the art room, Ms. H. came running to the room, still chewing her lunch, the poor thing! Now, my anger toward Mr. L. is coming to a head.

First of all, Ms. H. isn't even an employee at our school. She used to be a parent volunteer there for years. These volunteers received a small stipend (I think like $5 per hour.) But, now the board has eliminated those positions at our school. Last year, she still came to school every morning, on her own time, to monitor the bus kids. (These are kids from the neighborhood who get picked up at our school to be bussed to their own school.) She is just the sweetest woman. This year, she's been helping Mr. L. in the art room, and I understand that he is paying her out of his own pocket to be his assistant. Good deal for both of them, I suppose. But, at times, he relies on her too much. She shouldn't have to stop eating her lunch to run up 3 flights of stairs, so she can sit with my kids, while he hangs up kids' pictures. I just really bugged me! Especially since he's legally responsible for my babies from 11:10-11:50 on Wednesday and Thursday. Alright, I think I got it all out of my system now. Moving on...

While I was helping the babies hang up their coats today, I noticed someone, or their coat, absolutely reeked of urine. Yuk! Every once in a while, while giving out hugs, it's easy to tell which of my babies are still bed wetters.

At the end of the day, I read one of my absolute favorite Halloween books to the babies. It's called Boo, and it's by one of my favorite children's author, Robert Munsch. He also wrote my all time favorite children's book, Love You Forever. There's some yelling in the book, which naturally I do at the top of my lungs, and the babies were just howling! It was so great to just listen to their belly laughs. It was a wonderful way to end a day in the hellhole.

The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Where it is lacking there are no real students, but only poor caricatures of apprentices who, at the end of their apprenticeship, will not even have a trade. ---Simone Weil

Is it Friday yet?

Whenever we have a three-day weekend, it makes the rest of the week seem so much longer. I know that sounds weird, but it's true. Today was such a long, crappy day. And, it wasn't just me. Everyone around me was having a bad day.

Mrs. M. across the hall missed her prep today because she thought it was Monday. Keep in mind, however, that her prep was Library, and the library is literally next to her room. One would think the librarian would have stuck her head in to say, "Hey, you're missing your prep." But, no, that's not how things are done at our school. Instead, the librarian just took an extra free period for herself. Can you even believe that? Talk about looking out for each other.

Today, at snack time, I watched the two assistants, who are supposed to watch our kids, walk right out of the cafeteria as we were coming down the hall. Hello!! Who's supposed to watch the kids?! Well, I sent them right in anyway. The lunch lady came out to tell me how to pass out the snack, and I just looked at her like she had three heads. I asked her why she was telling me, since it's not my job to do snack, and she said nobody was in there with them. Duh! So, I played dumb and went to the office, and I told them to page the two assistants. When I went back 10 minutes later to pick up the kids, I found out nobody ever came, and the kids were left alone to have a free-for-all. I'm so completely irritated! At the end of the day, I found out that the assistants are supposed to start pulling kids out of classrooms to work with them, and for some reason, they're doing it at 1:30 now. At least that's what they're supposed to do. I didn't realize there were children outside that needed help, cuz that's where the two of them were headed!

Wait, it gets better! When I questioned our Lead Literacy Teacher (LLT), who is supposed to be in charge of the assistants, about what was going on, she's the one that told me they were going to start pulling kids at 1:30. I told her that won't work since that's our snack time, and she said the Big Cheese decided that if we wanted snack time, we were going to have to sit with our kids!! He's such a complete asshole!! Gee, do you think he could have run that past US first?! No mention of it to us, just don't have any adults there with the kids today. No wonder our school is such a cluster fuck!!

We're having a meeting tomorrow afternoon, and all this crap is going to be addressed. Dori and I were talking after school about all this crap, and we were saying that if he wants us to stay during snack time, then he absolutely has to get rid of the sign-out policy for kindergarten. Dori and I haven't really made a big deal about staying after school, since we got that couple of extra minutes without the kids at snack time. But, he can't have it both ways. Luckily, our LLT completely disagrees with the stupid signing out thing, and keeps saying she's going to tell him we have to get rid of it. Unfortunately, she also disagrees with snack time. She can't seem to understand that our babies eat lunch at 10:30 in the morning. They simply can not go until 3:00 (when they get home) without eating something. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how the meeting goes tomorrow.

Dori and I were supposed to go to a "cocktail reception" tonight at the Museum of Science and Industry. Sadly, we both had such crappy days, we decided to just skip it. The museum was kicking off their new "Star Wars" exhibit. I wish I could have taken my son, because he would have really enjoyed it. Too bad for him, the reception was only for educators. The invitation specifically said, "no spouses or children." So instead of the reception, Dori, my son and I went to one of my favorite restaurants, Los Comales, for Mexican food. Yum. I haven't had horchata in ages. It really hit the spot, and was exactly the thing I needed after such a shit day.

I hope the rest of the week goes by quickly. Tomorrow, like I said, we're having a meeting (from 3:00-5:00! ugh!) and then I have a hair appointment. You may remember, after my last appointment, that I mentioned those are always LATE nights. I'm already getting sleepy just thinking about it. That's going to make Thursday a long day :( Hopefully, Friday will go smoothly. I may go to a meeting Friday afternoon for the Big Cheese. I'm not going so much for him, but more just to get the hell out of school for a couple of hours.

If any of you have been trying to find my proposal on Donors Choose, I don't think it's posted yet. I'm so stupid. I didn't realize it was going to take so long to get it posted. PLEASE keep checking back. I'm going to leave you with the quote for today:

Many public-school children seem to know only two
dates--1492 and 4th of July; and as a rule they don't know what happened on either occasion. ---Mark Twain

Miserable Monday

Ok, I really thought today was going to be a great day. I had an absolutely fabulous day yesterday, and thoroughly enjoyed the gorgeous fall weather. I cooked red beans and rice for dinner (one of my favorites), I made a huge batch of pasta salad for today's lunch (I planned to share with Dori and Mrs. M across the hall), and I baked Sour Cream Banana Bars with homemade Browned Butter Frosting (YUM!) I actually remembered to bring the pasta salad and banana bars to work, which is a huge accomplishment with my Alzheimer's! The day was going along swimmingly until lunch....

It happened AGAIN. Major backup at the lunchroom! Actually, the backup started at the bathroom, so then we ended up being the last class through the lunch line. Now, our lunch period starts at 10:30, and my last student was served lunch at 10:47!! It's absolutely ludicrous that it takes 17 minutes for them to serve the kids their lunch!! If we were still on our old schedule of 20 minute lunches, my kids would have had to go directly from the lunch counter to the trash can, because they would have had to line right up! Not to mention the fact that I was left with 8 minutes for my own lunch. Ugh! Completely aggravating! Things just kind of went downhill from there.

Without boring you with too many of the details, I was completely annoyed by one of the assistants who kept on coming to my room to talk to me about a function we are having on Wednesday for our assistant principal. I'm trying to teach, and she keeps walking right in and talking to me, as if I were sitting in an empty room! She expected me to just drop everything, and do whatever it was she wanted done. She wasted literally 30 minutes of my morning asking me to print out a banner.

Then she came in again during our rest time. Of course, this is a horrible time to come in and talk ever, since the room is supposed to be quiet so the babies can nap. It was even more inconvenient today because I was trying to test a couple of kids on DIBLES while the rest napped. So, she not only disturbed the class, she kept me from finishing my testing, which has to be done! I was starting to lose it.

She came in again at about 2:15, again completely oblivious to the fact that I'M TEACHING, and just starts talking to me, and wanting to give me money for Social Club dues. So, not only do I have to stop teaching, I have to go unlock the cabinet that I keep the money locked up in and put it away. All the while, I'm passive-aggressively trying to make clear that I don't appreciate the interruption and that I don't have time to chit-chat.

The last straw came about 10 minutes later, when she came back with more money, and wants to start telling me about "someone" being upset about "something," and "let's go in the hall and talk about it," all while telling me the three people whose money she just brought me all want receipts, so can I write them now? Then I lost it! I had to tell her, "No! I can't do it right now, I'M BUSY! It's the end of the day, I'm trying to finish this lesson, I have homework to pass out and go over, we have to get our coats and backpacks..." I think I scared her. Or pissed her off, I'm not sure. Quite frankly, I don't care either way! Get a grip!! Not all of us can walk around all day, making small talk. Some of us are trying to shape the future of our country! OK, a little dramatic, I admit, but come on! She's always done this kind of thing, and it's ALWAYS bugged me, but at least in the past, I had an assistant to pick up some of the slack, so if I had to take 10 minutes out of a lesson to print a damn banner, my assistant could at least keep the kids on task. Now, it's just me. You can't take your attention away from 5 year-olds for more than a minute before they start going nuts.

I'm going to have to just be upfront with her, and tell her tomorrow that she can not, under no uncertain terms, come in my room during the school day. If she needs something, she'll have to come to me in the morning, before the kids get there. She just can't waltz into my room anytime she feels like it, and interrupting our lessons. Yeah, it all sounds great now, but I'm sure I'll be my usual passive-aggressive self tomorrow :(

Another gripe for today...ANOTHER STUDENT arrived today. That brings my list to 27. 16 girls and 11 boys. That's annoying, in and of itself, because (sshhh....) I don't particularly care for little girls. I really don't hide the fact that I much prefer little boys. Little girls annoy me. They whine and cry and scream and talk incessantly. And did I mention scream?

On the upside, if I get one more student, I'm supposed to get an assistant, per our contract. Not that the Big Cheese will go out of his way to see that I get one, but I'm entitled to one, and I'll be damned if I won't fight for one!

Good God, I've got to stop whining! (See what I mean about girls?!) Today's positive is that it was really nice to actually sit with Dori in the teachers' lounge during our prep, eating yummy pasta salad and YUMMY banana bars.

I'm going to leave you today with a quote I actually lifted from Dori's blog the other day. It doesn't have anything to do with education, but it's particularly fitting for the kind of day I've had. Plus, I just really like it! See you tomorrow!

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems,
but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. ---Herm Albright