Last year at about this time the Sr. Callejo was putting together last minute field trips for everyone to go on. I think I went on one of them with my class. Refer to this post for why field trips with ADLR are terrible. On Monday night Ben said, "You know, tomorrow morning Sr. Callejo is going to hand you some permission slips at the last minute and you're going to have to go." I was sort of hoping that because he said it, it wouldn't happen. No such luck.
Tuesday was epic before that however. My class had Performing Arts at nine. So we did some simple math and I sent them on their way. Now, a little history. The performing arts teacher is seriously a trip. Ms. Tours is a great dance teacher, but that's really all she is. She has zero control over the students who want nothing to do with the dancing. She'll work with the girls and leave the boys to their own devices in the very back of the large cafeteria.
On this particular morning, she took them to one of the smaller conference rooms to watch a movie on African Dance or some such thing. About forty five minutes later, Cassie came running into the office where I was organizing and filing paperwork to tell me that "the boys are fighting!" So I shoved my paperwork aside and sprinted through the hallway trying to decide the best way to break up a fight between boys that both bigger and stronger than me. Luckily by the time I got to the room they had already been separated by the other kids (note; not Ms. Tours who look completely frightened.) Fonzo was sitting at one end of the room and Cosmo and Allen were at the other sort of shouting insults back and forth.
After listening to everyone's shouting accusations of who had started the fight and why, I pulled Monte, Fonzo and Cosmo out of the conference room, asked Ms. Tours to keep my kids a little longer and headed upstairs with them. We spoke to Cosmo first, but while we were talking to him Fonzo flipped out. I mean; flipped out. He start screaming hysterically, making suicidal statements, pounding his fists, sobbing, slamming the desk and the chair he was near; flipping out. We had to call the cops, they came spoke with him, calmed him down, got in touch with Child Protective Services (who said when we called about him that there was nothing they could do) and get contact with Fonzo's sister.
I left the office to deal with the fight at 9:45 (I remember looking up at the clock on the wall before shooting out of the room) and didn't get down winding up lose ends with the police and paperwork until 1:30 in the afternoon. It was crazy. Monte and Fonzo were suspended for three days (i.e. the rest of the year.) Cosmo was let off the hook because it turned out he was trying to break up the fight and keep Fonzo from beating Monte's face to shreds.
That afternoon we spent organizing and packing up the classroom. I noticed that Cosmo and Allen were all of a sudden not in the classroom. I went out into the hallway and around the corner and found them talking to Sr. Callejo and Ms. Tenny, the fifth grade teacher. They were trying to wiggle their way onto the fifth grade field trip to Santa Fe the next day. Sr. Callejo then looked at me and said, "Well, can they go or do you think that's not fair to the other students?" I said, "That's completely not fair to the other students." So he asked I wanted to take my whole class. I said, "No, I don't want to take my class." He looked at me a bit surprised and said, "Remember, years from now that these are the things your students are going to remember." I don't remember exactly what I said next, but I shooed the boys back into the classroom and said to the principal, "Look, the day before isn't enough time for me to organize chaperones, I have a lot of things left in the classroom to do and I just don't trust these kids, I barely have control over them in the classroom. I don't feel safe going on a field trip to Santa Fe." He agreed. Jeez, I thought, if they can't even stay in their own classroom they certainly shouldn't be running around in Sante Fe. I was really annoyed that he asked me in front of the children, that's the third or fouth time he's done that and made me look like the bad guy because I'm the one being practical.
He did pass out permission slips for a trip to the park for the last day of school. So there are no plans, just that we are going to the park. I didn't even know until the last half hour of the day. I'm hoping for organized chaos, but I'm betting it's just going to be chaos.
I think though, that I'm the only teacher who has everything done for the year. Paperwork filed, reports finished and passed out, classroom packed labelled and ready to go. That makes me feel good. When I leave school tomorrow, I will actually be leaving school. It's going to feel good!
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