My Life as a Soap Opera

The opera I went to on Thursday night must have been a magical opera--the kind of magic that makes the drama on stage spill over into real life. Ever since yesterday morning, events have transpired which have evoked strong feelings on my part. Since it's Friday night and I have nothing better to do, I'll take the time to recap here:

Paranoia and Fear

What innocently began as a cough that my aide caught in October has turned out to be a case of "our portable is falling apart and the district is going to cover it up until we sue them". I realize that's quite a conclusion to reach but 1) her cough has persisted, 2) it flares up when the vent kicks on (yet she feels fine at home), 3) the kids have been coming down with coughs and mysterious nose bleeds (one girl in particular has been coughing all year long), and 4) my aide wipes down all surfaces with Clorox at the end of every school day (without fail) and recently has been finding suspicious black particles covering all surfaces. All of this combined caused her to urgently ask me to complain at the office and have someone check our vent filters. She even saved the clorox wipes with the black particles as evidence.
When I reported all of this to the office manager, she was very alarmed and promised she would fill out a work order right away. I thought I had heard the last of the hoopla, as work orders in our district take at least three months to be acted upon. But surprise! Two hours later, there were two men with ladders in my classroom (yes, as I was teaching!) inspecting my vents. They reported no mold but are (supposedly) going to install finer filters to determine what's coming through there.

Bottom line: it could be nothing, or we could all die early.

Anger and Embarrassment

I had an IEP meeting (they happen once annually for all of my students--usually means testing and lots of paperwork) after school for one of my second graders. By law, a general education 2nd grade teacher had to sit in at the meeting. Since the general education 2nd grade is located in a different school across the street, I had contacted their principal to send someone over. I didn't hear back from said principal, so I emailed once again, informing them that I expected a 2nd grade rep at such-and-such a room at such-and-such time. When all of the team members had sat down with the child's parent to start the meeting, there was no 2nd grade representative to be found. This caused two things to happen: 1) we looked bad in front of a key out-of-district team member, and 2) I had to call the third grade rep from our campus to sit in on a long meeting at a moment's notice. I felt terrible; the 3rd grade rep is a friend of mine and clearly had 500 other things to do than to sit in on some meeting she shouldn't have been responsible for just because some unprofessional principal had dropped the ball and downright broken the law. It irks me when things aren't fair. I admit I was rather furious about the whole situation--but it looks like I might have my vengeance as our principal is going to go have a "talk" with their principal.

Bottom line: I hope that never happens again.

Exasperation and Disappointment

Both of my girls were home sick today (along with my aide), so I was left to fend for myself with a pack of wild boys... two of which were suspended for bringing toy guns to school (they looked quite real).

Bottom line: It's better they learn early that guns aren't toys.

Well, I didn't mean to write a novel in this post, but if you want concise, it's usually better to visit Max's blog than mine :).
Have a good weekend, everyone! I, for one, am looking forward to lots of dull moments free of drama...