Is it spring break yet?

It's been an extremely busy past few weeks. Today was the end of our 2nd semester and tomorrow starts our 3rd. Normally we would have had today as a work day so there's a day to do grades and prepare your room and just rest from the insanity, but because we've had TWO SNOW DAYS (gasp!) we had to use today as a makeup. I didn't think it's be an issue until Monday when I couldn't stop saying in my head, "I have to do this...... and this...... AND THIS?!!!!" I'm basically going to wing it for parts if I have to.

The students have been off the charts nuts. Constant noise, chronic absences and lots of pushing to get some work out of them before the end of the semester. I literally watched a student fail for the semester today by sitting and doing nothing. I even reminded her throughout the hour that her work was due, she didn't have much time, over and over and over and over....... She did nothing. I watched several fail slowly throughout the semester and finally had to resort to removing a student for the end of the semester. While I really like the kid and he does work hard, it's rare because he's all over the place sometimes. Choir is not the class for him and I felt bad he was ever placed in the class because I've tried really hard to not have that one class a dumping ground this year. And he got dumped.

In other news the day before Valentine's our counselor put on a special presentation for a group of students called KISS or Keep It Safe and Special. It was all about sex education, STD's, safe sex practices, those sort of fun things. We all learned how to put on condoms, both male and female, saw some lovely pictures of STD cases and at the end got gift bags with candy and free condoms. Here are my favorite quotes from the presentation though:

"Do the gift bags come with condoms?"
"Is it safe to masterbate or have sex?" This one has even asked this in class before. Apparently he forgot the answer, and "Do they make condoms for little kids?" This one threw me for a loop soooooo much that I just stared in shock, blurted out "NO!" and walked away.

Another favorite quote came last week when a student was cleaning off tables after breakfast. After finishing with one another student tried to sit down at it and she turned to him saying, "Don't you disrespect my table by sitting there!"

The art teacher had a roach crawl up his pants last week, which freaked me out so much a screamed and it didn't happen to me. Roaches are common at school but that is sick. I've been trying to wear my Uggs more so I can tuck in my pants.

We had an assembly today for Black History month and my choir sang. While I think they did better in my room and it was extremely hard to practice with them day to day because of absences, they did well and I was pleased.

Action packed week

The title of this blog really doesn't describe my week at all. Tuesday I drove down Independence Ave to find it completely blocked off right after my turn my police tape and half a dozen cop cars. There was a shooting a couple hours before school started. Supposedly there had been a domestic disturbance call made and when the cops showed up a man came at them with a machete. He refused to drop it so they shot him and when he tried to run away after that they tasered him. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I did have a "problem" child decide to walk out 4th hour after he couldn't get a pass, which is nothing new btw. When he decided to come back I lost it slightly only because I have had to write him up four times in the past five weeks. Lucky me though when I tried to call someone, anyone, no one answered. It was extremely irritiating.

I'm supposed to be on metal detector duty this week and have refused to go. I hate metal detector duty. I hate the idea of policing students and going through their things. So I don't do it.

Wednesday meeting was spent coming up with new contract terms, but I apparently missed the most explosive meeting ever. I think everyone has finally snapped and is really, truly tired of being told we're crappy teachers. I just wish I had been in meeting.