First Day at Summer School Number 2

July 6th

This morning I got up early so that I could help Emily prepare my room for summer school. Similar to last year, it was chaotic. Students and parents lined the hallways eager to register their kids for classes. Inside the office teachers stood around looking frantic and quickly snatched up supplies as soon as they were put on the table. I was no different. After locating my room, Rogelio's old Spanish classroom, and dropping off my magazines and writer's notebook, I returned like a hungry wolf to the supply corner. I grabbed tape, a box filled with pens, a highlighter box, 26 notebooks, and a box of files. I marched them upstairs and then grabbed Emily and returned for a pad of poster paper and scissors. An older woman told me I was only allowed one pad at a time so I was resigned to the fact. Last year Erin and I had taken about six. I'm guessing the budget's a bit tighter this year. Although I can't recall her name, I knew she was in charge of the program so I asked her if I had a class list. She looked me dead in the eye and then turned away, ignoring me completely. This was not lost on Emily who commented later on how incredibly rude it was.

In the course of my 20 minutes of being there, I discovered that no one had a copy code. The minute I began making copies of my syllabus, other teachers descended upon me like I was fresh meat. "When did you get the code?" one asked. I told her that it was my old code from working here this past year, which still worked. To appease the multitude, and prevent them from maiming me, I handed out my sacred password. You cannot imagine their desperation. No one, not a single teacher, knew the time class started. There were rumors running around that it was at 7:45 and possibly ended at 10:30. Others heard 8-11. It was 7:30 when I left and no one knew when to begin or even who was going to be in their class. No one had a pass code for the printer so lessons planned were or would have crumbled if it weren't for my passing on my code. When I left I told Emily that last year we picked up our classes down in the cafeteria. As I turned to leave, I saw her run down the hall way hoping that someone, anyone was in the know.