My Year In a Nut Shell

I had an interesting and eventful year as well. Like many of you I’ve been RIFed and am waiting to be called back. My original school is now full, but I’m not all together sad. For the most part my year was fine minus the first and fourth quarter. The first quarter I had a student threaten to shoot me, which I later discovered is more common place at my school than expected. Typically students receive 3 to 5 day suspensions even if they mention the day and time in which they will commit the act. Apparently this is considered venting. I was the rare teacher that pushed and succeeded in having him removed although without much support. My fourth quarter was when the gossip girls turned on me and decided to stage a rebellion. They were rude and started writing me lovely notes about how much I sucked as a human being. According to one parent, he didn’t so much care about the note but rather the fact that his little darling wrote her name on it. He told me that he had advised her to remove her name since she could be held liable with it. Therefore she took his advice and wrote a note in which she stated that she wanted to stab me to death and burn me alive. She went on to describe certain sexual acts she had had and then discussed me in that manner. Although her and her little pose were threatened with suspension nothing actually happened because she did not write her name. Off the record I was told by an administrator that since I was being laid off and had no hope in returning that it wasn’t worth pursuing. I felt special. Lastly, after packing my bags I returned later that week to discover that someone had stolen four of my boxes. According to the office it is just so sad and they will get back to me after viewing securing tapes. It’s been a week and my things are still missing. I almost want to put pictures of boxes on milk cartoons to see if that would speed up the process. But like one teacher put on my goodbye card, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. So two facts I know for sure: 1) I do love teaching despite it all and 2) My School was definitely, between you and me, a frog. Here’s to the next school year when we’ll have jobs and hopefully ones that we love!