So many Countdowns

I had my Salt Lake City School District telephone interview on Friday. It was quite odd; but appeared to go as smoothly as possible. Seeing as the only person that I had not met or worked with before was the new principal, I seemed to have a good jury. They will be making their final decision by Wednesday...which if I have NOT heard from them in 2 days and 22 hours I will be crying about what and where I will be next year. Which leaves me to my last countdown, this school year...

9 days left.

When is too much too much?

Apparently hard cold facts, like numbers, are all that administrations and politicians understand. How about this:

1 of my students...likes to punch his classmates { well more than that but this one cannot stop doing it!! } Provoked or not-provoked.

Current count of decked classmates: 5 different classmates; 2 of them girls

Consequence...first 2 punches, 1 day of suspension ... Or as I like to call it, a 3-day weekend ... then a 2 day suspension ... then 2 3-day suspensions ... do you think that suspension is making an impression?

Curious about those aforementioned weapons?

PELLET-I-am-not-a-real-GUN: 1

Consequence...1 day of in-school-suspension + 3 days of suspension

Knife: 1

Consequence...3 days of suspension

Number of students: 41 + 1 student who has decided that she "feels sick" and cannot come to school { number of absenses in the past
20 days? 14 }

Consequence...1 "sick" student not completing any tests or assignments.

Number of teachers: 2, one of which is going crazy and might be flying to Utah for an interview in ... 4 days :)

Consequence...1 new teaching job and crazy weekend activities!

12 days left.

Taking the Control Back

All the drama that has been going on this past week, the gun, the administration-parent-teacher conference about the nearly uncontrollable fist fighting student terrorizing my class, being told what to say in said conference, the LYING assistant principal, and the crude emails written to me from some students. I have officially resigned as of 2:23 pm, Sunday May 6, 2007. I no longer have to worry that next year I am going to do it to myself again at Metcalf. The scary part is...what next? I have not been contacted by Alpine School District to work at one of the 3rd grade positions there. Nor have I technically applied anywhere else. I had previously decided that I was NOT going to decide whether to quit the teaching profession after this year or not. Especially since I thoroughly enjoyed teaching at Newman a year ago. I promised myself that I would give it at least one more year before deciding anything major. But it still has me biting my fingernails about what and where to go next.

What a job.

You may be asking "why are you doing this to yourself?" Well the answer is that there are some students, teachers, and experiences that make life at Metcalf endurable.

Working in a portable...

...with the Houston weather...

This is the view from my portable on a recent day that the heavens decided to open up and show us that no matter how important the lesson plan was, or how much my students really needed to be in the classroom, we were not to be having any of it.

"If you happen to be one of those people who are looking at this picture thinking, 'What is HPLuvr talking about' let me explain this picture a bit. You are looking out onto the school's playground. You see the hardtop basketball court. Next you might be able to distinguish some swing sets and monkey bars. Just beyond that, but before the row of houses that are behind our school is Lake a la Metcalf. Which is as large as the school itself, and if I were to have gone wading in it (like I wanted to) it would most likely have come up to my knees."

Western Day at Metcalf...aren't they adorable...

Another chance to celebrate what a great state Texas is. The kids wore cowboy clothing and put on a country line dancing performance for their parents and teachers. SO CUTE!!

If only every day brought such warm fuzzies to my heart. Because they don't. Which brings me back to my situation. What to do now that I've resigned as a CY-Fair teacher.

But then on Thursday night I get a call. One of the second grade teachers that I worked with last year was calling to tell me that the other second grade teacher that we worked with is retiring at the end of this school year. She was calling to tell me that she wants me to put in my application on Monday and move back to Utah. In fact, she had told the new principal there about me already. What does it feel like to actually be wanted? Like this. The cut in pay, aka- my Teaching Soul- is worth it. Trust me. I will keep you posted about what I really am going to do next year or rather in the next two months.

13 days left.

Pre-Virginia Tech?

...OOOOHHH..!! I don't EVEN KNOW where to start. Today was going fairly well for a substitute in the other room kinda day. You see my partner teacher was out for the day having a root canal done. So it was me versus 42 kids. Me- being slightly outnumbered- made sure to have enough work for my kiddos to do, so that there was NO time to mess around. I thought that we were doing fairly well. Except for a few choice students that will most likely one day grace the news and covers of magazines for less than positive situations.

Anyway, back to today. So we have 18 buses that come through in the morning to drop students off for the day, and then pick them up after school. This means that we have 2 sets of buses. When there is a substitute, you are in charge of the first set of buses, then you run back to pick up the second set; like today. I ended up taking 34 of my 42 students on the first set of buses. As I walked back to pick up the remaining 8 students, the good sub had already lined them up and brought them out to meet me :) made it much easier. Or so I thought. After standing around for 5 minutes [which doesn't sound so long, until you are trying to keep restless elementary students quiet and in line] then it is forever. All the buses were there but for some reason there was a delay. I was getting antsy, the sub was getting antsy, and the kids were going stir crazy. Then I had one of 'em come up and whisper to me,




"Nitsuj has a gun."




My heart stops.


Of course this had to wait until the exact moment that we were to be walking to get on the buses. Not wasting anytime I walk over to the student's backpack, take it off of his shoulder
and step away from him. I was asking myself "What if there really is a 'real' gun in here?" and "What if it goes off?" I didn't want to reach in and accidently set something off.

Teacher shoots students waiting for buses.

How would that look in a review?


I openned up the backpack. As I carefully moved the mess of papers around, I found the gun. I did hear the offending student attempt to say:



1) "It's just a BB gun"


2) "I don't know how it got in there!"


Who cares!! What I want to know is that if this GUN has been in my room all day???


What would you think if you saw something like this? No kidding if someone were to pull something out like this and ask for my purse or my car, I WOULD GIVE IT TO THEM!!! It is too realistic. I had to pull this kid out of line, and walk him to a person on the administration team. Not the thing that I wanted to spend my afternoon doing. 45 minutes later the kid's dad had come to pick him up and was told that his son could come to school like normal tomorrow, but was to go to the in school suspension room to determine exactly what happened and what the consequence will be; you know- a consequence because it looks like a real gun. Real gun my butt. You put something into it, point it at someone, and that something comes shooting out. I feel real safe. Can I call the front office and complain that I don't feel safe in the classroom?

I am so done. Checked out. 16 days left.