8 AM In order to save money, the school district is making bestial layoffs. About one out of every four of the teachers will be fired by sundown. Or so the rumor goes. To deal with our anxieties, several schools of thought have developed. Schools within this school, as it were. On my third …
There was a shoot-out — and I mean like a full gansta shoot-out — up the street at 6:30 AM. Twenty or thirty or more shots fired. It happened in the parking lot of the A.M.E. church. The smell of cordite lingered for half an hour. Sirens, sergeants and paddy-wagons for an hour. Ghetto birds, police helicopters, off and on for two hours. Now, …
One reason I’m grateful to my colleagues is that, occasionally, they provide clarity. So this morning I go to the weekly meeting. The new department chair reminds us about student portfolios. To which I reply, ‘Huh? Is anyone keeping portfolios?’ “You remember, the one’s we’ve been keeping since Charlie was boss three years ago.” “You mean those …
Mr. Eagleton is scheduling his classes according to the National Weather Service. He’s not from here. So he comes into my room, and asks me about “the rainy season”. He doesn’t have any shades on his windows, so his plans to show movies on days when it’s overcast. Depending on where you are in the …
Although the high school where I teach was locked down for an afternoon, it turns out we were never in much danger. They caught the right guy, the actual guy who shot the cop, a couple of miles north of here. When they cordoned-off this neighborhood, they surrounded the house of the wrong guy. He saw a bunch of cops, so …
I am in awe of how little I actually exaggerate in these stories. I tend to edit for continuity, so I will, for example, put two different events on the same day, and say they happened to just one teacher. I’ll change a name and such for the sake of anonymity. But, in truth, I …
Yesterday, the last day of classes, we get a “Faith Based Initiative”. Some preacher from the neighborhood decides to take all the kids who have been suspended a bunch, and give them a barbeque over in the football field. The end result is that all the nice kids are in class doing various onerous tasks, …
I have to interrupt a standardized test in order to give a standardized test. I am in the second week of giving a standardized test that isn’t a test, because nobody gives a wank about this test. The only reason we’re giving this test is because the district paid millions for it. We bought it, so …