This Friday started like any other... you see Friday's are the most dreaded day of the week for school administration. They usually include wiping some tough kid's bloody nose in one last failed attempt for the alpha teen position amongst the herd or the desperate call for paramedics because some lost soul overdosed on the drug of the week. I did my very best to sneak into my office unseen lest I get bombarded by the "drama of the day" or by some overworked teacher asking for a smart mouthed kid be placed in the stockades until Monday.
Unfortunately, my first mistake was leaving my safe haven for a cup of joe when I noticed the guardian of my sanity, my secretary, Debbie, with a tear in her eye. Now if you knew Debbie you would understand this is very unusual. Debbie is the one who routinely wipes the tears from my eyes, but rarely does she let this pressure cooker we call a school get to her. This time was different. I knew that she had been dodging the office gossip with her every effort, but this time she had be placed squarely in the middle of it.
I immediately went into "Mama Bear" mode protecting my own and begin barking "You girls are going to have to work this out, or I am going to write some people up."! The next thing I knew tears were flowing and a woman across the room was running out of the office yelling "I'm not gossiping." For some reason teenagers and peri-menopausal women do not seem to mix... and our office doesn't have a shortage of either!
I made a poor attempt to convince my faithful secretary that she was not a fault and she had gotten drawn into the choas. But... now she would have to play multiple roles in the office cleaning up the mess I had just created. Shaking my head at my inability to handle the situation, I walked to the east end of the building on a quest for wisdom. I had only begun sharing my plight when I noticed the plant manager walking Matt into the building... I know both Matt and his probation officer quite well.
The next thing I knew our lead campus supervisor was handing me a radio with our newest assistant principal reporting that she had caught Matt two blocks down the road. It seems that our custodial staff, once again forced into the role of detective had caught Matt tagging in the boy's restroom and he had taken off... did I mention Matt was on probation for tagging?
So... I took a little walk and found Matt surrounded by Campus Supervisors and walked him back to the office. I quickly told him if he took off running on me (now too old to catch him) I would just call the cops and "His Momma could pick him up at the Police Station." Matt knew that I meant it too, so he quietly walked back to the office.
After some convincing regarding the virtue of honesty, Matt admitted that he has tagged his nickname, but not the "FCT" the crew nickname on the wall. Now it didn't take a rocket scientist to see the similarity in writing styles on the "FCT" on his notebook and the one of the wall, but I told him it was now up to the courts. Our over-worked School Resource Officer and his new partner showed up and wrote Matt a ticket. I suspended him and sent him home for five days. By this time lunch supervision was over and I was greeted by one of our counselors, who had just gone out for pizza for the office.
I had barely swallowed my last piece of pizza when another counselor and my co assistant principal walked into my office and shut the door. Shutting the door is never a good thing! The counselor began to explain an elaborate story of how he attempted to mediate a parent, teacher, student conference that went very bad. Simply put everyone walked out of the conference and nothing was resolved. It seemed that the student was suffering for anxiety attacks and did not comply with the teacher's request to do work in class. The teacher wrote a detention, which the student refused to serve.
I attempted to call a very upset mother and explain that the student needed to serve the detention. This was followed by an attack that "You should have been at the meeting" and "I will bring a doctor's note." I attempted to explain there was a lot going on, we have 3000 students on campus and I would not unleash a clone of myself upon the world, but nothing would calm her down. At face value, this seems black and white, the kid owed the detention but when I called the student to my office I could not discern which came first the anxiety attack or the detention. So... I explained to a frustrated teacher that I could not in good faith require the student to serve the detention if she was indeed suffering with a medical condition. As the teacher left my office I tried not to focus on the hours and man power that were sacrificed for this simple 1 hour detention.
Some days, I just love my job... this however has not been one of them. By now it was sixth period and I just wanted to hide under my desk until 4:00 pm. Luckily the weekend started and when I got home I managed to work out much frustration on the Boston Ivy peacefully climbing the tree in the front yard.
