Wednesday September 29, 1999
A lot has happened in the last few days so I will try to summarize as best as I can. With growing discontent I farmed out some resumes about a week ago to other schools. Monday night I got a call from another school asking me to come and interview. The interview went great and they will let me know this week, so I anticipate possibly getting another job offer soon.
But… the catch is that my principal probably won't release me in the middle of the school year. So the table is set and the seeds are planted for discontent. The other side of the coin is that going to another school means establishing a reputation and a routine all over again. Tough choice.

Anyway, we had a parent teacher conference this morning and the parent of the child wanted to follow up on the child's progress. The child has no grades and no assignments completed for any of her teachers. When the parent was asked why the child was having a difficulty completing assignments she stated that the child was having a hard time getting to school. The mother stated that they live '10 blocks away so you know how hard that is on me.' I'm sitting here thinking, what a total fucking joke - no wonder the child has no interest in school.

Today I saw Jenny Lightbourne in the hallway. I asked her what she was doing here at school, and she replied, 'you know damn well why I'm here - I'm in the 8th grade AGAIN.' Some things never change.

Its been rewarding recently to see kids come back to the school who absolutely hated me last year and be real excited to see me and tell me how their high school life is going. That must mean that they didn't hate me that much after all because a lot of kids have come to see me in the past few weeks.

Miss Hemorrhoid herself has not really been a problem recently because I have been avoiding her like the black plague. In fact, I have been avoiding pretty much everything and everyone at this school; including the bathroom in the teacher's lounge. It has been closed for over a week with shit overflowing from the toilets, a typical SMS situation if you ask me.

This is the time of year that kids want to participate in extracurricular activities around the school. Kids are required to get their teacher's signature in order to participate so I have used this as leverage to get kids to do some more work in my classes. The kids I love the most in these situations are the kids that come to me and say, 'of course I've been doing your work.' And yet, the gradebook is so dreadfully empty. A paradox indeed.

Friday October 1, 1999
Wow, another week has blown by and I'm sure glad it's the weekend. Today my terrible class of 7th graders had some transfers go out and into another section. Although the rat bastard principal didn't give me the extra class, knowing that I asked for it both at the beginning of this year and the end of last, the class load is lighter. Some kids acted as though they had won the lottery and jumped at the chance to transfer. Others were greatly disappointed. Either way, I got 4 out of the worst 5 kids out of my class and I was thrilled.

Seen and heard at SMS this week:

(teacher) Question: Who invented the telephone?
(student) Answer: Thomas Jefferson
(another student) Response: That is an actress you stupid bitch

Morning announcement: If you found a green bag with a 'scrap' on it, please return it to the office.
Now, for some reason in this black community, they say things with a 'scr' sound that has a 'str' sound to it: Example, 'I'm Scrait' means 'I'm Strait!,' 'I'm in the Screet' means 'I'm in the Street.'

However this morning announcement doesn't even come close to last years all time winner: 'Would the person who has Schindler's List please return it to the office, Mr. Schindler is looking for his lost list.'

Also heard yesterday at SMS:
Teacher: 'Sit down'
Student: (bumps teacher and says) 'Get out of my way'
Teacher: 'You better watch yourself or I'll call your mother and we will have a parent teacher conference about your behavior'
Student: 'I ought to just go call my mama to come down here and beat your ass'

The sign on the front of the school read 'Open House' but a few days later some of the letters on the sign fell down and the sign said 'Open Ho.'

The new over/under line on repairing the bathroom in the teacher's lounge is 3 weeks. I took the over for $2.

This week I asked my kids to write essays on which fast food is the best. A choice essay came from a student claiming 'Booger King' has the best 'boogers'

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

Wednesday, October 6
It is the middle of the week, but I feel as though I have been through three or four weeks in the last several days. The 'final confrontation' happened today with myself, the principal and the assistant principal - Queen Bitch Do Nothing herself. The scene went down like this:

Over the past few days, lots of things have happened. However three incidents really stood out. The first involved another teacher being threatened by a student and actually pushed by the student. This situation solely resulted in a parent teacher conference which the AP insisted I attend even though the girl just transferred out of my class. The parents refused to focus on the child's transgressions, only focusing instead on the teacher's conduct. When I tried to refocus the discussion and ask the parents to inquire why their child acted this way, the AP told me that 'we had already been over that.'

The next day the child was back in my neighbor's class. The same child who had pushed the same teacher!
I found this to be absolutely inappropriate: The child should be out of school for a minimum of ten days. I found the lack of intervention by this AP alarming but consistent with her do nothing approach.

The second incident involved me sending a disruptive student down to the office with a referral and the student being sent right back to me. I found this again unconscionable. I immediately objected and went to finally confront Miss Bald-Headed Fuckbagge about the lack of effort. Her door was closed and she told me that she could not be bothered - to take it somewhere else. So I did. I marched this girl right into Mr. Miller's office and insisted that we have some kind of conference to resolve lingering issues. The first issue I explained involved a persistent pattern of unwillingness on the AP's part to do anything helpful and the second involved what to do in the immediate situation regarding this child. The child was standing right in the principal's office making faces at him and gesticulating wildly. The suggestion that Mr. Miller made was that we all meet tomorrow and discuss the issue further. The child was sent to In School Suspension for the day.

Finally, the third issue arose when Ms. Lame As Shit came upstairs to find a student I had written a referral on for disruptive behavior, only to find that she had been transferred to another class. Her response, 'I guess that is one less referral I have to worry about.' No action, no nothing.

So today, my chops were salivating at the chance to stick it to this nasty bitch while understanding that my head could be handed to me on a silver platter. I had already made it clear yesterday to Mr. Miller that I feared no reprisals and that I was ready to resolve this in an amicable and diplomatic fashion.

The meeting begins at 3 P.M. Ms. Fucker herself entered late. I had already taken a seat right across from Mr. Miller. She comes in and sits at the other end of the room. Even Mr. Miller had to say something like 'why don't you join us over here - I hope this isn't indicative of how far apart we are.' I had to snicker inside because it was so true. Anyway, she explained her side of things by stating things like;
'I don't feel comfortable by being the first one to call a parent.'
'I think that the number of referrals shows poor classroom management.'
'I'm not going to do a teacher's job for them.'
'I will not speak to a child unless a referral is sent down first.'

After listening to this loser bitch and moan about her educational philosophy, my response was as follows:
'So what if you don't feel comfortable - If something gets to the office you should handle it rather than avoid it with a referral or without a referral, just handle it'
'Poor classroom management? Read my annual review that states "Excellent Classroom Management, One of the Best First Year Teachers That I Have Ever Seen"
'Do my job for me? What efforts are you making?'
'You mean that you would not intervene and alleviate a situation unless there is documented paperwork?'

At this point Mr. Miller did state that previously we had administrators who would bend over backwards to accommodate teachers and this was not her style. I believe that in general however, he was very supportive of his administrator but insisted that we review referral guidelines to see how things could be handled differently. I explained to him that I thought it demonstrated an unrealistic expectation to send kids back to class after being disruptive, and that to ignore a referral gave lip service to SMS's Zero Tolerance Policy.

At the end of the meeting I told Ms. Bastard that we are supposedly both here for the kids, but that her hostility needed to cease.

At least now I know where I stand - nothing wagered and nothing lost.

This school is a fucking joke. I can't wait to leave but in the meantime I'll just smile and do my job as well as I can, but I sure as shit know I cannot count on her for anything in the future.

The other school is interested in me and called a former AP that we had last year. He immediately called me and told me that he gave me a strong recommendation but that due to racial balancing, the principal could not let me pursue an alternative job site, so there was no way to challenge this ruling. I thanked him for the call and told him I had suspected as much, but that I am just trying to plant a seed to get out of SMS. If it doesn't happen this year, hopefully next. Either way, I'll just work it out.

One final note to make me smile. On a child's paper today the question was 'Who was the 3rd President?' Answer: April Ham Linky. I love this school.