Wednesday, October 15, 2003
A typical day?
Well, it began early. We had entered a contest with other high schools sponsored by the Hackensack hospital to see who had the most students arriving at school wearing seatbelts. We posted ourselves, the student volunteers and teachers around the different entrances to the parking lot and tallied up the statistics. This started about 7:15; after I had raced to school from 60 miles away.
As soon as I came into the building from this exercise, the VP told me that the people giving the military career test were running late. We had no margin of error for delaying the test since we had lunches to do and the test was scheduled for the cafeteria. The counselors and I strategized as to what we would do when the phone rang and the driver of the testing group said they were lost. When they finally arrived we told them it was off unless they could test in the auditorium, which they agreed to. We then moved all the kids there and set the lights and sound for them.
Things seemed to settle down, so I observed an Algebra I class. I was back in the office squaring things away when the VP came in with a plan to change the times for lunch for next year. I listened with interest when I heard noise outside my office and realized that the testing was almost over. We had the juniors being tested move to the cafeteria for lunch and bid goodbye to the testing people hoping they would be able to find their way back to Brooklyn when the lights suddenly went out.
It was abrupt and decisive. All the computers down, the phones dead, we were cut off from the world and the classes. I grabbed walkie talkies and headed to the hallways where the emergency lights went on. We calmed the kids down and saw that the cafeteria was serving lunch in the dark. Fortunately, the classrooms had plenty of light. We learned from our DARE officer that a tree took out a power line with all the gusty wind we had been experiencing. They could not tell when the power would come back on.
I had the students go to classes after going to each class and explaining what we were to do. We had to rely on students who had watches to tell when to move since the clocks were out. The superintendent came over and told us that we were the only school that had a power outage. We got through sixth and seventh periods without incident and without power either when my old VP told me he was going out to get something to eat. I couldn't believe he would leave at this time.
I decided in his absence to keep the kids in seventh period and not move them one more time since the backup lights in the hallways were to go out at any minute. He came back furious that I had done that. He has a problem. He wants to have things his way, then leave the building. Don't we all.
During all this a boy was caught using his cell phone. He was asked for it and refused to give it up, so the crusty VP told him he would have a three-day suspension. I drove him home. The boy would not give up his phone because he said it was the only way he could reach his mother. I checked his home and sure enough he didn't have power or a hard-wired phone that would work. I gave him back the phone and told him to promise to give it to me first thing in the morning. He agreed and I left to go back to school for a meeting with the superintendent.
We had our bi-monthly meeting scheduled. I was a bit frazzled, but I couldn't cancel the meeting. I didn't have much to say and he told me a few things. I then raced up to the tech room where the servers had to be re-booted. The Tech Coordinator was sick today and I had to do it. With that done, I could finally go home; my desk a mess but I had to go home and depleate my reserve of tequila!
As soon as I came into the building from this exercise, the VP told me that the people giving the military career test were running late. We had no margin of error for delaying the test since we had lunches to do and the test was scheduled for the cafeteria. The counselors and I strategized as to what we would do when the phone rang and the driver of the testing group said they were lost. When they finally arrived we told them it was off unless they could test in the auditorium, which they agreed to. We then moved all the kids there and set the lights and sound for them.
Things seemed to settle down, so I observed an Algebra I class. I was back in the office squaring things away when the VP came in with a plan to change the times for lunch for next year. I listened with interest when I heard noise outside my office and realized that the testing was almost over. We had the juniors being tested move to the cafeteria for lunch and bid goodbye to the testing people hoping they would be able to find their way back to Brooklyn when the lights suddenly went out.
It was abrupt and decisive. All the computers down, the phones dead, we were cut off from the world and the classes. I grabbed walkie talkies and headed to the hallways where the emergency lights went on. We calmed the kids down and saw that the cafeteria was serving lunch in the dark. Fortunately, the classrooms had plenty of light. We learned from our DARE officer that a tree took out a power line with all the gusty wind we had been experiencing. They could not tell when the power would come back on.
I had the students go to classes after going to each class and explaining what we were to do. We had to rely on students who had watches to tell when to move since the clocks were out. The superintendent came over and told us that we were the only school that had a power outage. We got through sixth and seventh periods without incident and without power either when my old VP told me he was going out to get something to eat. I couldn't believe he would leave at this time.
I decided in his absence to keep the kids in seventh period and not move them one more time since the backup lights in the hallways were to go out at any minute. He came back furious that I had done that. He has a problem. He wants to have things his way, then leave the building. Don't we all.
During all this a boy was caught using his cell phone. He was asked for it and refused to give it up, so the crusty VP told him he would have a three-day suspension. I drove him home. The boy would not give up his phone because he said it was the only way he could reach his mother. I checked his home and sure enough he didn't have power or a hard-wired phone that would work. I gave him back the phone and told him to promise to give it to me first thing in the morning. He agreed and I left to go back to school for a meeting with the superintendent.
We had our bi-monthly meeting scheduled. I was a bit frazzled, but I couldn't cancel the meeting. I didn't have much to say and he told me a few things. I then raced up to the tech room where the servers had to be re-booted. The Tech Coordinator was sick today and I had to do it. With that done, I could finally go home; my desk a mess but I had to go home and depleate my reserve of tequila!
Comments:
Post a Comment
