Fun at work

I work at an elementary school. It's a Title I school which means that a large percentage of our kids receive free school lunch. We were at 89% last year. That means that the families of the children live with incomes close to the national poverty level.

This is not a new experience for me. Of the six years that I have been teaching, I have taught five of them in Title I schools. I enjoy the diversity of the students both in race and culture but also in background experiences. They might not have spent their summers in Europe but they have very interesting and sometimes sad, stories to tell.

I did experience something new this week. A student in my school threatened to kill a teacher at my school. He didn't just threaten but told the teacher and other students of what weapon, where it was located, when he would do it and how it would all go down. This wasn't just some kid shooting off at the mouth. This was a plan that the student had made.

That's not even the shocking part for me. The shocking part is that the student still goes to the school. The student was not "written up", suspended, expelled or even really disciplined. The student was simply moved to a different classroom in the same school. The doorway to the new classroom is about six feet from the old classroom. That is shocking to me.

But again that was not the most shocking part yet. The student was only moved after the teacher talked to the principal, the principal doing nothing, the teacher calling the union, the union calling her boss. After all that, then the principal decided the best thing to do was to move the student to another classroom. A classroom only six feet away.

Fun!

That wasn't the only death threat at work this week. I received a call from a parent this morning. The mother was concerned because her daughters life had been threatened in my classroom and I had done nothing about it. A student had told her daughter that the student was going to kill her.

I was very shocked about this. Especially the part where I did nothing about it. I have to say, it's true, I didn't do anything about it but in my defence, this morning was the first that I heard of it. The student that had been threatened had forgotten to talk to me about this. Oops! I'm sure that it was a small oversight.

Now in some situations I could understand a child being so upset that they do not say something to a teacher but say something to a parent later. Although it's hard as the teacher to do anything about it, well it could happen. Only in this situation the student, her daughter couldn't give her any details. Like who said this and when. Or any details at all really.

I don't want to just outright dismiss this accusation but there are absolutely no details at all. And for the record this is the story passed to me from the mother, who heard if from her 5th grade daughter, who had heard it from my student. Not that it couldn't be true but I'm hard pressed to figure out how I'm supposed to take care of this situation.

I tried to talk the mother into setting a meeting time when we could sit down and talk about this situation as well as many other that involve her daughter. Needless to say, this isn't the first time that I've tried to do this, but she said that she would let me know.

I informed the Vice Principal of the situation and advised about the parents reaction to my classroom policies and procedures. She was glad that I told her and let me know that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to. She wanted to know if I needed help but told her not at this time. I just wanted her to know in case she received an angry phone call from a parent about me.

Again, FUN!

Then there's the time, and I mean today, when there were three police cars parked in front of the school. And that same time, yes, today again, when there was a police officer on the roof of the building. It's amazing how no one has any details about what happened. I am pretty sure that they were not there giving a gun safety lesson.

I am motivated to waitress or at least stay in bed all day. Which ever pays better.