Bitter Bus 2009...

So Rosedale had a water main leak overnight and students had no school on Friday. Teachers still had to go in to work so the district could count it as an instructional day. Since there was obviously no running water, we had  to leave the building and have an inservice at the Best Western down the hill. In a conference room.

Rosedale is a vile, acidic workspace. Like all of the world, teacher's are in their own cliques and do not care to mix with other people. So there is a lot of backbiting. Principal Coleman, the new principal this year really wants to change that. I am behind that initiative 100%.

[Editor's Note: The author of this blog was terrified of Principal Coleman when he heard about her coming to Rosedale Middle School. However, upon the first quarter of school almost being complete, he realizes that he has nothing to fear. She interacts with him maybe 5% more than the former principal. She does not bust his balls, and she does not make him wear a tie. Those were his top three fears and they are all unfounded. He had nothing to fear but fear itself.]

Teacher's bickered like children last year. Coleman has been sent to clean house. One teacher has seemingly quit, since she has just stopped coming in and sends in weekly doctor's notes. If she ever returns, she will have lost the respect of all her peers in what is suspected to be just a power struggle. And only her students are suffering. Other teachers just do whatever they can to still complain.

Source of contention 1: Paraeducators not providing legally required services to students.
Paraeducators last year slept in their cars, took 30 cigarette breaks a day, just never showed up to a teacher's class room if they had to ascend stairs or if they had a personal vendetta against a teacher.
Coleman has tried to put an end to that. The head honcho paraeducator is "poor pitiful me". She commandeered a huge chunk of our inservice time to rant.

Source of contention 2: Donation to United Way for Jean Days on Fridays.
The nurse at Rosedale steps on people's toes sometimes by saying too much. I donated money so I can wear jeans everyday in November and December. So whatever. But if all teacher's donated at least the minimum, then everybody could have Jeans on Friday for the rest of the year. I do not think this is the best way to get people to donate, and some people object to the work United Way does. It's basically bribing 20-50somethings. One teacher got really upset because the nurse made it sound like you sucked at life if you were not donating.
Some people were not donating because they do not like the counselor. I can see that. She makes a lot of mistakes that are very aggravating and make our jobs harder to do, but we probably do the same thing to her.
I donated. I was really just looking out for me. I get my jeans, so I could care less.

Source of contention 3: December 11th at Great Wolf Lodge (Mandatory Evening)
Principals have the power to require staff to work certain evenings. So Principal Coleman said that we would go to a staff team building event at the nicest facility in Wyandotte County the Great Wolf Lodge. I like the idea. If we want we can stay at the lodge for a special discount rate that the principal got for us. I like everybody enough to want to get to know them better. However that nurse created a suggestion box in the teacher's lounge and everybody put complaints about this night in the box. Wednesday (10-14-09) the principal was almost in tears as she defended her idea. Teachers can really suck sometimes.

So our inservice became a ride on the Bitter Bus where everybody complained about one of these issues, and I complained about the complaining in my own comedic way to the other members of the Youthful Unit (Slade, Beckman, and Miller...my three young staff member friends.)

They'll learn. They'll learn.

*Birthday posts are pleasant digital presents.
Webslingers don't get returned. In comic continuity they get built, repaired, filled with different kinds of web cartridges (i.e., if you are fighting Hydro-Man, a web fluid that would cause his body to turn to concrete), discarded when the comics incorporate the organic web fluid from the movies that comes out of your wrist, and then put back into use when your series gets retconned by an author who wanted to shake Spider-Man's world up and had him make a deal with Mephisto (Marvel Universe's Satan) in order to save Aunt May's life which included never marrying Mary Jane, never developing organic web fluid, and many other things. But they never get returned.