So on Monday, Wednesday and now today (Thursday) we have missed 3rd period due to fires throughout the building. Monday's was in the boys locker room on the ground floor (we could smell the smoke in the stairwell); Wednesday's was on the 2nd floor in a stairwell not too far from my room (though I didn't actually notice it); and today's was on the 4th floor. This has meant that 4th period has ceased to exist basically (for me). And we all go outside and stand/sit around for an hour or two and then move into the auditorium and wait for either the next period or school to be over.
On top of all this, today there were several more disruptions. First there was a pre-planned 'health fair day' at Woodson. This involved a play about teen pregnancies (which some of my students were in) and a series of tables set up to talk about different health issues/services. This took up all of 2nd period.
Then during lunch we got this announcement that 'the school was in lockdown.' Now this was the first time we've ever heard that over the PA system, so I assumed it had to do w/kids acting crazy because of the fair and then running loose in the halls during lunch. Then several kids came up and were all like "there's a HUGE fight in the cafeteria and they've got guns!!!" Now I don't take the kids too seriously when they talk like this since rumors spread like wildfire and are almost always ridiculously exaggerated. And this was not an exception. Turns out two things were going on at once. First of all there was a large fight in the cafeteria involving 30+ students which involved several actual arrests due to the level of violence. This led to students who were 'up in the tower' to be blocked from re-entering the cafeteria by police (which led them to believe there were guns, etc.). At the SAME TIME there was apparently some fighting taking place between two neighborhood rival gangs that did involve gun fighting, which caused the school to be on lockdown in order to keep the students in the building and away from the fighting that was taking place somewhere nearby-ish (though I didn't hear anything and my windows were open). This also led to us not being allowed to sit on the bleachers when we left for the fire since we 'didn't want to be targets' for gunfire, so we had to stand under the bleachers.
Anyways, all this led to was one boring day for me. I basically sat around, read the news and didn't really feel like grading (which I suppose I could have done). I talked w/some of my kids about Harry Potter and other great science fiction books though, and that made me feel good to know that a) some kids have great taste and b) some kids still read!!
Tomorrow are parent-teacher conferences. I am banking on a 0% attendance rate for my kids since I have upper-classmen this term. That means yet another day w/no instruction and nothing to do but grade (which I will actually do this time).
