Teacher Truth

There have been a couple more “Varner sightings” in the last few days, but Linda has managed to avoid him, luckily for her.

I had to stop by the St. Peters Pemberton on my way to work this morning.  They had some more labels that all the Pemberton schools use for the front of certain files, and we had run out.  I didn’t think it was a big deal that they give us some of theirs.  After all, the labels come from the same administrative office, and the administration was temporarily out but had ordered more.  I was wrong.  Apparently I should have arrived in an armored vehicle, because by the school director’s attitude, I was taking the equivalent of gold out of her vault.

I haven’t heard nice things about her anyway.  Her reputation among the Netherville set is anything but complimentary.  At the very least, she must be a pretty tough cookie.  I wouldn’t want to work with her, given the gossip I’ve heard.

On the other hand, the Pemberton administration does seem to pit one school against the other in a very negative, competitive way.  I could easily see the administration withholding a future shipment of file labels to St. Peters claiming that they had given the school enough, forgetting that they had instructed St. Peters to give Netherville a large portion of its inventory.  And, after all, we’re talking about sticky labels here…an extremely rare and costly commodity, right?  (Pardon the sarcasm, once more.)

We also heard from Michael’s mother again.  It had been a few days, and we were hoping she had calmed down about his tooth.  She seemed to want to make a mountain out of a molar over the incident.  When I inquired about Michael’s tooth a few days after we had been made aware of what had happened, I was told by his father that the dentist had decided just to file the tooth down a bit to smooth it and then leave it alone, especially since it was just a baby tooth, and Michael would lose it in a few years anyway.  There was no permanent damage.  That was a relief!

I thought the whole thing had blown over until his mother called again today.  She wanted a copy of the liability insurance coverage our school carried.  Evidently, now she wants to charge our school’s insurance for the cost of her dental bill.  You know, the dental bill she incurred when her son ACCIDENTALLY hit his tooth (unfortunately) on our playground equipment.  Linda went ballistic.  She gave me the name of the insurance company, but she told me to handle this mother and make it clear that no one in the history of the school had ever filed a claim against our liability insurance and certainly not for something as insignificant as a chipped baby tooth!

I returned the mother’s phone call, but I waited until everyone was out of the back office for a moment.  I didn’t think I could do this with a bunch of people, particularly Linda, staring at me.  I gave Michael’s mother the name of our insurance company, but I explained that I didn’t have any of the details of the coverage.  She would have to call the Pemberton administrative office if she wanted that.  I apologized for the inconvenience but informed her no one had ever made a claim against our liability policy, so the director and staff at the school level were unfamiliar with the particulars of the policy.

“There has never been a claim?”

“No.”

“Oh, I see.”

I hope you do.

“He’s coming!  Quick, he’s headed this way!” Marcie, one of the teachers from the toddler end of the building, called into the office in a loud whisper.

“Oh, God!” Linda cursed under her breath, and she handed off the head count clipboard to me.  “Here!  Take this, quick!”

With that she dashed out of the office and in the opposite direction from which Marcie had come.

I was dumbfounded, but Marjorie didn’t seem surprised.  “What is going on?  Who is coming?”

“Shhh.  Can’t you smell him?  He’s almost here.  I’ll tell you in a minute.”

At that moment, I did detect the aroma of some very strong male cologne.

“Hellooooo, ladies!” he bellowed out as he rounded the corner of the office door.  I was speechless, and Marjorie hardly gave him a glance as she coolly replied, “Hello, Mr. Varner” and kept on working.  He was not an unattractive man, blonde, tall, tanned, muscular, but he instantly gave the impression of a man who, as my grandfather would say, I’d like to buy for what he’s worth and sell for what he thinks he’s worth.

A quick scan of the office and its occupants (only Marjorie and me) and an immediate appraisal and dismissal of me led him to pursue his main purpose.

“Where’s Linda?” he asked.

“Gee, I don’t know,” Marjorie replied.  “You know how busy she is.  She may have left already to go pick up some things for the school at the store.”

His face dropped.  “Oh.”  He stood there a moment contemplating his next move.  “Any idea when she’ll be back?”

“No, she may be gone a while.”

“Oh,…well, tell her I’m looking for her, okay?”

“Okay.”

He turned and headed back out the way he had come.

“Who was THAT?” I pumped Marjorie for information.

“You know the Varner boy in Kindergarten.  Well, THAT was his dad.  He’s a big-shot contractor and land developer.  He’s done very well for himself, and as you can tell, he thinks very highly of himself.”

“Why did Linda take off like a shot, and where did she go?”

“I’m not exactly sure, but she’s found somewhere to hide.  In fact, I’d better go see if the coast is clear and let her know.  I’ll let her tell you the rest of the story.”  With that, she left the office in search of Varner’s whereabouts and then Linda’s.

When Marjorie and Linda returned, I pumped Linda.  “What was that all about?  Were you really hiding from him?”

“Yes, and I need your help.  If you ever see him coming, warn me.”

“Why?”

“Well, last evening after you left, he came in to pick up his kids.  He pulled me aside and said he needed to talk to me privately about something, and before I knew it, he had pulled me into the adult restroom at that end of the building and shut and locked the door behind him.”

“WHAT?!  What did you do?”

“I didn’t know what to do, I was so shocked.  He started telling me that he’d been waiting for a chance to tell me how sexy and special he thought I was and that he wanted to start seeing me.  He pressed me to meet him at the shopping center down the street after work.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him I would.”

“WHAT?!!”

“I just wanted out of the bathroom!  He started putting his hands on me, and I thought if I agreed, he’d let me go.”

“Okay, that makes sense, but you didn’t GO, did you?”

“Yes,” very quietly, eyes cast down to the floor.

“WHAT?!!!”

“Well, I didn’t want him to get mad and make trouble for me here at the school, but I stayed out in public and his kids were along and I told him we couldn’t do it, and, and nothing happened.”

Okay, she lost me.  She was either one of the biggest idiots I’d ever met, or she loved this, the flattery and attention and drama of it.  Either way, she had just completely lost my respect and my support.  She was married and had two girls of her own; he was married and had two kids in our school.

“So, now he’s continuing to pursue you, and you’ve just encouraged him by meeting him, but you’re hiding in the building anytime he comes around.”

“Yeah.  I guess so.”

Oh, brother!

Small children learn quickly from the adults they observe around them.  In case you don’t believe me, here is a conversation I overheard in my classroom today.

“I will invite you to my birthday party,” said one girl (no matter that the girl’s birthday was months away).

“Why?” asked the other girl.

“Because you’re a girl and you’re in my class,” the first replied.

“Oh, okay,” replied the second.

“But wait, do you like men?” queried the first.

“No,” said the second without much emotion.

“Good.  Me, neither,” confirmed the first.

Michael’s mother asked for an inspection to be made of our playground by a third party.  Linda is in a tizzy, which then brought Cate down on us in a tizzy.  I don’t see a need for the tizzy.  Our playground couldn’t be safer.  It has the latest equipment.  It’s been inspected regularly by the Department of Children’s Health and Safety.  Crystal and I were doing our jobs.  (That will be the next item for scrutiny once they exhaust the playground investigation.)

Do Michael’s parents have any idea how hard they’re about to make things for Crystal and me?  I don’t even want to know what kind of “heat” we’re going to take from the school administration if his parents pursue this any further.  If there had been any wrongdoing, that would be another matter, but this was a simple accident by a careful four-year-old boy doing his best to play.

I don’t know what Michael’s mother is trying to do, but I’m starting to be suspicious and a little uneasy.  His father has always seemed a reasonable man, but his mother is a bit of a nervous Nelly, always hovering and fussing over Michael excessively.  As a preschool teacher and a mother, I expect some hovering and fussing.  I did plenty of it when my own children were this age.  These are little bitty, precious people, and this is the first time many of them have been away from mom and dad for any length of time, but there are a few parents who go overboard, and she is one of them.

Lydia White, one of the teachers with the most longevity here at Pemberton, is hopping mad.  I’ve heard rumors and snippets of conversations, but it wasn’t until today that I pieced it all together.  In the previous years, Pemberton paid its part-time teachers for their preparation work at the beginning of each school year.  Most of the teachers who have been here for a few years, like Janie and Lydia, have it down to a science and don’t spend one minute more than necessary to get ready, but it still takes at least a full day to get everything in place for the new crop of preschool students each fall.

This year, however, the owners decided not to pay the teachers for prep time, but they didn’t bother to tell anyone.  They just shorted everyone’s paycheck hoping, I guess, that no one would notice.  It seems this was the last straw for Lydia.  They had changed the time her class meets without consulting her.  They subtracted more time in between her morning and afternoon classes from her paycheck, even though she was working during those times.  Not paying her for her prep time and not having the guts to tell her they weren’t going to pay her for it, though, was the thing that sent her over the edge.

Although I believe she thought she was at first, Lydia was not being singled out.  The Martins are treating everyone this way.  They’re finding every way they can to cheat their employees out of their pay. With the full-time staffers, they’ve been having Linda mark “lunch hours” for employees on their time sheets even though the teachers didn’t take that time off.  The upper administrators have told the directors that they aren’t going to pay the assistant teachers for “mandatory” meetings.  With the salaried directors, the Martins take advantage every chance they get, because it doesn’t cost them a dime extra.  They’ve been known to say, “Salaried people owe us at least 45 hours per week” (and no breaks…maybe that’s where they get the extra 5 hours?)   I don’t treat people this way, and I am VERY uncomfortable with the idea that they are going to ask me to steal money from my employees like this when it’s my turn to direct a school on my own.  I just can’t do it.  It’s not right.

The result of their conniving is that Lydia has threatened to quit.  That seems to be what has upper management in the biggest snit.  They’re waiting to see if she actually follows through on her threat.  They are not remorseful in any way.  They don’t intend to right their wrong.  They’re not going to pay her, even if she threatens to take legal action.  They’re just planning their next move if she quits.

“Who can we get to take over Lydia’s classes when she quits?”  Guess who.  It’s almost as if they have a Magic 8 Ball with only one answer inside of it: my name.  On whom can we dump extra work when we have it?  Annie!

            As if I didn’t have enough to do teaching classes every day, and giving the kindergarten teacher and other teachers their lunch breaks, and performing office duties like taking a head count in the mornings, substituting for a sick teacher, answering the phones, answering the door, filling out endless reports, scheduling teachers, watching the head count in the afternoons and sending teachers home as soon as possible, fixing office equipment, etc., etc., etc., now Cate has decided that I should take over Marjorie’s duties while she is on a six- to eight-week leave of absence to have surgery.  I’ve worked at the school only about a month, and now they’re heaping this on me, too.  I’m surprised they even trust me with it, but I guess I’m the lesser of two evils, the other evil being to find a person from outside the school to come in temporarily to handle the money.

Of course, I am the logical person to do this.  I have to agree.  I have a Master’s degree in Business Administration and have performed Marjorie’s duties in previous jobs I’ve held, collecting payments and recording and depositing them, keeping the financial records, sending out billing statements.  It’s all very familiar to me, and I actually like this kind of work.  I’m also hoping that since I’m generously sitting in for Marjorie, which reassures her of still having a job when she gets back and keeps the upper management from having to hire (and more importantly pay) someone else from outside the school, that they will lessen some of my other duties.  They can’t possibly expect me to do Marjorie’s job and mine, two full-time jobs, at the same time, right?  Wrong.

Marjorie has been teaching me the financial part of the school’s computer system.  I’m not actually allowed to work on it yet.  Marjorie doesn’t want me using her password.  I guess she doesn’t want to be blamed if I make a mistake.  I can understand that, but I’m not an idiot.

Hopefully, I will be given a password of my own soon that will give me access to the financial reports.  My current password only allows me into the director’s functions of reporting staffing and head counts.  I don’t even have e-mail.  God forbid we should actually communicate with each other!  There is also no internet connection.  We’re not allowed to have it.  Apparently, we can’t be trusted.

I am taking copious notes as Marjorie shows me around the computer software.  It’s very logical, not terribly complicated, and if I have notes, I’ll easily remember what to do.  Marjorie keeps treating this as if it were rocket science.  It’s not that hard.  I know why she feels she has to keep her job shrouded in mystery, though.  She needs the job security.  We’re all made to feel early on in our employment here that we are completely expendable.  We can easily be replaced tomorrow.  If she makes her job seem complicated, she feels fewer people can step in to replace her.  However, I’m getting irritated at being treated as if I’m an imbecile incapable of competently taking over her duties.  I’m surprised she hasn’t made me sign in blood never to reveal any of the top secret mysteries she is about to share with me.  Maybe if she tells me her secrets, she’ll have to kill me later like a good top operative in the espionage business would.

They added to my duties today…again.  Crystal was asked to show me how to do kindergarten lunch.  Evidently, the kindergarten teacher gets a lunch break.  How nice for her!  Okay, don’t be catty, Annie; just because you thought you were applying for her job and because you’d actually like to eat lunch someday does not give you the right to be jealous of her.

She’s a cute thing; blonde and straight, shoulder-length hair, medium height, straightforward.  Kelly seems to do a good job when I’ve been in and out of her room taking the head count for the morning.  (I have to go around and get a physical count of the number of children in the building and make sure it matches the number the computer system thinks we have.  It usually doesn’t, because almost always one or more parents forget to clock in their child when they drop the child off in the morning.)  Kelly is one of the few young teachers who is already married.  She’s just a little more mature and professional than the others in the building.  I think I’d like her even better if I got to know her better.

Anyway, Crystal and I went down to relieve Kelly for lunch duty.  Lunch is always hot at Pemberton and is rolled out of the kitchen on carts.  The carts are parked in four general areas within the building and contain plastic tubs, one for each classroom.  The tubs contain everything the classroom needs for the lunch from plates and cutlery to the food itself.

The food has been prepared by Linda today.  The cook quit without giving notice the week before I arrived, and Linda and another teacher have been taking turns in the kitchen each day.  The smell of burnt grilled cheese is wafting through the school, but it must have been a minor casualty because the sandwiches that arrive in the kindergarten classroom look fine.  I would never complain to her anyway.  I’m in awe.  Linda does a much better job than I could.  In fact, I’m terrified I’ll be assigned the kitchen duty next.

To begin the lunch routine, the children are allowed to choose a book from the room’s library and read quietly anywhere in the room that they’d like.  When their table is called, they put their book back in the library and line up at the bathroom sink to wash their hands.  In the meantime, Crystal and I are scrambling to wipe down the tables with sanitizing Quats solution and set them with the plates, cutlery, cups, and napkins.  Once the children wash their hands, they are expected to sit politely at the table until all of the children are ready to be served.  We sing a sort of thanksgiving grace, but nothing too religious that would offend any of the vast array of religious beliefs represented by the children in the room.

When everyone is in place, Crystal and I go around to each table and ask the children to raise their hand if they would like whatever food we happen to be serving at the moment.  We pass out food as quickly as we can, but it’s not fast enough.  Demands come pouring in.  The first to be served want seconds before the last to be served have even seen food on their plates.  The talk flows freely and gets louder as lunch progresses.  Crystal reminds them to be quiet.

The one benefit to lunch duty is that the teacher serving it is actually allowed to have a plate herself, if there’s enough left and if there’s time.  Apparently, time has been an issue in this class, because Crystal automatically goes over to a timer conveniently placed on the counter and sets it for five minutes.  She announces that the class is to sit at their places at the table and finish eating for five minutes.  This seems to come as no surprise to them.  She reminds them they may talk quietly with their tablemates.  She and I sit down to a quick bite to eat.

When the five minutes are up, students who are finished and tired of sitting want to be allowed out of their chairs.  Students who are still hungry want to be served again.  The demands are endless and constant.  When a student is given permission to get up, they are supposed to go over to the trash can, scrape off any leftover food from their plates, and put their plates, cups, and utensils in the big plastic tub.  They may go back to reading a book from the library.  As a table empties of students, it’s my job to wipe it down again with Quats and clean up the spilled food left behind.

After lunch is over, which happens astoundingly quickly, it’s time to take the class to recess.  Today, the duty is easy because it’s a beautiful day (no need for coats and they can go outside).  We line them up and take them out; as soon as they reach the door, they run like wild animals being freed from a cage.

Michael’s dad came into school with him today.  He wanted to see the playground where Michael had chipped his tooth.  Michael and I took him outside, and Michael showed him the spot where he had hit the pole.  Michael’s dad asked me if there had been other toys out on the playground that day that might have caused Michael to trip.  Hmmm.  That was an interesting question that sounded very much like a fishing expedition.  However, I could answer him without reservation, “No.  Balls and other toys aren’t allowed in the area around the jungle gym.”  I then showed him the basketball court where the balls are kept, a good 20 yards away from the jungle gym across an open grassy yard.  The riding toys and shovels and buckets are even farther away in a sand pit at the other end of the yard, about 50 yards away.

“No, Dad,” Michael interrupted.  “I told you.  There wasn’t anything that tripped me.  There wasn’t anything on the wood chips.  I just let go of the bar and fell.”

Michael’s dad seemed satisfied, and we all went inside where he thanked me and left Michael and me at the classroom door.

I had my first “incident” at Pemberton today.  Actually, it happened at the end of the day yesterday, but I didn’t find out about it until today.  Crystal and I had our four-year-old class out on the playground.  I had been watching Michael and some of his other classmates playing at the chin-up bars very nicely when another student came up that needed his shoe tied.  I guess while my attention was on the shoe, Michael somehow lost his balance and banged his front tooth against one of the support poles for the chin-up bars, chipping it in the process.  It was sort of a freak accident, and Michael toughed it out and didn’t complain to either Crystal or me.  We lined the children up to go inside to get their school bags, took them to the front benches to wait for their ride, and put him into the car without ever seeing his tooth.

Today, his mother called to let us know what had happened and to ask if we knew anything about it.  Crystal and I were both genuinely shocked and apologetic, but we couldn’t add anything to her knowledge of the incident, because neither of us was aware it had even happened.  He’s such a tough little guy to take a hit like that and not cry or at least tell us about it!  We were amazed.  Most children would be screaming bloody murder if something like that had happened to them.  I feel badly about it, but I feel sure the children weren’t doing anything to cause the accident, because they had been playing well together, and Michael has already shown himself to be very good at following the safety rules.  He often reminds his classmates to obey them!  Plus, Michael’s mom shared that he told her no one had pushed him; he just fell.  I hope his tooth will be okay.

            Life is beginning to settle into a routine.  The students are adjusting to the rhythm of the classroom.  I’m adjusting to the routine of daily life in and out of the office and classroom.  My “perch” has become the broken chair in the back office, not one of the three desks in the office as I had imagined.  Oddly enough, the desk in the front office seems to be the would-be domain of my young little co-teacher, Crystal.  She appears to be quite ambitious and would rather spend time in the office for no apparent reason than in her classroom where she belongs.

An interesting chat with Marjorie one day revealed to me a possible reason for Linda’s lack of enthusiasm for my addition to her staff.  Marjorie said that every time she gets a new person broken in, the upper management transfers them away.  I imagine it’s difficult investing that much time in a person, and perhaps even becoming attached, only to have the person constantly ripped away from you, not getting to enjoy the benefits of your hard work training her, or enjoying the closeness of the friendship that might have developed.  Although, the ownership did make it clear that was what Linda was supposed to be doing with me, training me to take over the directorship of another Pemberton school.  What does she expect?