It's the most wonderful tiiiiiiime of the yeeeeear! School is done.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Teachers do NOT get paid for the summer (nor any "vacation" breaks, nor holidays, nor snow days); teachers are per diem employees. If teachers didn't have a summer break, there would be no more teachers because we would all be in the mental institutions.
Before I leave, I have to make a map of my room for the custodial and painting staff, which is normally easy-peasy because I have not changed my classroom footprint in years. However, I am already in the only room that has spotty wi-fi, also known as The Bluetooth Room From Hell. In February, our district decides it's a super-dee-duper time to update our network.
Now, the wi-fi situation is even worse. I get calls from the office: Why didn't you send your attendance? I did send the attendance. The software says so. I can see it right in front of me. It has already been submitted.
Oh, but wait! It looks like I'm on the wi-fi. My tabs work. I can bring up Google and other sites, but, apparently, I am not connected. At least, not to the district's network. I don't know whose network I am on, but I'm not on theirs. This happens multiple times a day. If I move from one classroom to another, I "lose" network connectivity. Unless I stand in the windowsill all day, I don't have internet access for the full day, and I never know when I'm off the network because, hey, I'm still connected . . . somewhere.
The final full Friday of school, I cannot sleep, so I haul my butt to school. I am the very first car in the combined middle-high school lot. I arrive at o-dark-forty, park my car, and get into the building. The kiddos will be watching the final installment of a curriculum-based movie and having the final quiz on it. (Yessir, we don't just sit and watch movies. I make them pay attention and earn points for it. I even told them if their neighbors start to doze off, give them a little virtual pinch because this is worth big money.)
While the students are occupied, I quietly sit at my desk in the far right corner and rearrange drawers, and get files ready to put away because the very moment they finish the quiz, I will be posting their final, unquestionable, solid-in-bedrock term four and year-end grades. No amount of emails, phone calls, nor district complaints can save anyone now. The moment the grades are finalized, I formally submit them through my spotty wi-fi connection along with those infamous conduct and effort comments.
We. Are. Done. Here.
Except that now comes the hard part. Before I create a room map, I have to find a new space for my desk, somewhere in the room where I might possibly be able to maintain wi-fi connectivity to our district website more consistently than once or twice every hour. Eliminating the rest of the lyrics, let's just say I had a very brief Lil Jon moment: To the window; to the wall.
I start moving stuff across the room. First, the bookcases, still full of books. The file cabinet, three drawers full of files. Two tall file cabinets don't move much but still need to scooch a bit. Thirty desks with chairs need to be put into play, as well. The desktop cannot move because it is attached to what used to be an interactive board and is now just a glorified overhead projector for showing movies and videos and the daily agenda. Finally, the desk to the far left corner. Inch by slow inch, that loaded desk is going to move if it takes me all afternoon.
Hours later, long past the time that just about all of my colleagues have left, I have my desk in the new location, the bookcases where they need to be, the files all organized, the closets packed with loose textbooks, thirty desks are in group formations, and I have made sure that I seem to have district network Bluetooth working. I'll draw the map on Monday, when I'm sure this will be the final layout.
I gather up the one lone teacher still in the building, and we walk out together, somewhat wilted but completely triumphant. She gets in her car first and tears out of the lot like her weekend is on fire, which it is at this point. I take a moment to get my phone up and running, check and see if anyone loves me, and make sure the air conditioning is coming on in the car (since it is broken inside the building).
I glance around and realize that I'm right back where I started, eleven-and-a-half hours later, alone in the parking lot. It may have been a long day, but it is a day like today that staves of the mental institution I mentioned earlier.
