School officially opens on
Tuesday. I think. Maybe.
Possibly. I hope. Chances are.
We’re taking bets on it, though.
I have been working in a
construction zone for four years now. It
started with rock crushing machinery and the entire construction site’s port-a-potty
right outside my window. Then, when
spring arrived and I complained about the potty stench mere feet away, my room’s
windows were swallowed into the new high school gym that was being attached to
my school. For a year I got to watch the
new high school being built from the ground up.
Two years ago, my windows
became plywood, and my classroom became an airless, lightless sweat box. For the first time in my professional life, I
begged the powers-that-be to shut off the heat in the dead of winter. The students and I were being slowly roasted
in the cinderblock box that became my weekday prison.
Last year we occupied the
old high school, fighting with busted windows and hallways so long it took a
full four minutes to run from my classroom to the nurse’s office about a mile
away. Our wing was in Massachusetts, but
the faculty bathrooms were in New Jersey.
No one dared drink tea or coffee in the morning because getting to a
toilet was nearly impossible for 180+ days.
Now we have a beautiful
school … except there are multiple problems with things, and, worst of all, it’s
not ready yet. Truly. It’s still a bit of a hard-hat area, ladders
are everywhere, furniture is littered all over the hallways, and guess what’s
right outside my window … again! Go
ahead. Guess. Past practice plus a roll of toilet paper
handed through the open window should be strong clues.
Yup. School opens Tuesday, and we’re not
ready. Not only that, but there’s that
wafting stench of shit leaking in from outside, and it seems to me like it just
might be some kind of a terrible omen.
