I have to get this out of the way quickly as I'd rather focus on happier activities so here we go. We, as a school, bottomed out again. The Indiana Stupid Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP) results are in and so is our school's letter grade and we, according to a bunch of idiots that have never stepped foot in this wonderful school, are deemed a failure. I've said it before and I'm going to say it again right now, I like this school. I like the dedication of the teachers, arriving early, staying late, coming in on weekends, supporting numerous before and after school activities, spending ridiculous sums of their personal money to make sure our scholars have what they need to be successful. And for the umpteenth time, I don't need to do what I do, I choose to keep doing what I do because this is a great school in a neighborhood where parental units easily falls into the category of low social economic background.
Enough of that. NO! I'm not done yet as I forget to mentioning that teachers are compensated based upon the STUPID results. The Indianapolis Star, a week or so ago, ran an article about teacher compensation based on the STUPID results. Teachers, who are tasked to teach the scholars of wealthy, two income, two parental units with college degrees scholars can be compensated at or above $2,000 if their scholars perform well on the STUPID test. Where in the hell is the challenge to do that? These scholars were born into the lucky sperm club and they were going to do well academically from the day they were born. Teachers, those that are in my school corporation, who are tasked with the challenge to teach scholars that are products of piss poor parenting are also compensated based upon the STUPID test results. Well, you know the results as I mentioned it above. So what are the wonderful, hardworking teachers, who deal with scholars who do not have wealthy parental units with college degrees, who, maybe graduated from high school, get compensated. The average check for a teacher in my school corporation is $128. That equates to seventy-one cents per day solely because the teachers that I work with are in a school that is in the wrong zip code. To the lowest life form on earth, the politician, and to the snooty, high minded, pointy headed intellectuals that continue to grade schools solely on the results of this STUPID test I have this to say. You can take your $128 check and stick it where the sun don't shine.
I wasn't in the classroom when the conversation started but one or more of the scholars questioned the validity of elves. If I was to venture a guess I'd say that Huey was a part of this conversation based up how he acted over the next few hours in school whenever elves were mentioned. Later in the day, after the scholars were all gone, FBG walked into the classroom and started a conversation about elves with Gnu. Apparently the two had spoken earlier in the day and decided to prove the existence of elves. As they were strategizing I walked over and joined the conversation. After about fifteen minutes of planning we had our game plan. The elf was going to enter the classroom from one of the exterior windows of our classroom. Fortunately, the window was unlocked but the plan hit a bump in the road because we couldn't find anything to make elf footprints in the snow that was on the ground. Gnu searched the room and found a fairly good sized stuffed SpongeBob doll with legs and we decided that this is the best we had. FBG opened the window and Gnu tried to put the feet of SpongeBob in the snow. When she realized that she couldn't reached the ground she adjusted her body to the point that FBG had to get a hold of her to keep her from falling out the window.
With the foot prints in place outside we decided to use brown water color paint to make the foot prints inside the classroom. That was right up FBG's alley as he is a decent artist. He started making the foot prints on the window sill, then down onto a small electrical outlet that stuck out from the wall, and finally down on the floor. As I was watching FBG I suggested that we reopen the window and put some foot prints on the outside of the window so that it looked like the elf had to climb up the building. To make it more authentic, FBG drew elf foot prints from the wall by the window across the room to an area rug that we use. When the foot prints reached the area rug FBG smeared some of the brown water color paint onto the area rug to make it look like the elf wiped his feet.
The next step in this grand scheme was to leave a note for the scholars on the white board. As FBG wrote what he wanted to say on a note pad I looked around for the smallest dry erase marker that I could find. With marker in hand, FBG start writing the note in vary small letters at the very bottom of the white board. As FBG was writing, Gnu retrieved a piece of yarn from our art cabinet and taped it to the ledge on the white board that holds the erasers. When we asked her what the yarn was for she said, "the elf is little and he can use this to climb up to the ledge of the white board." FBG and I looked at each other and then agreed that if the scholars can buy the elf foot prints they can buy using a piece of yarn to climb up something.
With the project almost complete the classroom telephone rang. Gnu answered it, left the room for a short while, and then returned and announced that there was bus incident and one of our busses was returning to school. Gnu then left the classroom and FBG and I finished up the project. Gnu had not returned to the classroom, so with jacket on and heading home, I decided to alter my route to the parking lot and walk through the front office. As I turned the corner I saw the BigB2, LittleBigB, and the school bus driver surrounding Big House as he sat in a chair. As I approached them I passed the BigB2's office and saw MiniJ sitting in a chair with Gnu right next to him. I stuck my head in the door and told her the classroom project was complete and I was heading home. As I continued toward the exit door, the bus driver was trying to convince Big House to get up off the chair and get on the bus. Being in his stubborn mood Big House refused to move. When I was directly in front of him I said to him, "Mr. Bus Driver asked you very politely to get up and get on the bus as there are students that need to be taken home, now get up and let's get going."
It was around 8:00pm when I sent a text message to Gnu to see how her day ended. She responded that Big House and MiniJ received a one day suspension from the bus because of an fight with Huey on the bus. She then immediately sent a second text message back to me, "I can't believe we do all of these fun activities in the classroom for these butt holes."
It's now the next morning and as I walked into the classroom after doing my morning, standing out in the freezing cold, bus duty there was excitement in the air. "Mr. Schultz, Mr. Schultz, an elf was in the classroom last night." "Are you sure," I responded. "Yes Mr. Schultz, he came in through the window. You can see his foot prints outside on the ground and where he walked around the classroom. He even left us a note on the whiteboard." "Elves can write," I responded as I walked over to the white board. After reading the note from the elf I started looking around the classroom. Speaking to the scholars in general I said, "don't you think it is interesting that there are no foot prints showing how the elf got out of the classroom. Maybe he is still in the school somewhere?" Huey took the bait and immediately started looking around the classroom and then even looked out in the hallway.
I know this is getting lengthy but I have two more items to mention. First, the bus altercation made it necessary for MiniJ's male parental unit to pick him up after school. Just prior to the end of the school day the classroom telephone rang, it was a male and he wanted to talk to Gnu. So you know, this is MiniJ's third year in our classroom and I never met or saw his male parental unit. When I asked Gnu what the call was about she told me that MiniJ's male parental unit wanted to know what time school ended so he could pick up his son. I looked at Gnu and said, "MiniJ has been in this room for three years and his parental unit doesn't know what time of the day school ends." She turned and looked at me and said, "he also can't read."
Here is the last item. Gnu and numerous others are faced with the challenge of educating young scholars like MiniJ who are the offspring of very poorly educated parental units and they bust their ass to do the right thing. Gnu, working with FBG, put together this wonderful elf project after school, when they should have been on their way home, with the intent of making school a fun place to be for our scholars. For their effort, the lowest life form, the politician, and those pointed headed intellectuals who put in place a horrible compensation plan that states your effort is only worth seventy-one cents per school day need to be driven out of office and out of our classroom lives.
That's it. It's wine drinking Wednesday so I'm out of here. Good bye! Merry Christmas!
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