Thanks for proving our point

SPED and Union-Lemming are married. They started secretly dating two summers ago, but we knew something was up the next school year. Finally they admitted it and got married last fall. She didn’t change her name, and they didn’t tell the kids, but they figured it out anyway.

It’s a cute story, except that they teach the same students. Really, that shouldn’t be an issue, but they inadvertently made it one. For every other class, SPED pulls the students out to her room, but for U-L she pushes in. Fashionista had no idea what SPED was teaching her students because they weren’t in the room. Then we found out they were team teaching, which would be okay, except that it meant SPED was teaching the class while U-L sat at his desk and did whatever. Occasionally I’d hear her yelling, and I was confused because her room is way down the hall, but it was because she was teaching his class.

The real kicker came near the end of school. The art teacher asked us to give something to Mr. U-L. We said sure, and TattleTale carried it down the hall. When we got to the room, he kept walking to U-L’s room while we went in ours. I usually wait at the door while the kids go in. All of a sudden I heard raised voices coming from U-L’s room, and TattleTale came out still holding the artwork. I asked, “What happened?” He shrugged and said U-L wasn’t there. I took him back to the room and reprimanded my former students: “Why are you yelling at TattleTale? He needs to give something to Mr, U-L.” Different kids started shouting about whose paper it was, how Mr,U-L wasn’t there, to just leave it. I said, “STOP. TT is trying to follow directions. He needs to give a message to Mr. U-L. Where is he?” Silence. A few shrugged. I repeated myself. “Where is your teacher?” More silence. Finally one of my former students said, “Try Mrs. SPED’s room.” My eyebrows went up so high in shock I’m surprised they didn’t fly off of my forehead. So he leaves the room to go hang out with wifey, leaving 32 crazy sixth graders (who touch each other inappropriately and say nasty things) all alone and doesn’t even say where he is going! I’m still shaking my head.

When Principal Pretty started talking to us about next year’s assignments, SPED found out she was switching with the second grade special ed teacher. She was not happy. Over the next few days we heard different reasons through the grapevine. AP said it was because the back hall is “too negative”. (Hey, I take offense to that!) Principal Pretty said it was because of test scores, and she had to make a change. (SPED took huge offense to that – I said it’s like when a sports team does bad, they fire the coach because they can’t fire the whole team.) But she thinks it’s to separate the two of them since they are married, and we all agree.

But none of us are brave enough to tell her we agree with that, too. She looks out for him and tries to make things easier for him, which is fine I guess, but not at the expense of other teachers or the kids. When we made class lists last year, she was very pushy about who went in U-L’s class. It was difficult for me since I had dine the class lists pretty much on my own for the previous three years. (Fashionista couldn’t be bothered with that kind of stuff.) So I was trying not to be bossy, and when we were done, none of us three classroom teachers liked the lists. So a week later we met and changed them. I’m not sure she knows that since Principal Pretty changed some kids in the summer so we could blame it all on her. When we sat down today to make the lists for next year, there she was right in the middle of the mix. I was a little taken aback, especially since she worked mostly with sixth graders, but whatever. I showed the list I had made back in March (I needed something to do during all those hours of PSSA testing!) that separated all my kids who cannot be together. They all nodded, because they knew what kind of a year I had. (And honestly, it’s just friends who need to be separated, and the kids admit it! But you should see the list of who can’t be together – it’s a whole page!) So we started by deciding which column on my paper would be for which 6th grade teacher. Then we started adding Fashionista’s students. SPED started to jump in a few times, but ended up not speaking even though no one cut her off. After about ten minutes she got up and left the room; I just thought she had to go get something and didn’t think much of it. I did notice when she hadn’t come back by the time we were almost done. Then the Aide comes in the room and starts stage-whispering to Fashionista. I said, “What?!” She said, “SPED asked me how bad is U-L getting fucked in there.” Our jaws dropped. Index finger raised to punch the air for punctuation, I said, “And THAT is why they got separated.” Thank you for proving our point.

In any case, the lists turned out really well. She has nothing to worry about. I’m sure they’ll find a way to ruin it anyway, just like every other year.