This is mostly a vent/my head is still spinning type deal but honestly I just gotta talk with somebody who might understand. So ya know this week was basically my first week at the new job *officially* and everything. On Tuesday there was a fight in the cafeteria that myself, the current VP, a hall monitor/guidance counselor had to break up. Two boys brawling. We took the boys to the office to try and figure out what the heck just happened. Then they were hollering over the radio to call 911 the guidance counselor was having a heart attack. So I ran back to the cafeteria — those combat medic instincts kicking in — started CPR. By the time paramedics got there, there was nothing that could be done, he had passed away. So there's that. And then in the middle of trying to figure out exactly what happened between the two boys it has come out that they are apparently half brothers or something of that nature. The one's mom has been sleeping with the other's father. For years, apparently. So all of that is out in the open. They had apparently gotten in a dispute about that which apparently gotten way heated and out of hand. My head is still spinning about the whole thing, honestly. We're still trying to figure out how did these too find out about all of this. Right now we have so many questions and very little answers. I mean all of this plus we have a faculty member who passed away. We have a meeting with both sets of parents and the boys tomorrow morning. We'll see how that goes.
Thank you. I obviously didn't know him as well as everyone else but I'm still lost in the deep end of things. His services are tomorrow.
Haha!! My husband said the same thing I'm just like omg guys relax. The drama with the two students honestly isn't the worst I've heard and the guidance counselor is an unfortunate occurrence.
Yeah! That's the definition of truth! It was funny though. My new p came up to me today and goes "Hey look lemme ask you a question. I thought you had a prosthetic leg?" So I took off my leg and just balanced there holding my leg. He goes "Wow. I'm a little shocked. I saw you take off running yesterday and you were running better than me with two good legs!" We got to talking about exercising and stuff and I told him my full routine and he goes that's amazing. Here I am being lazy with ZERO excuse.
The whole meeting with the parents — I'm just getting home from this — was incredibly....weird. One of them was talking about aliens or some such nonsense. I mean she really wasn't making any sense. Apparently aliens made her sleep with her neighbor?? We did get the whole mess sorted, both parties have agreed that some sort of group counseling is a good idea. I feel like I need a drink. Aliens?? Really??
I mean honestly it was really a fluke week. At least school is starting to wind down here. They don't have much longer.
I am not sure that I would agree that your week was a fluke week, unless you work in a really tiny school. While a person dying at school isn't that common, I would suggest my administrators in a typical sized high school with a pretty average student population deal with that many major incidents a day. I know as a teacher I'm only aware of about 20% of what goes through the office.
I was referring specifically to the counselor dying and the parents' drama. Fights are common anywhere.
I think the parent drama is pretty common too. As teachers, we just don't see as much of it. My 2 cents. We've had a few teachers die at school in my district but it certainly isn't as common as the other stuff.
What I've heard from our administrators is that teacher referrals is maybe 30% of their day, 20% is attendance/lates/skipping, 30% is student referrals and 20% is parents. So I think sometimes we go to the staff room as teachers and think we 'know' everything that is going on but there are other things that end up in the office that as a classroom teacher I'm not aware of. Again, just my 2 cents.
