The Return of Ms. Pritz

I'm back in school. I am substituting all week long and probably into next week before I head to CO and Mexico! I feel the shadow of my student teaching days looming over me and my eventual future as a teacher inching its way closer. I don't mean that to sound like a bad thing, because I truly love it, but it is an exhausting thing. For my teacher friends out there I know that you resonate with this. It is like a never ending decision making experience each day. I also invest my self to the extreme socially and relationally in most situations but even more so with colleagues and children. So to recap, I'm sleepy.

My dad is a public school superintendent and has been at the same school for 24 years. My brothers and I literally grew up at this school. My baby shower was in the library, Ms. Baker, the librarian, made my cake. I went to this school for 9 years and enjoyed (most of the time) always having my dad at school with me.

Yesterday, my dad starting feeling better about the idea of retiring in two or three years instead of his usual uncertainty and mixed feelings. His family feels like this is the most high stress job and it is about time he takes a breather, but this is this man's life.

This is the day he had yesterday: A man passed away that was the father of one of his teachers and the grandfather of another. It was early on in the morning but the teachers were already at school and had no idea what had happened. A family member was headed up to break the very sad news and while they were on their way another teacher accidentally told the younger teacher who was naturally hysterically devastated in the hallway. Then the older teacher was called down to the office, when they told her the news she collapsed and after she recovered was heard wailing up and down the halls. Such a sad sad thing for that family and a rough start to the morning for all the teachers and the upset and confused students.
Next, the first graders were on a field trip at the zoo. In the afternoon when they were driving away in the bus they realized they were missing one little boy, a worst nightmare for any teacher, parent, or school administrator. I was headed to the office to meet my dad for a little break during my planning period and walked into a full-on intensive investigation going on. My dad zoomed passed me on his way to the zoo, he's a hands on man, and couldn't handle not being more informed of what was going on. They had to lock down the zoo and my dad had the horrible task of calling the little boys mother. In the end the boy was found and all fears were settled though there is still a lot of questions still being raised.
Finally, a somewhat enraged and possibly slightly out of her mind mother, stalked one of the buses back to school and in her unexplained anger kick the doors until the bus driver was afraid and drove away, she responded by throwing a rock through one of the windows. Needless to say police ended up being involved. My dad is the man in charge of all of these situations and he was spent. Don't envy the life of a public school administrator. I am going to stick to teaching and not try to climb the administrator ladder.

In better news one of the middle schoolers I was subbing for asked me if I was single, he then moved on to asking me for my number. Not sure what the exact protocol is---giving him detention or pressing charges? I decided to ignore him. I am subbing for 2nd grade for the rest of the week. Stay tuned to hear about the talent show performance we are working on for Thursday, it may be a song and dance number.