Picnic

Today our school held an all-school picnic to reward the students for good behavior this year--that is fewer tardies and fewer discipline referrals for cell phone use. Well, ok, tardies weren't better, and neither was cell phone use. And we had a major vandalism attack (obscene spray paint) and a bomb scare that got blown out of proportion. (No pun intended!) But we still rewarded the students with a special picnic.

We had free hot dogs, free chips, free cookies, and free bottled water. So instead of five separate lunch hours (well, lunch 25 minutes) 2700 students and a couple hundred faculty and staff marched out to the football field to huddle in the cold and enjoy our frankfurters. (Funny most of my students did not know that name, but they laughed when I used the other synonym.

An hour was allowed for these festivities. I spent some time gabbing with some colleagues, networking with my union president, and enjoying watching the students frolicing on the grass.

About 30 minutes into the picnic, I looked toward the opposite end of the stadium and saw a large group of of students with water bottles sailing overhead. Open water bottles, so the water was spraying out! It actually looked quite pretty and like it was a lot of fun. Of course, it also looked like a law suit waiting to happen.

Of course, the administration took exception to this. (And the professional part of me that remains felt that this fracas could only end poorly.) So, the picnic screeched to a halt, and we were all sent back into the school. Of course, the students got there before the teachers, and crowds of students ran up and down the halls for about 20 minutes. . .

Hopefully, this is not an omen of things to come. Perhaps not, tomorrow is our bomb scare. Word on the street is that not many are going to come to schol tomorrow. We'll see. I'll be there, unafraid, ready to educate the youth of America!