scraping the bottom of the barrel

So. Just got back to my classroom today, for the first teacher workday. Seeing my room made me wonder what kind of trained monkey they had as the summer school teacher in my classroom. He used up all my staples and didn't replace them. He used all but about 3 of my post-it notes. My pencils were all gone. Common courtesy, I would think, would lead most people to replace such things before leaving. Heck, he could have gotten them all from our supply closet in the office.

But! It gets better. My posters were gone. They were there when I left, maintenance didn't remove them, and my beautiful map of fifteen century England is gone. How do you not notice kids taking and/or destroying a poster that was on the wall? I'd certainly make a point to leave the room the way I found it, if I were in some one else's classroom. I hear they were pretty desperate for summer school teachers, though. Wonder if he was even fully human.

Ok, ok. Some missing supplies and a few posters that, while I liked them, were admittedly free aren't really a huge deal. Easy enough to replace.

The big deal is the holes in my floor. Yes, you read that right. Somehow, they managed to make holes in the tile and get down to the sub floor. I'm just baffled. How does that happen? More importantly, how does that happen without the teacher noticing, throwing the kids out, reporting them, and getting them stuck with footing the bill? I mean...destruction of public property, here folks. I know that some of the kids at summer school this year were a little on the trouble side. That's how a lot of them ended up needing summer school in the first place. However, if you've gotten to the point that you are physically damaging my classroom for a prank (which is what I can only assume was the case), then to me, you've lost your chance at passing that class for the year. On the other end, that teacher should be kicked in the head repeatedly for letting that happen. I thought the teacher that let the kids draw on my floor (in permanent marker) was bad, but this definitely tops it by a lot. He also apparently let the kids write in our brand new EOC coach books that are not supposed to be used as workbooks. I almost wish I had agreed to work this summer.

I've been told that they put in a work order to fix the holes in my floor. A less cynical me would expect them to show up one morning during my planning, or perhaps after school some day soon. This week during work days would be ideal. Much more realistic after teaching there for three years, I'm guessing they'll show up in the middle of class next week. If I'm giving a quiz, chances of maintenance showing up increase tenfold.

We all know logic and public school systems don't mix.