I came home from teaching D.H. Lawrence to find that as I entered the front door of the house, Cha was entering through the back. Strange that she'd be returning from Halstead Academy so early on a school day, I thought, and when I saw her face and the wounded look I knew something was up.
She barely managed to get it out before crying: some unknowns had broken into the school Friday night and ransacked her office. They took her spray paint and ruined all her student work (she directs an Arts Magnet program) with graffiti, they took her canned paints and poured them all over the books in the library, and used more to decorate the cafeteria. She was unable to see her office--as soon as she got to school her principal was waiting to send her home because the crime lab people were in her office--and this was certainly for the best. Word has it they tore up her files and her portfolios and lesson plans. Anyone who teaches knows how much work can be lost--ten years worth of finessed and carefully re-thought preptime could be down the drain!
Making this worse is the fact the school alarm system went off Friday and the security guard responded--but instead of checking the school he simply shut off the alarm and closed the open window he found, leaving the perps free reign! Duh.
6 comments:
Poor Cha! That is terrible! I hope the CSI folks track the bad guys down. How traumatic and stressful! Ugh.
- Em
I spoke to her around 5pm and she was in her office and the entire staff was there trying to help her tidy things up. Very sad. She said all the students were shocked and distraught at what was done to their school, in particular their library :-(
Where is that school? jLo was just asking about where Cha was teaching the other day, I'll tell her the terrible news. What's the word on her lesson plans--that and the library damage are the worse!!
PS Gee that Simpsons last night where homer and his buddies trashed the school doesn't seem so funny now.
Ok it does but I'm really sorry about what happened.
She teaches at Halstead Academy off Loch Raven--it's an arts magnet school with improving test scores and this screws things up. She has to go through some papers today but things looked salvageable...they used tempura paint which is at least easy to clean up. They poured it in her PC and pissed on it though, and took her stereo off the shelf and smashed it.
That episode is still funny--driving the car through the hallway? Good stuff.
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