Schoolpocalypse

Today my school imploded. 

Lets start at the beginning:

1) For the past few weeks there has been talk about a "Reduction in Force" or RIF.  Michelle Rhee and the Mayor have claimed that we are $40 million or so short in funds and therefore need to fire a bunch of people.  The Council claims that the District has known about these costs for a long time and it should not be surprising or an 'all of a sudden thing' so it is impossible to really know what is going on.  One could be paranoid about Rhee and Fenty (which I'm sorta tending towards) or the Council is full of bull.

2) Students begin to hear all sorts of rumors and statements from politicians, the news, etc. about what is happening and talk about it and worry about it quite a bit for the past week.

3) Students arrive at school this morning and find there are no security guards.  They believe (falsely) that this is part of the RIF and decide to 'protest' outside the school and not go to class.  [Turns out that the security company that DCPS employs went bankrupt today and so this was just extremely unfortunate timing.] 

4) We eventually get the kids to come inside because they really weren't protesting they were just hanging out talking and refusing to go to class.  This is about 30 minutes into the day at this point.

5) First period is uneventful and I cover second period due to a teacher being absent.  Things go well in that class and I actually get the kids to work through the period which is a miracle.

6) Then the principal announces that the kids will get an extra 20 min. at lunch to protest and let out their pent up energy.  It also gets announced that there is a debate meeting at lunch when it is supposed to be after school (I'm the debate coach).

7) Lunch happens.  The FBLA has a meeting that I help out a little bit with and then I head downstairs to check and see if any debate kids went to the non-existent lunch meeting and find a few of them and tell them to come to the meeting after-school. 

8) A few minutes after I get downstairs, two very large boys barrel into the hallway I'm standing in having a huge fight.  There are two police trying to break it up and a huge crowd of yelling and riled up kids.  I get run in to by one of the fighting boys as I'm struggling to keep some of the kids away.

9) The police get the boys away and the kids seem to be milling about and I'm trying to get them into the cafeteria again and then all of a sudden there is a STAMPEDE (I mean this literally) towards the doors at the stairs.  ALL the kids run full tilt, screaming to get upstairs.  My boss had just gotten to me and pushed me to the wall so I wouldn't get flattened and those who stayed behind just stare fabbergasted.  I have never seen anything like it.

10) I make it upstairs a few minutes later after assessing the downstairs situation and end up in the atrium.  There I end up trying to disperse more students and break up a few more fights and almost fights.  It seemed like every time more than 10 kids were in the same place a fight broke out. 

11) As that calmed down a girl collapsed and had an asthma attack.  We had to call paramedics and once again general insanity ensued.

12) I eventually collected about 1/3 of my students for 3rd period and that went very very calmly.  For 4th period I helped a few students on applications and scholarships.

13) Then at 3:10 we get an announcement for teachers to check their emails.  As the bell rings students are running around the halls yelling about how they don't have to have certain teachers ever again and how they hope so and so gets fired.  And I have no idea what is going on but I tell them to shut up because what they're saying is really mean.

14) Kids tell me I have to check my email so I go back in my room and do so... at this point I am VERY nervous.  There are kids standing around me and I open up an email that has the new master schedule.  I read it over looking for my name and luckily I find it.  All it says is I'm teaching World History II and American History.  I don't know what this means and I won't really know until Monday apparently.

15) I have a debate team meeting for 1 hour after school w/about 6 kids (which is a miracle in and of itself so congrats to them for holding it together for debate).

Apparently tomorrow I'm going to the debate competition w/the kids... we'll see how that goes.  Hopefully they'll come and have fun.

Craziest. Day. Ever.