tightening our belts and trying to make do with what we have. It's
meant many sacrifices.
For example, if anything breaks down… forget about it being fixed. If
a chair breaks in my room , a pretty common occurrence, the student
will have use an absent student's chair for the rest of the year. It's
not that big of deal, until you also realize that due to overcrowding,
I have students doubled up on designated seats. So far "Bob" has not
actually been here when "Joe" chooses to show up. Luckily for me… not
so lucky for either Bob or Joe.
Our technology is fairly gone as well. Forget about using the internet
for research for the most part because most sites are blocked by our
super strict blocking company (we are the only school they serve that
allows student to access the internet) and there is not one available
to unblock. Computer problems go unresolved and although our
superintendent likes to crow about how we are so accessible to parents
and offer grades online, we don't have that capability at present and
probably won't this semester, if this year. Which reminds me, I
probably should put in a request to get our toner changed on the
printer sometime next month. If I put it in now, we might actually get
it done.
Did I mention that our school store was first moved to remote part of
campus and then closed because it sold Top Ramen during lunches? That
was in competition with our cafeteria and students liked the crappy
noodles more than the lunches and the district lost money. I never
eat school lunches… but how bad do they have to be if someone would
rather eat Top Ramen? Or that our district will be the only one in the
area not offering free N1H1 shots to students and staff because it
would "take away from instructional time".
The last straw, however, came this morning. In a short email, it was
announced that the cafeteria would no longer provide napkins or salad
dressing free of charge to teachers. If we want a napkin, we have to
pay for it. And the salad dressing? Well, that only comes with a full
lunch – it's not ala carte… so that dollop of dressing will cost us
$2.50. But we can get as much dressing as we want… so, I guess we
could all chip in and by a paper boat full and store it ourselves in
the dressing container in the fridge. Wait, that is what we do, but
without paying the $2.50.
The fact that the teachers have already taken a pay cut, had supplies
curtailed, asked to teach classes with 32+ students, told to take on
extra curricular duties without pay, amongst the other apparent
"little issues", seems to have had no impact on the powers that be.
It makes me wonder exactly how much that $2.50 of salad dressing or 5
cent napkin really just cost our district.
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