#4 Reason for Leaving

     I have wanted to be a teacher my whole life. Ever since second grade, when Ms. Wolcott let me take home a stack of geometry worksheets for the summer. I just liked the stack of paper, I didn't much care what was on them. I spent all summer playing school with my friends, and pretending to grade the squares and triangles and circles.

    When I became a teacher at 22, I was thrilled. I was ready. I worked in a Title 1 school for a year, before moving to a rural school up north. Same population, different issues. Which means, it is politically incorrect to say, the kids were all the same color up north, but were struggling because their families worked the harvest, not because they were in single parent households battling gangs. I'd never say that out loud to anyone.

    So when I was hired last year in the biggest school district in the city, I was again excited. I researched the building, and discovered that their teacher retention rate was shocking. They had been through five math teachers in one year, only. But I steadied myself.  I'd worked at a title one just three years ago, I could do it again. Those kids needed teachers who would stay. I am/was young, I can/could adapt. Many teachers that are currently leaving, creating a teaching and substitute crisis, are taking early retirement. 

    Then Covid hit, and any one who could afford to leave teaching, did.

    My first day at the city school, I arrived at 6:30 am. As I was turning into the parking lot, there was a kid, maybe fourteen, wearing a "V for Vendetta" mask, and waving a gun. Several cars simply turned ahead of me, not seeming to notice. They were  clearly teachers. They just pulled into the lot and parked their cars. The kid on the corner screamed and pointed his gun at me as I turned.

    I did not turn into the parking lot.

    I flipped a U turn and went back home. I called the police to report the kid, then called the school and told them I'd found another job. Which I had not, but I spent the day applying, and crying. I cried all day. I thought I was a failure as a teacher. Clearly, nobody else at this building was concerned about the behavior on the median.

    I found another job almost immediately in a white suburb out south. I am very happy there. The kids bring Kleenex and hand sanitizer by the truckloads when they are asked. The parents give me Starbucks cards and thank me when they see me.  My worst behaviors are related to entitlement, which I am equipped to deal with. 

    I was not equipped to deal with a kid waving a gun outside of the parking lot at 6:30 am.

    Politically correct or not, it's the truth.

Postcards From A Lockdown (staying on the light side as best as I can)

 

      I rushed into the theatre when the lockdown announcement came, running from the office and through the choir room, because I knew there were kids in the theatre. When I arrived, M said clearly, eyes wide "We shut all the doors, kmart. We didn't know if we should try and find you, so we shut all the doors." I said "You're definitely Aurora kids." Which made her smile, but was unsettling on every level.

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    The second or third time the principal came on, he sounded annoyed. I think kids were running out every door instead of obeying the lock down. His subtext was "I SAID lockdown, people and I meant it. Do not make me turn this school around...." which is funny/not funny as our school is, in fact, in turn around. I laughed at his tone, anyway. 

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        The kids were in the theatre during lunch rehearsing for cabaret that night. Once everyone was relatively comforted and had located their friends and texted family, they said "So I guess cabaret is canceled tonight?" I shrugged "Anyone feel like coming back here tonight?" They shook their heads. "Then it's canceled." Fifteen minutes later, I received an email  from the district that all after school events had been canceled. I read it to the kids. We all had a chuckle. "Way ahead of you, buddy."

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    "It's technically not a school shooting. Those are white kids inside the school. This was outside the school..." I said to nobody as I watched students' lives change forever.

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    The kids on stage  were watching snapchats and reading tweets from kids in the parking lot. One was of one victim, in a white shirt, covered in blood, his buddy trying to apply pressure. Student A said "That's my math partner. Guess I don't have a math partner any more. Hey kmart, do you think my math teacher will give us an extension on the quiz due today?"

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    When we came off of lockdown into secure perimeter, the kids immediately started singing "When You're An Addams" and doing their choreography. Because that's how theatre kids process trauma. I texted a friend "We've reached the musical theatre portion of the lockdown." The random kids who had been pulled from the front of the school and the lobby, and then thrown into the theatre, sat silently in the house. Theatre kids are weird, and we have proven it yet again.

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    When we realized, after an hour, that we could be here multiple hours, we started strategizing where in the theatre we could pee. We were not allowed in the halls. The semi permanent band sub who was stuck with us said brightly "Which part of the stage do you care less about?" We laughed.

The same sub received a text from her father "I saw your car on the news."

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    When the Aurora police banged on the door of the theatre and said "Aurora police, we're coming in" I answered "Thank you, Aurora police." Because theatre.

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    When I left, I drove straight to the pub. I hadn't spoken to anyone outside the building all day. When the bartender asked how my day was, I laughed and said "Watch the news". She said "My God, I know right, what the hell is going on?" I took my beer and said "I work there." When I returned later to settle my tab, she quietly told me she had bought my round.

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    I’m taking a CLDE class. Nothing is due right now, the assignment is in process, but I’ve been struggling. Today I tried to work on it, only to be embattled emotionally.

    I sent a note with the assignment to my lead teacher: “It is what It is. There are shell casings outside my classroom window. The struggle is real.”

    Scene.

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    Things I have said this year, postcards:

    Three weeks ago there was a shooting off campus, involving one of my students.

    He sent me an email “ I have to pass this class to graduate, but I’ve been shot. What can I do to make up the work?”

    My reply boiled down to “Survive senior year, dear. “

       postcard

    An email was sent to me at 11.14 am on Friday, 19 Nov regarding a scholarship recommendation, due by midnight on Friday.

    At 12.05 Friday we went into lockdown.

    Today I submitted the letter of rec, with this note: “My apologies for missing the deadline. We had         a  shooting.”

            Scene.

        The Six Things That Have Driven My Spirit Out Of Teaching

            6 entitled lying students

            5 their entitled, snowplow parents

            4 bullying admin, in kahoots with #5 and #6

            3 covid

    ``       2 Tik Tok Lick Trend

             1 School Shooting

    Nobody is OK. I process by writing. Nobody said you have to read it.

Fiction: Reason #23-

     I teach math in a private high school. It's a middle/high, grades 8 through 12, but I only teach high school.

    I am also an actor.

    I have done musicals all over town, much to the joy of my students, parents and administrators. 

    I love my job. 

    I love being an actor.

    I have no interest in teaching acting, or theatre, I think I would start to hate it. I don't want to teach it to people who don't love it as much as I do. I do that already with math, which I do not love but I do respect.

    All of my theatre gigs went dark during Covid, I was thrilled to be cast in a play and get back to my love. Last night, I opened the first show I have acted in in two years. It seems to be well received, we had reviewers last night. My director just emailed me the review. I sat and read it at lunch just a minute ago. Absolutely glowing, praise for the entire production. I take all review with a grain of salt, but now I think the praise is even louder, the word choice stronger, and I swear they are no longer criticizing the shows, they're celebrating them!

    I just spent almost two years learning every platform known to man to teach my own classes and to attend masters classes. I returned to my building knowing that we were not going to be shown the same "grace" that we are expected to show our students. When I pointed out this inconsistency to my AP, I was told "You're an adult. You can handle it."

    My husband and I had many discussions during what he called 'The Lockdowns', regarding my retirement plan. I openly owned my own mental health crisis, and together we came up with a strategy. We decided that, when the theatres reopened, I would not take the next sugary musical that was offered to me, but look for a play more meaningful. Something to feed my psyche.  This sounds like it would be the opposite of what a teacher needed after such a devastating experience. You would think I'd rather to a comedy, or a silly musical. But I've always been a fan of the Absurdists, and when I can't get my hands on a Beckett, I am drawn to dark realism.

    So when auditions for Bent were announced, it was a no brainer. I have loved every second of this soul ripping drama. Every solitary phrase. It forced me to look at an event worse than what I had lived through, and to attach my own experiences as a gay man. Opening night was not just an opening performance for the audiences, but for all of us on the show. We've been changed on a molecular level. The director has walked with us every moment of the way, supporting our journeys with empathy, and the passion of a man who needs to tell this story.

     I was sitting here ruminating on the last rehearsal, not paying attention to my screen, when an email popped up from my principal.My evaluations are all up to date, there is no reason for her to contact me. I clicked on it

        "Mr. M. It has come to my attention that you are in a theatrical production. Please see Mary to schedule an appointment with me to discuss this."

    I would be lying if I said I didn't see this coming.

   Maybe I chose the show on purpose.

    I did not invite my students, clearly the show is too intense for them.

   But as an actor, I do not want to spend my life doing shows that I find unfulfilling.

    As an administrator, she has no right to tell me what I can and cannot do outside of school.

    What surprised me was this: I was not upset. For the first time in two years, I do not feel anxiety about a decision.

    I will not be making a meeting appointment. I will ignore her email and do my job.

    If she wants to come down here and talk to me, that's her choice.

    Or better yet, come see the show. Talk to me after.

    

Fiction Reason #32: music teacher

 

    I have been a  middle and high school music teacher for thirty years. 

    I don't want to leave, but I think it's time.

    In thirty years, I have been in six buildings and three districts.

    I stay for five years, then I go. I tell people I'm like Mary Poppins, I go where I'm needed. 

    Which is a bald faced lie, I've always been in privileged schools with strong performing arts programs. All I had to do was swoop in and maintain the status quo. 

    The first time it happened, it seemed natural enough. My first job was a suburban building with an amazing, award winning program. I took over for the teacher who had been there for 25 years. He had left a deep legacy, and it was not difficult to keep the momentum going. After four years, once I began to get to know the kids, I became engaged to my college boyfriend, Kyle. His job was out south, so we decided to move that direction after the wedding. I got hired in the other district easily, as the urban sprawl was getting under way.

    The second time, I was pregnant with my first child, and thought I would take a sabbatical. My building would not allow a sabbatical; my choirs had won many state awards, and they did not want the program to languish for a year under a one year substitute. Their relentless pursuit of trophies was reprehensible. So I quit, and was hired at the middle school-which was, after running two strong programs that frankly Ate My Life, very much like a sabbatical. I stayed there another five years until my son started kindergarten.

    When my son was five, he was in a private school near our home, and I stayed local again and was lucky enough to find a job nearby in a new building that had opened in the still expanding district. Looking back, it's really surprising I was able to switch as frequently as I did, as performing arts jobs are not easy to find. We are usually a one person show, unlike the cores who have teams, and someone usually has to die for one to get hired. 

    I had become aware of my commitment issues with buildings, and started to wonder about the PERA program. If I was going to bounce around, I had to make sure that for  the last three years of my career,  I was working at a high salary. My fourth year I ran into a friend from high school  who was a former teacher. He had only taught a few years before leaving for an investment firm. His specialty was teachers. This would have been 1996  or so, he was convinced the PERA set up was not going to make it through our careers. So I started saving with his firm, and that took the pressure off of me to worry about my last years. I only had to make sure that what I made was enough to bridge the gap left after Kyle's salary.

     The first building I worked at, there was an art teacher who retired after 33 years...in the same building. I remember wondering how somebody does that? The mere idea of walking the same halls for more than a few years makes me cringe. Sure, the building changes, and principals change, and the kids graduate, but it's the same building. I would take a hostage.  And it would likely be an administrator. It's best for everyone that I do not like to stay in one place for too long. I like different choir rooms, different pianos. I like adjusting and bringing in my one box of personal items to display on the desk. I have colleagues who dug into their rooms, and started photo galleries of their choirs on the wall, and banners of every All State and Southwestern Conference with kids' names. I was in  three of those rooms, and I kept up the tradition. But I never started one, and I never ended one. 

    I won't drag on here with every story. As one language arts teacher I worked with used to say "All in all, to sum up, in conclusion", it's been thirty years and six buildings. I survived marriage, raising two children, twelve principals (it's true, one building had a new principal every year for the five years I was there), six student suicides, four fatal student car accidents, five students with cancer, students whose parents were getting divorced, a number of non fatal car accidents, a school shooter, sibling deaths, musicals, concerts, state choirs, my own divorce and teaching choir online.

    I did online very well. I taught the tonal qualities of water in a glass based on how full it was and the thickness of the glass. We made string instruments from yarn and dining room chairs. They sang their hearts out into Sound Trap, and I spent hours editing it into a choir.

    And in August of 2021, I realized the kids I had been teaching online were the top 10% of my classes. Those who cared. The rest...did not. You can't run a choir program that has 150 students enrolled and only 15 that are committed to showing up, learning music, and performing. This is simply a fact. Because we were remote, I had been fooled. Once they arrived in class, live in person, late, in pajamas and addicted to their cell phones, I realized I had been duped. Sadly. I blame my age.

    This year, which everyone keeps saying is "after" Covid (but that's ridiculous and all thinking people know it, we're still dealing with a pandemic) has been the hardest. THAT is true. The expectations on teachers have not relaxed, and our kids have been taught during remote learning that the expectations for them are so low for success, they really only have to wake up and show up. This year was harder than any of the previous 29 years. Period. It broke the back of the choir I was working with, even though I did everything I could to keep them interested online. I've never taught so much history or allowed days of karaoke;  I created music lessons with glasses of water, and with found objects and spent hours mixing their individual recorded voices into a "choir". I believed that the kids were actually getting something out of this debacle. I thought we "made" it.  

    Then when they returned, they just couldn't get to class on time anymore. They were bringing blankets, wearing slippers and refusing to put away their phones. They talked incessantly and can't sit still for an entire class period. Our fall concert was disappointing, they waited until the day before to learn their choreography, and the entire tenor section was out sick the week before the concert, causing me unprecedented  anxiety. The holiday concert will be only slightly better, as I have kids out sick every day, and for days on end, and they can't rehearse. I was going to feature the smaller groups more, but out sick is out sick, and you can't learn your harmonies from home on your chrome book. I have never been this exhausted, and frustrated, and angry. 

    For the first time in thirty years, I wake up in a great mood and by the time I walk in the building, I'm already mad.

    So, after thirty years, it's time to go.

   

  

Fiction Reason #13

 

    I have been a special education teacher for only two years, and one of them  was in remote/hybrid learning.

    While I have been bitten and punched, I have never been knocked out or had furniture thrown at me.

    When I did my student teaching, my mentor teacher told me she had a chair smashed across her back a few years ago in a different building, and she spent the rest of the year recovering from a broken back. Other teachers have stories of furniture thrown, being hit accidentally by students who do not understand what they are doing and being bitten. They all stayed in the profession. I've heard all the stories, and yet I kept going.

    Today I was waiting in the center classroom for the students to return from specials. I received a phone call from security that one of our paras was being taken to the hospital. She has been with us only a few months. When I went downstairs, I got the following story:

            The para was accompanying the student to his art class. He became dysregulated by a passing general education student who bumped into him, then called him a "fucking retard", and moved on. The special education student turned to the para and physically picked her up off of the ground and smashed her into the wall twice. She crumpled unconscious onto the floor, and the student then entered the art room. When asked where his para was, he shrugged.

    She is nineteen years old. She makes $15 an hour and my first thought was that I should be the one to call her mother..

    I watched them put her into the ambulance, and was told I had to escort the student back to the center classroom.

    I did, and then I sat down at my computer and wrote my letter of resignation.

Fiction: Reason #100

 

    She sat on the couch in the principal's office, wondering what it felt like to have a private bathroom.

    As the newspaper sponsor in the building, she had been called into this office on several occasions. Every principal she had in the building seemed to need a tutorial on student's rights to freedom of speech. She had only been in the building for five years, this was her fourth principal. She'd joked that she was the Principal Trainer, like How To Train Your Dragon. She was always the first under fire, and she was always in the right, and the new principal did not seem to know what the students' rights were  before calling her in.

    She knew what it was about. A senior, who had spent their entire junior year in remote learning, wrote an opinion piece on the vaccine numbers in the district. They had cited research from the local health authorities, interviewed parents and students, and concluded that the truth of remote learning slowing the spread of Covid will never be known, because parents did not have their students tested. It was widely known within the district that parents were sending kids to school with coughs and fevers, then not answering the phone when the school called. The student did not get any parents to admit this, but it was an "open secret" in the community. A twisted take on "don't ask, don't tell".

    The student reported had been visibly frustrated while originally writing an article on remote and hybrid teaching in the district. They said they could tell adults were lying to them, and had asked to write an opinion piece instead. As the sponsor, she had cautioned the student against any language that would be incindiary, or misunderstood as name calling. Teaching journalism in 2021 had become more difficult than when she started ten years ago. Students had to be taught what a fact was and how to research it without any real examples to pull from, professionally.

    The principal entered, five minutes after the meeting was scheduled and said "Good afternoon, Mr. Stern,".

    She was not ready to do battle for herself. She thought this meeting was about the kids, not the principal's complete disdain for her gender status. After three years hiding her true self from admin and students on the western slope, she'd thought she had landed in a safe building. High socioeconomics, ninety percent of the parents had college degrees, LGBTQ club, two openly gay teachers and the median age of the teachers in the building was 46. 

    That was last year, before the new principal. She had not experienced any problems with staff or the previous administration mis-gendering her. She had not told her students, it was stressful enough to go through the process  as a teacher and she had decided in two years, she would leave teaching altogether in order to complete the transition. 

    This particular principal, a PhD educated woman who had clearly thought the building she had been hired to captain was closer to Harvard than a public school, had made it clear she would not be referring to Chris as "she/her". Chris knew the union would back her, but because she had not known the topic of the meeting, she had entered the office alone. Rookie mistake, experienced teachers know to A) ask for clarification of the meeting topic and B) never go to an admin meeting alone.

    The fight was going to be a long one. She had talked to the union and other teachers who had been forced into legal action. They all won, and their prize was to be returned to the same building under the same administration. 

    At that moment, she made a choice.

    "I am she, you have been asked repeatedly to gender me correctly."
    "That is irrelevant. I'm here to address a complaint from a student," she sat, crossing her ankles and staring through Chris' soul.    

       "Where is the union rep? I won't have this meeting without the union."

       "We can clear it up  here and now. The student claims you made inappropriate sexual r

Reason 156

     He sat staring at the broken drum. 

    He knew there was no money to replace it.

    He knew he didn't want to be here any more. 

    What he did not know is which student broke the drum.

    He was the fifth band teacher in three years, one of whom--his friend William- didn't even make it to the end of the first quarter. To be fair, Will had quit during Covid, so that one didn't count in his mind. Will was s a fellow jazz musician that Li had worked with in college. He had quit over administrative issues. Since William had been teaching online, he was unaware of what the student population actually was. 

    Now, at 27 and in his second building, Li should have known better than to apply under those circumstances. He just wanted out of where he was, thinking nothing could be worse. He had blindly applied to every open position. Nothing could be worse than the hell he had endured for the last two  years.

    He had been wrong.

    William had come into conflict with district policies on grading, which he found to be insulting and racist. He had no issues with the building admin, or with the students he was teaching online.

        Li knew immediately that the kids showing up to class online were not going to be the majority he would encounter in person. The live majority were talkative, restless, addicted to their phones and relentlessly rude to teachers. He thought he could handle it, then the Tik Tok "Hot Lick"challenge destroyed their small bathroom and flooded the hallway. 

          But he came back the next day.

         Then his car was vandalized.

          He came back the next day.

          Kids used racial slurs in every exchange with him. 

          He kept coming back.

          He stared at the drum. It was worth more than a month's salary, and they had simply beaten it to death. What he couldn't figure out, was how this happened? He had been in the room all day. At what point did they snap the struts on this thing? How did they kill both the resonant heads and top heads, as well as punch a hole right through the center without him seeing or hearing the attack?

            He sat looking at the destroyed instrument, trying to convince himself that he had somehow left the room unattended. Maybe he had forgotten to lock the door? But his office was off of the band room, he would have heard it. 

            He sighed, a tear slipped from his eye as he gently bundled the drum up and left it silently in his office. He scribbled a few words on a peach sticky note, picked up his trumpet and left the office. As he locked it behind him, he placed the sticky note on the door.

            It read simply "Reason #156".

            He sobbed as he drove home, feeling like he had been beaten in a boxing match. When he got home, he went to bed.

   

    

Reason for Leaving #4: Lock Down North, A Play

               

            

    The setting is an urban high school, intended to be anywhere. The names of the high schools mentioned at the end were events that were reported nation wide.

   The characters are three teachers in the lang arts department office and the voice of the principal. Ages are not really too relevant, but FRESHMAN is younger. Sexual identity is also irrelevant, even though statistically we have more female than male teachers. They do not have names for a reason, they are identified by what they teach, furthering the thesis that this could happen anywhere.

    CHARACTERS

    SHAKESPEARE Language Arts Department chair. Near retirement, but likes teaching in a "diverse" school and thrives on the aggravation it begets. They do not teach a Shakespeare class, but teach Shakespeare in all of their classes, just because they want to. 

    SPEECH AND DEBATE New to the building last year  has yet to experience the "behavior challenges" that plague most city schools. Spend 15 Years at a well known school  after it reopened, left for a diverse school environment after students brought bees into the classroom to be "funny". One of the students had a deadly allergy, was not stung, but admin did nothing to reprimand the student who brought live bees into a high school. After 15 years of tolerating what they consider "white entitlement", this incident was the final breaking point for this teacher, who opted out of the district.

  FRESHMAN COMP AND LIT Graduated in December of 2020 with their teaching credentials. They  spent the spring of '21 subbing in this building before getting hired in March of 2020 for the fall of 21. This person is not white. They almost dropped out of the education program twice due to anxiety issues, and changed content majors three times, resulting in a double major in Lit and History with a minor in Psychology, which resulted in more classes and a "late" graduation date. They have come to realize they love learning, but are not sure about teaching. 

        PRINCIPAL'S VOICE This principal has just been through a year of Covid Hell and was excited to have students return when they had to immediately call a lockdown protocol. They may sound exasperated, they may sound neutral, but they are not breathless or panicky. They are not new at this. 

     Scene

   
   Three educators are seated in an office, with two desks, a couch, a microwave, a refrigerator. This was a place that looked more lived in before Covid, but has been unpacked, sanitized and barely moved back into by August of 2021.

    ( SQ Principal's voice: " We are implementing a lockdown protocol, please see the charts in your classrooms to familiarize yourselves with Code Orange. If you are already in a classroom, Please remain there. Students, if you are in the hall, please move quickly to a classroom near by. If you are upstairs, please go to the cafeteria. Teachers, if you are in the halls, please assist students who need direction. This is a code orange. If you have an exterior window please pull your blinds. If you are in your classroom, please check the hall for students before locking your door. I'll be back on with an update later. Be safe.

                                                            S&D

              Really? (looks at Freshman) on your first day?  It's 7 am, school hasn't even started yet. Are there kids in the building?

                                                    SHAKESPEARE

                    Swimmers, mostly. Some newspaper and yearbook kids. Us. 

                                                        FRESHMAN

                                                Does this happen a lot?

                                                    SHEAKESPEARE

                                                      What's today?

                                                            S&D

                                                         Tuesday.

                                                   SHAKESPEARE

 Somebody's not paying attention, today is not Bring Your Gun To School Day, that's Thursday. Tuesday is Shank a Friend. (They laugh). Freshman, your question requires more information. What do you mean by "A Lot?"

                                                    FRESHMAN

                                                        What?

                                                 SHAKESPEARE

    How frequently is "a lot" in your mind? Once a week? Twice a day?  

                                                        FRESHMAN

                                I don't know...once a week? is that a lot?

                                                SHAKESPEARE

            That's cute. Once a week is normal. A lot would be three or four times a day. (pause) I'm mostly kidding. These kids bring guns every day, they just don't always get caught.

                                                        S&D

               That's just the guns. Don't forget the toilet bars.

                                                FRESHMAN

                                                    What?

                                            SHAKESPEARE

            In his last district, the kids just filled their water bottles with vodka. Here, they put the little baby bottles of vodka in the toilets. To "chill".

            FRESHMAN looks horrified. S&D and SHAKES exchange a glance.

                                               SHAKESPEARE

                        Ok, we'll stick with lockdowns for today. That's enough.

                                                        S&D 

    We had drills in my previous building The only time it was 'real'-well, after the one incident- was if someone robbed the bank on the corner, or a kid at the Alt School took a gun from home and was walking to school with it.

                                                    SHAKESPEARE

   We usually don't go on lockdown. The kids put the guns in their pants with their shirt open, security sees them before the get to the door. One kid shoved his  uncle's gun so far down his pants, he tripped on it coming out of his pant leg while walking across the parking lot. Hilarious. RO just stood at the door and wached.

                                                    FRESHMAN

                                        What district were you in?

                                                        S&D 

      White Entitlement In The Suburbs. Our kids opened fire with out any warning. 

                                                SHAKESPEARE

      You're safer here, nobody actually uses their gun. They bring it to show their friends.

                                                FRESHMAN

   We had lockdown drill training in the district I did my student teaching. They never had a real lockdown, they said, but they did drills twice a semester.

                                                    S&D 

                         During Covid? Are you kidding me?

                                                FRESHMAN

                                            No, no I am not.

                                                    S&D

                       Shakespeare, do I need to actually walk over to my room to let kids in?

                                                SHAKESPEARE

    No, your door is locked. Even if a kid was here, they know that and wouldn't try to get in. The ones who are here will go to counseling and clog up the lobby there. They never go to the cafeteria, I don't know why they always tell them to do that. They never go. The performing arts kids all go to the theatre, nobody actually goes where they're told. Art kids go to the ceramics room. When we actually had a shooting it was a mess.

                                                 FRESHMAN

       So if this was real, we'd have to close the blinds and leave the door unlocked?

                                                SHAKESPEARE

    This is real, it's just not a drill. Class just hasn't started yet. You're in the office, not the classroom. (nodding at S&D) Speech and Debate, What'd y'all do for yours back in the 'burbs?

                                                    S&D

   We were supposed to have an automated system with a pre recorded voice calmly instructing us as to what we should do. But the two times they tried it, the alarm went off but the voice did not work, so the principal got on the intercom and read the instructions. The second time it was real, we went on lockdown when the April 2019 shooting happened, even though it was miles away.  The kids were great, calm and on their phones looking up the story as it unfolded. I played BALLZ and waited for it to be lifted.

                                                FRESHMAN

 That was horrible, I was up at school when it happened. A lot of my cohorts changed their degree programs from teaching to anything else after that.

                                                SHAKESPEARE

  We are too far north for it to have mattered here.  (pause)  So, Freshman Lit, first day, first year teaching! How're your rosters?

                                                FRESHMAN

                    When do they stop adding and dropping students? 

                                                SHAKESPEARE

                      When you retire. Next question. (Shakes and S&D Laugh loudly)

                                                FRESHMAN

                     Does class start late today since there is a lockdown before the bell?

                                                SHAKESPEARE

   The principal will make an announcement. Probably we'll start ten minutes late, it depends on whether the kid was caught inside or outside the building. Takes longer if they got in.

                                                    S&D

                  About that, you guys don't have metal detectors do you? I didn't see any.

                                                    SHAKESPEARE

          Nope. We're on the "Eyeball System". Usually security will see it before the kid gets in                             the building.

                                                        S&D

                                          I guess that works....

                                                    SHAKESPEARE

 It must. I've been here 20 years. We only had the one shooting, and it wasn't a "school shooting" according to the media because it was in the parking lot and student entrance.. We've had stabbings and a few all out gang fights, but that's it. (noting Freshman's face) Stop with the eyes Newbie. You're fine. You can't go to class with that terrified expression on your face, the kids will eat you alive. We have bigger issues here, like getting kids to come to the building in the first place, and then getting them to come to class in the second place and to stay in class in the third place, if they show up in the first place. Never mind the district's screaming about the Achievement Gap and College Readiness.(Shakes and S&D again laugh too loudly, years of experience and administrative rhetoric recall finding its way out of their systems.)

                                                        FRESHMAN

                                                            I'm lost.

                                                            S&D 

                                                  You won't be by May. 

                                                        SHAKESPEARE

             Come talk to me before you implement any Tier of  Intervention, or classroom rules.

                                                        FRESHMAN

            They used that at the middle school I student taught at. They said it worked really well.

                                                            S&D

                                          That was out south, right?

                                                       SHAKESPEARE

                                        You ain't in Kansas any more.

                                                        FRESHMAN

 To be fair I finished my student teaching and graduated during Covid. Nothing was normal, everyone was home.

                                                            S&D

                        But in the 'burbs, y'all were mostly in person, right? 

                                                        FRESHMAN

                     In quarantine a lot, somehow every time there was an outbreak I was exposed.

                                                        SHAKESPEARE

               Nobody was prepared for how this all went after we opened. our shooting was the fall after we reopened. Right after the Tik Tok Trash Your School Bathroom Craze.

        (Principal's voice on intercom: Thank you for your safe behavior. We have lifted the lockdown. Teachers, you may return to your classrooms, or open your blinds if you are already there. Students, thank you for your quick response. Please continue to your first period. School will begin on time.)

                                                                S&D

                                             Allrighty then. See you at lunch?

                                                       SHAKESPEARE

        I'll come join you in your room. (Looking at Freshman) You are welcome to join us. I'd like to get to know you a bit better.

                     S&D and SHAKESPEARE stand to leave. Freshman remains seated.

                     S&D and Shakespeare say good bye, sound of door closing behind them.

                                                     FRESHMAN

        I should get up and go to my classroom. I need to stand up and walk to class. Today is my first day. Get up. Stand up, and walk to class.  I got this. Here I go... (does not move)

                                                    Door opens.    

                                                        S&D

                                               Are you coming?

                                                    FRESHMAN

                                                      I can't move. 

                                                           S&D    

                           Can you turn your head to me? (does) Lift your finger? (does) Breathe (does)

                                 You aren't in a building where kids shoot teachers.  Repeat that.

                                                    FRESHMAN

                            I'm not in a building where kids shoot teachers.

                                                        S&D

           Look at me. I did fifteen years at a school that reopened after a shooting. Columbine reopened. Granite Hills High School reopened. Santana High School. Arapahoe reopened.  Campbell County High School. Pine Middle School. The STEM school reopened. We're open. I have the list memorized. Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same building. People work there. Guess what else I found out after getting hired here? Two years before I was hired, a student at our sister school got caught in the crossfire of a gang "disagreement" and was killed. It wasn't this building, but it was this district, and kids from this building were involved. You get up and go to work and you believe that you are not in a building where kids open fire, otherwise you won't get up.  (pause) Both of our rooms have huge windows, you can see the front of the school. That helps.  Freshman stares at s&D It's all we have.  Breathe.

                                                        FRESHMAN

      I believe I am not in a building where kids open fire inside. I believe I am not in a building where kids kill teachers. I believe I am in a safe building. I believe I am safe. I believe.

                                                               S&D

              Good job. Put it to music and you could be in Book of Mormon. Can you stand up?(does). One foot in front of the other. Just one. Good. Now the other. Great. (Singing I BELIEVE from Book of Mormon)     I beeeeelieeeeeeeeveeeeee-----

                                                    FRESHMAN

                        Will you walk with me to my classroom?

                                                            S&D 

                                Only if you sing along. I beliiiiieeeeeeeeve

                                        Door closes behind them.

                                                Scene.