Open Letter #??

I was going back through my drafts and found this hidden gem from 2011. I don't remember writing it, but it must have been a REALLY bad day. To my FHE peeps, you know I really do love you and don't mind you being in my office at all. Well most of the time anyway! :P

Dear 5 People in the Hall Outside My Office,

I'm working. You know, that thing YOU are probably supposed to be doing right now. Except you are waiting to see the Principal or Assistant Principal. Guess what? She's working too! Go away!

Anyway, since you are out there/in here, let me point out a few key things to you:

• This is not the complaint department. I cannot solve all your problems.
• It's hard to balance budgets and pay invoices when you are telling me about your scam to cheat someone's insurance out of money cause that girl hit you the other night with her daddy's car.
• My office is really not that big. You can't all fit in here.
• One of you needs more deodorant and someone else needs less cologne.
• I am totally writing an open letter on my blog to you while I am halfway pretending to listen to you gripe because I certainly can't focus on my JOB right now.

You People are Going to Drive Me to Drink and it's Only 9:30am,
Your Trapped in her Office Secretary

It's All in Your Perspective

I work with some amazing people. I really do. So it should come as no surprise that they have some amazing kids. One of these amazing kids is little M. She's in kindergarten this year.

After doing her homework, her mom told her to put it on the table and she would check it. Well imagine her mother's surprise when she found this:

Of course everyone had a good laugh over it. "But Moooooom, my teacher KNOWS pigs poop!" But it got me thinking. Here this little 5 year old was asked to draw a picture to show how she arrived at her answer. And she drew exactly what she visualized - a pen with 4 pigs in it is obviously going to contain some poop! And once she had her picture drawn, she was able to go look at the illustration and find the answer, which she got correct. But all the adults could focus on was the fact that she added pig poop to make her drawing more realistic.

How many times do we do that in every day life? We have a tendency to focus on what is wrong with the picture and not what is right. We want to completely change the picture, to make it more acceptable or correct. But what if in order to answer the question we need all the details, even the more unpleasant ones?

Sometimes you just have to look past the poop to solve the problem.

Open Letter #27

Dear Office Supply Company,

First off, let me say I think your free shipping and almost always next day delivery are awesome. I also love that you have uber discounts for me and that you send me coupons almost every day. Your website is super easy to navigate, your search feature not only finds what I'm looking for but remembers what I've ordered so when I'm trying to find that particular quantity and brand of glue sticks it suggests them for me. I like that you give me $2 credit for every ink cartridge I send in. I like that my account rep seems genuinely interested in not only making the sale but also in cultivating a relationship with me and in helping me find ways to save money and stretch my budget.

That being said...

I need you to work on your online images. Because I can't SEE the construction paper I'm ordering and yes, it DOES matter what the actual color is.

Example:

This is Butterscotch

This is Orange

That's the same picture. And yes, it's the same brand. Which means it's NOT the same color. So Now I don't know which is orange and which is sort of orange. And if you are a teacher it matters. A lot apparently.  You should see the red. Holiday red is more like pinkish red while red is more like burgundy. You have to order red-orange to get the crayon definition of red. And when you buy it 200 packs at a time, you really need to get the right color, because people will just not use it and then you are stuck with a bunch of it left over that never gets used (I'm looking at you, Caramel, that actually turned out to be more like doo-doo brown).

So if you could just fix that one teensy weensy little thing we could go back to being madly in love.

Colorfully Yours,
The Secretary with a Closet Full of Doo-doo Brown and Lime Green Paper

Disposable?

This is trash. 

Sidewalk Chalk on a Friday Morning

The sun is peeking over the slanted red metal roof and the wind is softly blowing. The temperature is a perfect 65 degrees. It's 8:30am on a Friday morning in February. And the children are playing outside my office window.

They are taking their spelling words and writing on the front walk with chalk. All up and down the walk, you can see their happy little faces and hear them chattering to each other. Everyone gets their own 4' x 4' square. They aren't allowed to draw pictures until they get their work done.

It's such amazing insight into the inner workings of their brains. Some write the words quickly, eager to get on with the drawing part. Some struggle to get started, waiting until the last minute. Some write impossibly tiny, careful to save their chalk and maximize their drawing space for when the work is done. Some write letters the size of their feet, proud to show off that they are good spellers and can write out those words. Some list the words carefully and neatly, in nice even rows. Some write in every direction and size.

Times like these make me glad to work here, in this building with these people. It seems like a no brainer that kids would love to write their spelling words with chalk. But when you factor in all the "stuff" that teachers are required to do and kids are required to master, 30 minutes spent outside just enjoying the morning and letting the kids have fun with learning is hard to carve out. There are tests to be taken, assessments to give, lessons to plan, and interventions to implement. There are behaviors to correct, phone calls to make, emails to process, and papers to grade. Education has changed so much since "we" were in school. Teachers don't get to teach anymore and children don't get to learn. Teachers get to collect, analyze, and chart growth data while students get to strive to reach and accomplish age appropriate expectations.

But sometimes, just for a brief moment in time, kids get to be kids and learn for the fun of learning, and teachers get to guide them in exploration of knowledge, letting them experience the material in a way that is both memorable and meaningful while working in their own way at their own pace.

It makes me want to grab a piece of chalk and go outside to play.

Open Letter #24

Dear Coworkers Who Think I am Omnipotent,

Contrary to popular belief, I do NOT, in fact, have the answer to everything. I don't know why that kid is perpetually tardy. I don't know why your email will not let you add an attachment. I don't know why Susie's mom won't sign her reading log. I don't know why we are always out of printer ink.Oh wait, I DO know that one. 


I especially don't know why that kid is throwing up. I promise if you try REALLY hard you can figure out how to take a temperature too. You stick the thing in the ear, you push the start button, 4 seconds later it beeps, you look at the number. If it's 98.6 (+/- a degree), the kid does not have a fever. If they are saying their tummy hurts and you believe them, call mom to come get them. If they are throwing up all over the place, why are you taking a temp? No one cares if they have a fever IF THEY ARE PUKING! SEND THEM HOME!

Seriously, it's not like those germs just sit in the Trash Can, They Can Move,
Your Secretary Who is Not a Nurse and Can't Diagnose Kids

Chuck E Cheese at Forest Heights

Usually you take your school kids to see Chuck E. Cheese.

Today, he came to see us.

I don't mean this kind.

I mean this kind.

S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G B-E-E

BOTH my boys are in the school spelling bee this year. Yay!

(Teachers I work with might want to skip the next paragraph)

This is funny to me because:
a) spelling is not something we practice at home
b) I think spelling homework past 2nd grade or so is a complete waste of time
c) The only reason I make them do spelling homework is because they need to learn to do what the person in authority tells them to do, even if they don't see the point in it.

Now of course my KIDS don't know how I feel about spelling homework. They think they better do it and do it well each and every day. But I'm pretty sure there have been times they turned it in incomplete or misspelled because I didn't bother to do more than glance to see they had attempted it before signing off on it.

Anyway, back to the spelling bee.

World's Finest Fundraising

Chocolate. I like it ok. I mean, I'm not one of those people who must have a steady supply of it OR ELSE but I'm probably not going to turn it down either. But selling it? Well, that's a whole 'nother story!

This stuff. Is amazing.

I mean, it's decent tasting and whatever, but in sheer profit value? It practically sells itself. We made gobs and gobs of money this year and last selling it, and all we had to do was bribe the kids with chance to win an iPod. I don't have my final totals in yet, but I expect it will be well over $5,000 profit once it is all said and done. Not bad for a school of only 450 students!

And as Captain Steve put it, "Mrs. Stewart, you look like one of those drug lords in those gansta movies I be watching counting up all yo money and stacking it up like that." Where's my luxury sedan with spinning rims? And my entourage? I was promised an entourage with this gig!

Open Letter #1

Dear Parents of Elementary Students,

When your school secretary tells you that she needs proof of your address, this is not her way of calling you a liar. I promise you, she couldn't really care less where you live. She really doesn't even care if you actually live there. She is just doing her job to make sure that the students attending her school are the students who actually live within her school's boundaries. This is so that she does not rob funding from other people's children's schools.

So please, do NOT give her the skank eye when you show up the day before open house with all 6 of your kids, your sister's 4 kids, and your "special friend"'s 3 kids by his ex and want to enroll them all simply because you have an address you are capable of writing down on paper. She has to have proof. If you are willing to go before a notary and lie saying all those kids actually live with you, go for it.

I still need to see your lease agreement, utility bill, mortgage statement, or other valid form of proof of residency. And yes, that smile on my face is fake!

Love,
Your School Secretary