I've gone from a few hell days to a full blown hell week. It's musical time at school, so the kids are wacky, the staff is stressed, and it's also time to post grades and start new classes. OFL brought Frankenstein up for a look-see as to what we need to have done (get rid of the nasty carpet, tile the floors, repaint, etc) in the media center ... except we got told that the district's facilities and maintenance budget has basically been gutted down to roofs and boilers only, with the $2 million going for "closing the gap." So no new floor tiles or paint for us AGAIN. I got pissed, and they both knew it. I didn't get ugly with them but I let them know that this was an absolute sin -- our media center is a dump, and our kids and our staff deserve better. I told OFL "You better plan to take me out for a drink after THIS."
Frankenstein did feel badly about it -- he did agree to demolish the back half of our circ desk and made sure that the work order to move and remove the last of the shelving got done. Eeyore's response to this was, "Oh well. That's too bad." Again -- not her responsibility, and absolutely no thought of "well, given our situation, what CAN we do to improve the physical facility for the kids and staff?" She seemed truly amazed that I could think that way. I started brainstorming immediately -- what projects could be tackled for the least cash and the most bang for the buck? The end result was that Kanga and I decided that she and I would attempt painting over the weird lavender strip on the wall, and the giant blue oval sitting over the circ desk during February vacation. Eeyore's reaction was "I don't see why you would do that." I told her why -- I want to do something to make this place LOOK nicer for the kids. It's not that fucking hard to figure out... except maybe if you're her. I emailed OFL with all of the suggestons, he okayed things, and is going to attempt to get us some paint and order area rugs over the summer. We'll see. I duct-taped about 18 feet of ripped carpet. That was Monday.
Then we have Tuesday morning. I walked in, greeted the Language Arts meeting that was going on in the MCI room (lots of teachers I know), opened the door to the media center, and was confronted by a very irritated-looking OFL, who had a crew of 7 Facilities guys behind him. "She doesn't know where the shelves are going ... FIX THIS." He walked out with smoke coming out his ears. Apparently Eeyore was there solo, and the crew came up to complete the work order before I got there. She apparently was unable to tell them which shelves were being moved, and which were being tossed (a conversation we had had probably eighteen times over the last 2-3 months). OFL came up, and she interrupted the conversation with him to check out books to kids and direct them and ask for passes. He was less than pleased -- not only because she had no clue and the guys were twiddling their thumbs, but because she was ignoring him and couldn't seem to be capable of telling the kids they would have to wait a few minutes. I know all this because I got called down to his office after the crew finished what they had to do.
Long story short -- they tossed what we asked them to toss, and they moved the giant shelving unit over in front of 217's windows. Big improvement overall -- not only do we have more and better display space, but we've now freed up the back area for the new reading furniture.
The LA meeting kept having tech difficulties, so I spent the majority of my day troubleshooting and getting interrupted.
Today, I had my new classes (mostly good, looks like 3 serious sped and 4 fazools in 7th period). Got grades done except for one weird twitch that guidance will have to solve. Eeyore came to me as I was putting my kids into the typing program and announced that she'd brought in her laptop and she definitely had dreamweaver on it (hurray, we've only been waiting since November for this). She started talking about the 8th grade index page that she hasn't started yet, and said she thought I should make my own. I told her no, she had agreed to do it, and she could organize it any way she saw fit. I told her as soon as she had the page setup done, I'd give her the typed lists of kids' names and topics, and when she was ready she could have my flash drive with all the files to link. She wanted me to contact BottleBrush downtown and review uploading directions, but I told her I wasn't going to do that until we were ready to upload something -- no point in asking for the directions again and then waiting a couple more weeks (cough cough) to try and upload when it's not fresh in your mind. She seemed to agree with that. She asked me to do my own page again, and I told her no, that was her project. Who KNOWS when she will actually get started with this. While I was in with my classes, our new reading spc. came up to look at the cart of books for her booktalk, and Eeyore decided to look over the books with her. What she didn't know was that only one side of the cart was for that booktalk -- I had pulled the other side for my lovely neighbor's classes. SO... Eeyore decided to take books off my cart without consulting me ... which means I now have more to do tomorrow.
Our intrepid J down in the office gave me the updated printout of our account so we know how much we can spend on furniture. Aunty M in Boston is working on good options for us. Eeyore agreed to schedule a field trip to Home Depot to investigate rug possibilities 2/5. I duct-taped another 15 feet or so of ripped carpet today. The safe arrived today. That should be a fun conversation tomorrow. SSChief2B asked me to go to Washington with the 8th graders the week of May 1, Tues-Fri. SM should be able to pull that off. He has been amazingly supportive since I came home talking about the bookfair issues. Hope that continues.
OFL dumped one more thing on my plate today -- a semi-retired resident who has written a YA novel (unpublished, still in manuscript form) and wants feedback. I got it today, she'll be in VT until Sunday, and I promised I would call her on Monday. Thank you sir may I have another. Actually, it could be good -- I don't know, it's just been such a jampacked week so far that I think I don't quite have the patience. I have a to-do list on my desk a mile long for the next two days. I think I need to go hide.
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