(Actually, this all happened yesterday, but I was too excited about Fossil Man to write about it then.)
I was lined up with a class in the hallway on the way to lunch, as was pretty much every other seventh and eighth grade teacher, when the fire alarm went off. This was pretty unusual, because they don’t have fire drills during lunch periods or in the transition time between periods, and this was during the transition time between lunch periods. The principal came on the PA and announced something, but since we were all in the hallway and all the classroom doors were closed and locked (last year some teachers had things stolen out of their classrooms by kids hanging back on the way to lunch) no one could hear what it was. We decided to play it safe and evacuate, and fortunately it turns out that that was what the principal’s announcement was telling us to do.
We ended up having to stand outside for quite a while, which was pretty miserable because since we had all been in the hallway no one had their coats on, and it was very cold. Also, because it happened at such an awkward transition time, a lot of the classes were mixed up, which was very stressful because teachers being accountable for their class’s whereabouts during a fire drill is Serious Business. The kids weren’t bad, but they were really agitated and whiney because of the combination of being cold, missing lunch, and being frantically shepherded around by anxious teachers.
We were let back in the building eventually (with only 15 minutes left for lunch, I don’t think all the kids even got to eat!), and kept pretty much in the dark about what had happened for the rest of the day. At the end of the day, I found out through the grapevine that a kid had actually pulled the fire alarm in the cafeteria! They have it narrowed down to a group of suspects, but I don’t think they’ve figured out who the specific kid responsible is. When they do… that kid is going to be the second most-in-trouble kid ever, after my two who brought in the BB gun.
And speaking of those two, something or other was negotiated at their hearing and they’re actually coming back in about a month. I can’t decide if my happiness to see the sweet one will be enough to outweigh the suckiness of the nasty one coming back.
