Thursday, April 7, 2011
Too much stress this week at work and now a hilarious twist.
We’re giving the MAP test this week, which is Missouri’s mandatory annual state testing. That keeps everybody on edge, and the schedule is completely disrupted, which gets the students all out of kilter, so it’s a bad combination all the way around.
So today, I get called into the principal’s office. This usually isn’t good and I don’t know what I did, so i’m running through possible scenarios in my mind as to what the nature of the offense could be.
Did something regarding my administering of the MAP test happen? It has before and I don’t want a repeat of that, so I’ve been extra careful to cross all my t’s and dot all my i’s.
Could a parent have called with a complaint about something? Did I neglect some part of my duties or fail to fulfill some expectation that I’m not aware of?
No, it turned out to be none of those. In fact, I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have been able to come up with this one no matter how hard I tried.
I was called in for PDA. That’s what we refer to in the student conduct section of the handbook as “Personal Display of Affection.” That’s the student conduct section, not the teacher’s handbook.
You see, Ceecee and I work at the same junior high, and apparently it’s a problem that we are, to borrow a line from Elf, “In love and we don’t care who knows.” Yes, I got busted for PDA with my wife at school.
Now, it’s not like we’re making out in the halls or the classroom. We do hold hands when we walk and we sit close at faculty meetings and assemblies, but I’m pretty sure that’s the extent of it.
In all fairness to the principal, he seemed extremely uncomfortable with the whole conversation, as if he realized how silly it sounded, especially after he admitted that he sometimes gives his wife, who works in our district office, a kiss when she comes to have lunch with him. I promised to be more “professional” in the future and it’s all good.
I can’t help wondering who reported us, though, or why? An unhappy person, I suspect, who is not experiencing the kind of happiness we are.
The Restoration Tour 