Tales from the supply room

Well, it's definitely the end of the year! As my students' attention spans slowly diminish by the day and their preparation for the end-of-the-year events starting to take full control over their lives, our administration is starting to get lazier too.

Three days ago, the discipline AP notified all teachers that there has been a surge in the number of discipline cases he's had to deal with - as is the case every June. In his memo to us, he told us that we are still expected to continue full swing with our lesson plans to "keep students busy in the classroom with academic endeavors". To reinforce that, Mr. O'Klay has started to CHECK our lesson plans randomly and, so far, wrote up two teachers for not having their lesson plans.

Since I'm a first year teacher, disobeying my AP was definitely a no-no (I would never disobey my supervisors!). So today I carefully planned a lesson for my students for the last unit of the year: the Integrated Algebra transition unit. In this unit, we focus on the skills, strategies and concepts students need to have a firm grasp on before moving into high school Integrated Algebra. I planned out six five-minute stations, of which students will rotate from station to station to review and apply a specific skill covered in the unit. Then, during my lunch period, I made a quick trip down to the supply room on the first floor where  the "staple" supplies for lessons are stored. Earlier in the year, teachers could come in as they pleased and could pick out as many supplies as they needed for their lessons. Today, however, we were notified that the supply room is low on supplies and that, get this, all teachers wishing to use the supply room must pick up a ration card limiting them to only 5 selections per day.

Wow, way to ruin a perfectly good lesson plan. You expect me to follow your orders of "keeping the students busy" but decide not to support me in carrying out that demand by essentially closing off the supply room? Talk about bad administrators. Normally, Ms. Lopez, the amazing school principal, would be able to get us out of sticky situations like this, but she's using up her vacation days this week to spend with her toddler and make sure graduation events are secured and organized for the big days. So, I had to leave the building (with only 30 minutes left in my lunch period) and walk two blocks to the dollar store near the school to buy what I needed for my lesson.

When I came back, sixth period was right about to start - and I lost my lunch today.

And to think the supply room used to be the easiest, most stress-free place in the school.