I'm really pleased with my new leadership.

Rolled into school for my first of four mandatory days of "professional development," before the students show up to "learn," at 8:00 this morning. On my way there, I kept thinking about how lucky I was last year because I was only asked to write one recommendation letter. And, I thought, I should try to be positive about the new administration -- we have two new assistant principals (Hot Pocket Enforcer is gone), and a new principal. I allowed myself to think the one thing you should never, ever verbalize in these types of situations: How much worse can it get?


I was pounding my fists into the wall of my classroom, trying to get posters to stick, when M, an 11th grader from last year ambled in and asked for a recommendation. I don't recommend M for anything, aside from maybe a few rounds of electroshock therapy, but, I asked, "When do you need it?"

That was after I read Hot Pocket Enforcer's jaunty email about his transfer; it was rife with unconcealed glee, and said something to the effect of Peace out ... bitches.

The one assistant principal remaining from last year informed me, bluntly, that I owe him a favor because he wrote me a recommendation; apparently, the former principal's email got forwarded to him when she got promoted for being completely ineffectual. So now I probably have to chair a committee or something.

My favorite part about working here has always been watching the scum rise to the top of the quagmire with meteoric speed. So, I feel really good about my new leadership now that they've called a meeting about Procedure X without first bothering to find out what we did last year -- or deciding how Procedure X will be handled this year. I especially appreciated that after waiting around for three hours -- during which time it was impossible to do anything productive because the class schedule, apparently, is best kept a clandestine secret until the last possible second -- to attend this mandatory meeting that was only scheduled to take 15 minutes, and probably took less time because no one had any idea what was going on. But we started late.