A snowball's chance

Last night, when I got home from school, it was almost 80° outside. This afternoon, at 3:30 out in the school parking lot, I threw a snowball at our wacky, bowtie-wearing art teacher (excessively adjectived because I know he'll read this).

Yes, the temperature dropped that far in less than 24 hours. While it didn't start snowing until around 11 o'clock, it was 34° on my drive in to the school. And for that half an hour that I had to stand out in front of the school on crosswalk duty -- yeah, it didn't get any warmer. I had on my ski cap, gloves, scarf, and I was still miserable. My crosswalk partner was bundled up like a Tusken Raider from Star Wars -- with better conversational skills, of course.

After the morning announcements and after I had regained feeling in my extremities around 8:30, the principal came on the speaker again and asked for a head count so that the cafeteria would know how many lunches to have ready. As acting grade chair (I say acting, because it is no longer a paying position), I sent a few kids out to collect up numbers from the other third-grade teachers, and the results came back looking like Mike Vanderjagt’s field-goal record as a Dallas cowboy. 10/17, 14/17, 18/25, etc.

I had 3 kids missing out of 18, but Mrs. Educator only had 11 out of her 17 present. So in the afternoon, after we had switched classes -- and after two parents had come to pick up their children -- I had a ridiculously small class. It was actually quite pleasant.

Two of the boys in the class had caused a lot of trouble yesterday for the substitute teacher while I was at a training. So today, I had both of them sitting at their seats repeatedly copying the phrase, "I will not misbehave and act like a fool." It would be SO very nice if that message would stick!

At 2:30, two of the kids went to their resource class, and one more child was picked up by her mother. I started to feel like I was stuck in an Agatha Christie novel -- And Then There Were Six.

I'm pretty sure this is the first time in my teaching career (an extensive 4 years) that I have had less than 10 kids at the end of the day. Even on the last day of school, I've never had this few.

It will be very interesting to see how tomorrow goes. The forecast calls for highs in the mid-40s, and as far as I know, there are no plans to close the schools. However, it is supposed to be in the 20s tomorrow MORNING, and seeing as how that is when parents decide whether or not to send their kids out the door, I would not be surprised to have only a handful of kids again. Unfortunately, I can almost guarantee that the misbehaving fools will be first in line at my doorway.