Forgeries

Thursday. Seventh period. Seventh grade world history.

The class was calm. Cooperative. I gave instructions, and they got to work. 

Then, fifteen minutes later, seven or eight students walked in, five of them with hall passes. And inwardly, I groaned. If only they had stayed gone...

I know. That's terrible of me to say. But they were all the troublemakers. The loud ones. The ones who couldn't stay seated and weren't doing any work. (This was my third time with the group as I had gotten an almost complete week.) 

Once I got them sort of settled (as settled as they were going to get), I went to amend the online attendance. I went through the passes. 

On all but one pass, "not excused tardy" was scratched out and "excused" had been written. 

It was the way that the "not excused tardy" was scratched out and the way that "excused" had been written that was noteworthy. They had scribbled out the "not excused tardy" as if they were trying to blot it out, but they did a terrible job of it. "Excused" was very light and in block letters (unlike how the counselor had written the pass). It looked like they had used the outside walls as a hard surface on which to write.

I did not believe that for a second. I marked them all tardy.

One of the other late students (who hadn't bothered to bring me a pass) told me that they shouldn't be marked tardy as they had been locked in the new building on campus. 

I nodded. And I marked him tardy.

Because that's another thing that didn't pass the smell test. While all the classrooms lock to keep people out, none of them lock from the inside. I've been in the new building, and I know that if you're in the building and you want out, you can easily get out. There are many exits.

They don't realize that I've been around a while. They were definitely trying to get one over on the sub. Too bad they tried in on the sub who knows her way around that school.