Unsettled

Thursday. Eighth grade English, co-taught. 

I was expecting a two sub day, but nope, Ms. C was there, like the last time I covered this class, just a couple weeks ago. 

They were doing the district writing assessment. Every quarter every student is required to write an essay. The prompts are standardized by grade level. They're given some source material (usually articles, but sometimes videos), and then they have some sort of question to answer. 

For this essay, the eighth graders were writing an argumentative essay on the media. (They could choose pro or con.) 

This was day two of the essay, and Orson had taken over the couch in the back of the room, stretched out. He had a computer with a game on it. Okay, then, Orson had finished the essay. 

The rest of the class, however... 

Ms. C gave them instructions. They basically already knew what to do. Ms. C had already explained the structure, and they'd been over things like citing evidence and creating a hook. Then Ms. C took a group of the students to work in another room, leaving me alone with the remaining group. All they had to do was to start writing...

Yeah, no.

While I hovered, helping those that had questions (mostly things to get started), the rest of the class started talking. And got louder... 

Then a boy arrived, late. He joined two others at the front of the room, and those three got into play mode. 

As I tried to figure out who the late boy was and settle the class, Cedric suggested that I adjust their seats. (Cedric was the boy from this day, unnamed the the post, but he was the one who played that entire period, at least until he left and had to be shooed back by security.) 

Just when I thought I was going to lose the class, Ms. C returned. And the whole class settled. Sigh.

(She apologized for being gone so long. There was a group of eighth graders roaming the school, including the boy who arrived late, and she was helping the principal corral them.) 

The three boys at the front? Ms. C stationed herself in front of them, and they still needed constant redirecting. 

And before you ask, one of the boys was not supposed to be sitting there, but Ms. C let him when the late boy wasn't there. Then when the late boy appeared she just left it like that rather than disrupt things during assessment essay time to move him. 

Ms. C told me that was her worst class. Me: "Really? I couldn't tell..." 

Changing My Password

Wednesday I was back at the continuation high school. And... Meh. The teacher was chaperoning a field trip whale watching. I had one student per class period. Yeah. Seriously. 

Alas, at the end of the day they had not seen any whales. They did see lots of dolphins, though. 

But I had one major thing I had to do on this day, and it had nothing to do with the students. 

Last summer, the district implemented a bunch of new security protocols. There were some breaches. Nothing bad has happened as of yet, but the IT people are concerned. So, two factor authorization became mandatory, and passwords now have to be at least 15 characters long and include a capital letter, one of the other special characters, a number, an incantation to summon the rain god, and the name of our first grade teacher. 

Well, maybe not quite all of those. 

And, of course, now passwords must be changed every three months. 

To change the password, one must use a district-issued device. Of course, as a sub, I do not have a district-issued device checked out to me. (I do get one when I'm on a long-term assignment.) And most teachers nowadays have laptops checked out to them that they don't leave in their classrooms for their subs to use. 

Some classrooms still have very old desktops. And some classrooms have newer desktops. So, knowing that it's been about three months since I changed my password, I was delighted to see a district-issued device that I could access in Mr. P's classroom. Which meant that this was the day that I could update my password so I don't have to worry about this again until May. 

I had a new password picked out and everything. 

Second period was my prep. As soon as my first period student left, I went about logging in and getting that password changed. 

And for the next hour... 

Because, yeah. I spent an hour on this ridiculousness. 

I mean, the actual changing of the password was pretty quick and painless. It was just in updating everything that uses that password that took for-ev-er. 

So, there's the login to the district computers. And my emails. (I have two with the district.) Then there was the login I'd used to login to the computer I was using, so every tab I had open suddenly didn't work. I have the district email on my phone, so that had to be updated. As well, I had to update my Wi-Fi access, as I can access the district Wi-Fi, but only via my username and password. 

And then the big problem. I had to re-login to Google on my phone, as that's what I'm using for my 2FA (because texting a code led to other issues), and that required 2FA, and... 

Like I said, an hour. 

And so, now I don't have to worry about this again. Until May. Sigh. 

All done. All clear. Until the next day when my computer wouldn't log in so I could take attendance, and I took way too long to find where to update the Wi-Fi password on that computer. Because of course there would be one more thing I hadn't quite updated. 

Whew. 

*My first grade teacher's name was Mr. Elm. 

Combat Voter Suppression

This week I want to talk about the voter suppression act making it's way through the Senate. The so-called SAVE Act will make it harder to register to vote. By disenfranchising voters, the regime hopes to stay in power. 

Your job is to contact your senators and urge them to vote no. 

Are you a married woman? You're going to have to jump through hoops to register to vote. Your marriage certificate is not an accepted form of ID, and since your name is different than the name on your birth certificate, you'll have to get other proof you are who you say you are.

(Did anyone jump through those hoops to get a Real ID? I heard it was a pain in the rear. Same issue.)

Anyway, here's the actual bill. And here's some more info via the League of Women Voters. 

I read the “SAVE Act” (the GOP’s new voter suppression bill) so you don’t have to. This is my one page summary. Jesus it’s bad. 1/

[image or embed]

— Jenny Cohn (@jennycohn.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 11:54 AM

In case you can't see that Bluesky post, here's a link to it, and also so you can view the whole thread.

After calling your senators, check out the Adopt a Day Labor Corner. There's also a virtual webinar about it on February 18th. 

And, finally, there's one more video following up last week's follow up (and here's that direct link as I know some of you can't see the video here):

Almost There

There's something about knitting sleeves...

My great-grandmother, the one who taught me to knit, stopped knitting sleeves. When I knew her, she only knit vests. (This post contains some pictures of her work.) 

I'm beginning to understand why. 

When I started sleeve one, it seemed like I'd be working on that sleeve forever. It didn't seem to be gaining any length. Until it did. And there was a moment when I looked down at my work when it went from, "Will this sleeve ever be long enough?" to, "Wow, I'm almost done." 

For sleeve two, I hit that point Saturday. 

That's roughly 13 inches. I just need 18 inches to be finished. I think it was 18 inches... (My notes are across the room. I'll look it up later.) 

It's closer to the length of sleeve one, anyway.

My self-imposed deadline is looking more and more doable. Wish me luck.

The sweater's previous posts:

• Starting the Sweater
• Getting to the Back
• Missed Deadline
• Distractions from Knitting
• A Month Late
• Inching Along
• Tracking the Growth
• Weekly Sweater Update
• Moving Right Along
• Good Progress
• Almost to the Interesting Part
• Plot Twist
• Not Worth the Effort
• Sleeve Progress
• Continuing Sleeve One
• Sleeve Two!
• Continuing Sleeve Two
• Setting a Deadline

Building a Wall

I managed to catch a three-day assignment to round out my week. The last time I had subbed for this teacher he taught computer stuff (coding and such). But I knew he had moved into a new discipline in the career and technical education department. I thought he was teaching woodshop. 

It's not woodshop, though. Now the class he teaches is called residential construction. And yeah, it is what it sounds like. 

Residential construction 3, so the students in the third year of it, were building a shed for the activities director. Residential construction 2, second year, were building a tiny house. On the day I was there, a couple students were working on installing a toilet while a third was adding siding to the outside. 

And the first year students were doing a small wall. 

(Normally I would be stuck with them doing online work while their teacher was out, but the classes had instructional aides who could supervise, so they could actually work on their construction stuff.) 

I'm calling it a small wall as that's kind of what it was. First they built a frame. Then into that frame they attached outlet boxes. And then they had to wire them. 

Before they could move on, they tested the wiring. The IA plugged a bulb into the socket. They connected the wiring to a live outlet. And then they flipped the switch. If the light turned on, they passed. 

Then it was time for drywall. 

They had to cut the pieces to fit. Then they screwed it into the frame. 

Some students were behind and just getting the wiring done. Some were ahead and able to drywall. But a few were in a holding pattern as they were just about out of drywall. (The teacher was going to bring more, but he's out for a reason.) 

Well, they had online work, too. There's a website sponsored by Home Depot called Path to Pro. They have instructions on how to do all sorts of construction stuff. (The year two and three students were completing OSHA training stuff.) So, they had enough to keep them busy.

Of course, high school students, so some were more on their phones or on online games. But that's pretty standard. 

Just in case you were wondering what they're teaching the kiddos in school nowadays.

Returned

By the luck of the app, I happened to catch a day in the art class I had started this school year in. (If things hadn't been so dead lately, I probably would have "missed" it, but I couldn't afford to miss another day as there was no guarantee that anything else would pop up.) 

First period. Tuesday. 

They had a shading assignment. I was given instructions to go over with them, so it was a more labor intensive day for me. (Not a bad thing, but it meant that I was pretty busy engaging with students, and I had less dead time than usual.) 

And, of course, I had many restroom pass requests. 

I don't give this a lot of thought. If no one else is out of the room, the kiddo can go. I write down their names and the time they left (so I can track how long they were gone). 

Joshua was out of the room. I had three other students who were waiting to go. And the phone rang. 

"Did you let Joshua out to go to the restroom? Security found him out wandering..." And this is where I got reprimanded for letting Joshua out of class, because Joshua was on the escort list. 

Escort list? 

Okay, so some students take advantage of restroom passes. They leave their class, and instead of doing their business and getting back to class, they wander campus. They meet up with their friends. They share vapes in the restroom. I don't know what they do out there, but it's not something they should be doing. 

Students who take too long out of class get added to an escort list. That means that if that kiddo asks to use the restroom, the teacher has to call security to escort them to the restroom. They hate this, but they've demonstrated that they can't be trusted to leave class on their own. 

They provide subs with the list. It's in the folder we get. Although, usually the teacher will leave the names of who we need to call security for. It didn't even occur to me to check the list, not that I had time to do so. 

(Oh, and the list is a mess. It's mostly alphabetical by first names, grouped by grade level, but there are a few with last names listed first. And then half the list is a jumble of I don't know what, because it's not quite alphabetical and it's definitely not grouped by grade level.) 

Joshua returned to class fifteen minutes after he left (yes, I was keeping track). Surly. Ah well. 

Ms. D was on campus (they were doing some curriculum planning) and stopped by after first period. I told her of the incident. 

It turns out that Joshua was on the escort list for a week a while ago. Otherwise she totally would have left his name. And there were no other students on the escort list (as far as I could tell; I went through the list and compared it to the class rosters, and... well, I mentioned that the list was a mess). 

There has got to be a better way to deal with restroom passes and wandering students. I don't know what it is.

Invalid Excuse

After catching a gig at 3 AM only to have it cancelled five minutes later, I was very happy to catch a Spanish class on Monday at 6 AM. (Things have been very slow lately. But February is more than half booked now.) 

Spanish 2, fifth period.

I had been asked to cover a third period elsewhere. (It was the teacher's prep period. They're on a block schedule; this was the odd periods day.) There was a minute or two of the passing period left when I arrived back at the classroom. I unlocked the door, and the students who had arrived before me filed in. 

Teachers covering other classes on their prep periods is pretty common. And some teachers will take the passing period to hit the restroom. The students wait. It's so common as to be something I've never needed to comment on before. 

Fifth period started. I got the students started on their online assignment. (Well, some of it was in their books, but the instructions had been posted online by their teacher.) I took roll. (So, a few minutes of the period had passed.) 

Two students walked in. Tardies have been a huge issue lately. The schools are trying many things to curb it. But for me, it just means I need to be aware of latecomers so I can mark them as tardy in the attendance. 

As they were arriving, the two students explained. "We knocked. You weren't here." 

I did not comment on this. Nor did I add this comment to my note to the teacher. I marked the kiddos tardy in the attendance. 

Because, huh? They knocked? When? And why did they leave? Where did they go?

Yeah, no. They're supposed to wait. If I wasn't there at the beginning of the period... Well, even then, they should wait. (There have been times when the teacher is late. This is very obvious because of the crowd of students waiting outside the door.) 

I checked. They're freshmen. That tracks.