Minimum Day Surprise

(If you haven't seen this Monday's post, you probably should. It's here.)

Thursday. After checking in for the day, I headed to the classroom. I happened to look over at a sign with important dates for the month. As it was the 30th of January, all had been marked off except one. 

"Navigation Night, Jan. 30th."

Navigation Night is what they've rebranded Open House as. Since no one attended Open House anymore, they put it earlier in the year and turned it into a time when various classes could show off their offerings to students to entice them to take various electives the next year. 

They do this before the kiddos have to start setting up their schedules for the next school year. 

None of this impacts me as it takes place in the evening. But, Open House always turns that school day into a minimum day. 

Did I walk into a minimum day without being aware of it? Yes, that I did, in fact, do.

It was a nice surprise. Yes, I do get paid for a full day, so I can just enjoy getting out early. 

(Not that I enjoyed the day, particularly. But, that was due to *waves hands at everything*. If you did not see my post earlier in the week, on this day my mother was fading out. She passed away last Friday.) 

Peer Pressure

Friday, St. Patrick's Day. It was a minimum day for the end of the quarter. 

(In 2020, the last day of the third quarter was the last day we had school. We shut down and stayed home that following Monday. So, the last day of the third quarter now makes me pause.) 

I was on my way out. I had to stop in the attendance office to submit my attendance for the day.

(This is not a usual occurrence. We usually are given a temp login for the online attendance. But, the secretary in charge of subs quit on us--long story--so another secretary, who's now doing her job as well as her own and a third secretary's who's been out for months, can't login to assign us logins. It's a tech issue. They're working on it.) 

The attendance clerk was busy. A student was using her phone, talking to his mother. 

I guess the minimum day had taken him by surprise. He was requesting a ride home. (Read: he was haranguing his mother about the change in schedule which he should have been aware of as it was on the school calendar, and I'm sure his teachers had mentioned it a few times.)

His mother's reply: his grandmother was already there, waiting for him.

He looked out the window. He saw her car. 

So, he was wrapping up the conversation. He was about to leave. 

He had two friends with him. The two friends were not pleased with the way the boy was getting ready to just leave. 

"Now, tell your mom 'bye' and that you love her." 

The boys were not going to have their friend disrespect his mother. 

It took him a moment, but then he did as they asked. 

The attendance clerk and I shared a glance. We both laughed. 

The boys left. I turned in my attendance to the clerk. And I headed out.

Some boys know how to treat their mothers. They expect that others do the same. 

Sometimes peer pressure is a good thing.

Contrary

Tuesday was a minimum day (so the teachers could prep for Back to School night, which I did not have to attend--yay!). 

Because it was a minimum day, there would be no lunch. Nigel was not happy. 

"Great. No lunch. So, I don't get to eat." 

I pointed out that while we weren't having a lunch period, food services was providing a "grab and go" lunch. It's a sack lunch that students can take with them when they exit the school. (Here in California, all school meals are free to students.)

"Great, now I'll get into trouble for bringing outside food home." 

I mentioned that perhaps he could eat the lunch on the way home, thereby avoiding any of those thorny issues. (I really didn't want to get into why this was a problem, although it probably merits further discussion.) 

Nigel's next complaint was mumbled, something about riding a bike or the bus, so he couldn't eat his lunch while getting home. (The bus driver doesn't allow open food containers on the bus.) 

It was at this point that other students in class chimed in, saying that Nigel was always like this. I could tell. Nigel was determined to be annoyed that we had a minimum day. He did not want to go home early. 

About then was when this whole conversation got interrupted. Another student wanted to use the restroom. 

There is a cool new app that the school is now using for restroom passes. I just got access. I stopped to let the student go. And I thought Nigel and I were done. Nope.

Now Nigel complained about the new app. Why didn't the school get the app earlier? (Not the complaint I was expecting.) I argued that the technology wasn't really right too much before now. But Nigel disagreed. 

At a certain point, you know the discussion isn't going to go anywhere. And this is where I "got busy" doing other stuff. Because there was going to be no pleasing Nigel. Whatever came up, he was going to complain about. 

I suppose it passes the time.