Just Another Day In Paradise

Warning: Going to work may be hazardous to my health.

Two weeks ago today, I arrived at work and was called into an emergency staff meeting. We were informed that a student at our school had invited people on her facebook page to join her at a protest out front of our school at the beginning of last period that day. The principal informed us that he believed that this was due to some misunderstanding on the student's part (no thanks to his bumbling communication skills no doubt) and that he would be meeting with the parties involved during a meeting at lunch.

By the end of the day, we were in lock-down due to a bomb threat. Yes, that's right. While it's true that the protest situation had been diffused over lunch, it seems that some bright young man was so disappointed about the lack of a mass student walk-out that he phoned in a bomb threat after lunch. Good thing he had his cell phone with him!

So while we all waited in our classrooms, doors locked, blinds drawn, (those of us who are lucky enough to having functioning window-coverings in our classrooms that is) we waited for the bomb-sniffing dogs to arrive from Peel (yep, Peel, because the Toronto dogs were on their day off - I swear, I'm not kidding.) and roughly two hours later, approximately 15 minutes after the end of the school day and school week, two police officers guided by a very unfortunate teacher (a retiree doing sub work no less!) knocked on all of the classroom doors and escorted the students out of the building. No, not the teachers, just the students. We, lucky souls that we are, had yet another staff meeting.

In the end, there was no real cause for concern. No bomb was found and the only harm done was to the already frayed nerves of some of the teachers - not because of the bomb, but because they were stuck in their classrooms for hours with their students without having prepared anything to do! The next time somebody makes a joke to me about having the summer off, I'm going to lock them in a room with 30 teenagers and nothing to do and see if they need a break at the end of it!

Needless to say, my colleagues and I all headed immediately for the local watering hole after we were cut loose from the school. When I got back to work on Monday, it was. business as usual.

And some people think teachers have it easy!