I am being bumped from Lankershim. The bump isn’t because I am sick, it is because I am next on the seniority list to have my contract reduced. Since Lankershim stayed year round, I have to move to a school that is modified/traditional. After 13 years, I am going to recount some of the highlights at Lankershim in a book entitled "Where the Bodies are Buried."
I knew I was in for a wild ride when Tricia McCarty, Lankershims “other” PE teacher, warned me to keep a pad of paper and a pen in my pocket to write down descriptions and license plate numbers of the car thieves in the parking lot. Even better, she told me that earlier in the week she walked out of the Resource Room to pick up the class in Room 1 when a man with a gun ran past her, chased by cops with their guns drawn… 4 bells means lockdown!-----Original Message-----
From: Johnson, Marv
Sent: Wed 2/4/2004 8:05 AM
To: Albright, Laura; Baxter, Clementina; Belmudes, Diana; Betancourt, Linda; Billings, Lynn; Bordeaux, Debbra; Bowman, Mary; Canelo, Carmen; Cauldren, Kaija; Chrismon, Kathryn; Cuevas, Patricia; Dahl, Teresa; Duebbers, Pat; Earnest, Barbie; Emery, Kim; Evans, Breanna; Figueroa, Martha; Garza, Angelita; Gifford, Allison; Haines, Kathy; Harper, Rebecca; Islas, Adrian; Jimenez, AlmaE; Johnson, Jennifer; Johnson, Marv; Kaisershot, Edward; Kaisershot, Katherine; Kosman, Donna; LankershimCafe; Library, Lankershim; Ludwig, Carrie; Luna, Rosalba; Mantz, Jacqueline; March, Francine; Maroney, Colleen; Maroney, Linda; Martinez, Olivia; Matthews, Armone; McCarty, Judy; McElfish, Sharon; Morales, Victoria; Navarro, Olivia; Parker,Janet; Parrott, Allen; Patterson, Angela; Pena, Ida; Pendleton, Trinidad; Polder, Linda; Reyes, Oscar; Reynolds, Susan; Robinson, Linda; Ruiz, Araceli; Saterfield, Catherine; Shaw, Gail; Shaw, Rebecca; Steele, Maria; Sutton, Catherine; Taylor, Tanisha; Torres, Elycia; Villavicencio, Janice; Winn, Pam; Woolard, Caroline; Young, Rhonda
Subject: bulletin- Feb. 4
1. Footnote to Dr. White's visit;
I had a doctor's appointment, yesterday, in the afternoon. When I returned, I was informed that two second graders had ripped off $60 from her purse while I was walking Dr. White around the campus and bragging to her about our great kids. Fortunately, Victoria got wind of the situation and retrieved the money. Two suspensions and one visit to Dr. White's office to return her $60 were not exactly the way I wanted to end my day, yesterday.
The district makes some bonehead moves, but this time, appointing a principal who has been a classified, certificated and management employee as the leader at the site where she “grew up” has to be one of the top moves of the decade. What other leader is as invested in their school?
What other Vice Principal will let me get away with all of the shenanigans I have pulled? This is what happens when the Vice Principal is away and Jen and Araceli try to one up each other on Pranks:
We were going to cover the computer screen and keyboard, but we ran out of Newspaper and the aluminum foil was too expensive.
Will my new school have a teacher who loves Star Wars as much as me? Who screams passionately as she loves her kids? Surely no school has a better “comadre” for me than Olivia Navarro.
March 17, 2006 has to be one of the most memorable Lankershim days. I took Elycia Torres’ class out for PE, when the current Ms. V and Ms. Torres pulled 2 kids out of PE to search their personhood and backpacks. For what? Who knows. I returned those kids after PE and picked up CU. While the kids were sitting on the grass, listening intently to one of my fine lessons, a kid held up a gun and said “Teacher, I found this.” I replied, “Oh, that’s mine. I’ve been looking for that. Thank you.” My cell phone immediately called the office and Ms. V’s quest for the B2 contraband ended. My day, wasn’t over until the very next class when I took out Alma “I’m not Badillo” Jimenez’s chihuahua’s and one little darling decided PE was too hard and took off running down the hall, out the gate, through the parking lot and down the street. Me, I just watched. Alma, the poor sucker, chased the brat all the way home. Of course, when his mother came to the school to complain about PE, she told me he doesn’t like PE because I make him run and he has asthma. Niiiice.
What other school has crazy parents that scream and yell at the office staff? What other office staff just smile and nod as a parent yells “Unlovin’ @$$ teachers. That’s unprofessional, smiling at me!” Do parents at other schools drop their kids off, or just slow down as their kindergartener literally rolls out like they do at Lankershim? When a kid gets run over in the parking lot is there a school metiche who gets all the information from all parties and witnesses before the paramedics arrive and offers the facts AND her opinion to the officer taking the report. This story is only funny because the kid wasn’t hurt AND the Lankershim Metiche told me he is a brat and his mother has no control over her kids. (Metiche is Spanish for busy body, but best exemplified by this story.) Surely other schools don’t hold IEP meetings at the gas station, only because the parent refused to answer the phone when their “darling” was being suspended and the VP and Counselor were driving the student home…
Of course, there is always the transition people make when they are at Lankershim. There used to be a 6th grade teacher who smoked, had bad hair and was mediocre with her kids. 13 years later Francine March is at the top of her game with clean lungs, a great hairstyle, a successful weight watchers figure and an absolute ACE in the hole when it comes to kindergarten teachers. In my humble opinion, one of the finest examples of “Gods greatest gifts being unanswered prayers.” Let us also remember the Ed Kaisershot/Kathy Davidians romance that changed them both for the better, and happier. And Lynn Billings… shes’s half the woman she used to be. By the way, that’s a major compliment.
Allen Parrott deserves some sort of award for changes, going from clean-cut prep to pirate to Jesus, back to clean cut… I think sometimes Scott was covering for his brother. Either way, the word on the playground was “Mr Parrott doesn’t get kids in trouble, he just gives them candy.” Boy, was Edgar disappointed his 6th grade year.
Are first year teachers at other schools put through “trial by fire” like those at Lankershim? Like Rhonda “I’m not Young anymore” Wagner whose first THREE years at Lankershim were filled with mentally unstable youth? First graders turning over tables, stabbing classmates with pencil, no I’m NOT talking about Phillip… Danielle Boles, whose first day started with Arturo yelling “F*ck the pledge!” and throwing his chair on the ground. Let us not forget the unnamed teacher who confiscated an adult novelty item that was found on the playground, only to have a student steal it back and play tag with it during recess. I think that was the same day that a kid told me “Ms. Noel, so and so is eating nasty candy.” Evidently, eating nasty candy is a tattle-able offense, but regular candy is kept on the down low. I asked so and so “Why are you eating nasty candy?”
“Because I found it.”
“Let me see that.”
The nasty candy revealed itself to be flavored lubricant. My only out was to confiscate the “Nasty Candy” and toss it, because we’re not allowed to eat candy at school. Right?
Janet, you said that getting candy at the “Liquor Store” must be a California thing, because kids in Indiana don’t go to Liquor Stores. I guess I’ll find that out. That, and if everybody in San Bernardino calls Otter Pops “Ice Creams.”
I will miss saying Debbie Bordeaux’s name in my worst French accent. Mostly I will miss asking her what her previous name was when she was a classroom teacher and had the ever lovely “Gabriel.” And Gabriel…. Makes me think of my first year and Cathy Saterfield’s class with Myra, the girl who loved to run away, Jude “Jacob Thaddeus wearing that hat of his,” Nyleque, and Gabriel. Cathy, which girl in your classroom was always a “contestant” on “The Lice is Right?” The girls whose jacket I put on (yes, I was that thin then) and wore back to your classroom when you warned me “I wouldn’t keep that on for very long.” Oh, the story of Lice and Lankershim, and the teachers that were sent home…
I’m on page 4 here and I haven’t even gone past Room 7. Is there room in this email to talk about “The Teacher Formerly Known as Flathers?” Will Melanie PaynLin forgive me for calling her “PaynLin?” I just asked Michelle to proofread this. She sighed and said “Just say goodbye already!” But I just can’t. Not yet. I haven’t gotten to the really good parts! Like the poor teacher who moved to California to teach, her head filled with Lollipops and rainbows, to teach kids in the inner city. How excited she must have been to hear Erin Gruwell speak at our District Inservice! Then, returning to find her car STOLEN out of the school parking lot, I’m sure her emotions were just as high, but in a TOTALLY different way. I blame myself. I wasn’t in the field that day watching for car thieves with my pen and pad of paper. But had I been, surely I could have recovered her car as quickly as I recovered my stolen iPod. Getting my stolen iPod back only cost me an ice cream ticket, a walk to Jesse and Georges house, a trip across the street to find a guy named “Go-Go” and I got my iPod back. Duh, winning!
I’m sure at my next school I won’t have to get to school 30 minutes before I’m supposed to for Running Club. The teachers there won’t care about doing something like that. The kids will run, sweat and stink up the classroom. I won’t have to stay late after school to walk kids home and translate their sins to their parents because kids at other schools aren’t this bad, right? My next principal won’t hide behind classrooms like Marv did, or eat lunch in their car while “observing” my class, or have enough trust and respect in me to let me do my thing, right? I guess this means I’ll have to learn the PE standards. All of them. For all SIX grades. Unless I get a Kinder class too, then I will learn SEVEN grades of standards. And teach them, all week long.
Do other schools have teachers that throw RAGERS for Christmas and 1st grade graduation like Carmen “I’m not Lara!” Canelo? That might be a good thing, because there was that year that Carmen’s “Buddy” 1st grade teacher threw a rager, forgot there was PE, and insisted on having her planning time. That wouldn’t necessarily be an issue, except it was raining that day, I had to teach the class in her classroom FILLED to capacity with parents, younger siblings, and a spread that rivaled the best Vegas buffets. Of course we danced… and I slipped on Sopa de Arroz that spilled on the carpet, and entertained the parents and crying babies.
I’m really hoping I run into one of our most entertaining fomer students, a true “5150” who liked to turn into a tiger and chase his classmates around the field. Once he “caught” them, he would scratch their backs and try to bite them. Admittedly, his classmates said the scratching on the back was quite nice… But his kid was no chimp. When his mom came to the school, he tied her shoelaces together. (Unbeknownst to her, as she was morbidly obese AND oblivious) When she asked him why, he replied “so you’ll fall over and roll over the door so I can run away!” This child is the #1 reason Allison Ramsey will NEVER name her son “Joseph.”
I guess I’ll leave out the staff room fights (although that was REALLY good) and the explosion that deafened Maria and convinced her that Al-Quaida was attacking Lankershim. I’ll leave out the mental illness (mine especially) that was particularly unsettling and most importantly the list of people of whom I have walked in on in the bathrooms. (If only we had a stall!) I’m also leaving out “The Dead Gopher Story,” “What to Do When a Strange Dog Comes Up to You,” “What to do When a Strange Bee Flies Up to You,” “The time a dog wanted to play and the whole class screamed,” and “When EZ –Ups Fly Across the PE Field and Hit a Classroom. “ But 13 years has left me with a lot of stories, experiences and memories that are as permanent as the markers our neighborhood “Street Artists” use. I hope the District Maintenance team doesn’t paint over the “tags” in my mind.
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