Yes, today is Tuesday, September 13th, and no, I haven’t blog for three days. My last 3 days at work have been crappy!! And I just haven’t had to words (or the energy) to express how badly my job sucks right now.

Remember day 21…the day of 2 assemblies. Well, I have been the talk of the campus (although no one has had the balls to come up, talk with me directly and share their thoughts). Apparently I have several colleagues that do not think my students should be included in all school assemblies because they are ‘too distracting’ to the other students and mine ‘don’t get anything out’ of them anyway.

Although my staff and I paid for it later, my students were the quietest, and at least gave the impression of, being well behaved students. They sat still and didn’t talk to anyone else. You had to look really close to see that they all were playing with their fidgets and not really paying attention to the speakers, but not screaming/running/hitting/rolling/climbing over peers through the assembly was a bright hash mark in the win column as far as I am concerned. (I am ignoring the screaming/crying/hitting/biting/general protesting that happened later).

My SPED colleagues and I have spent the last few years really trying to build a bridge between Special Ed and Gen Ed and we thought we were making good progress, but now it looks like we were just the out of town family visiting, everyone is excited to see us at first but now it’s time to go home. And I’ll admit, it hurts a little.

But that is not even all of it…I am mentally and physically beaten up, both literally and figuratively. Even though the powers that be up the latter from me all came from working in a classroom, they clearly have forgotten their time in the trenches! I rarely ask for help from them, but when I do it is because my bag of tricks has failed miserably and my students are in desperately need of additional help! But can I get extra help from them? HELL NO! I can’t even get a visit/call/return email from my program specialist…or as I have come to view her, the gate keeper to specialist who can actually offer assistance. My staff and I are quite literally getting hurt every day from just two of my students who are not adjusting to being back in school and their preferred mode of protest is to hit, bite, kick and spit. Everyone. I have had to evacuate my classroom for the safety of all others. But that somehow does not warrant extra help, or even a returned phone call.

In this current darkness, if feels like these are the hardest days in teaching I have ever experienced. If there is a lesson to be learned, I am far from seeing it, and I am beyond frustrated. It’s only day 24 and I have 161 days left before the end of the school year (can you tell I am counting) and I have never been this burnt out, and especially this early in the school year before.

OH, and I still have several things to cut, laminate and prep for tomorrow. How many glasses of wine are too many glasses of wine on a school night?!?!