Not In My Job Description

Carrying along the theme of "responsibility" which is most salient these days, I find myself consistently redefining what my job is. If I were to write a true and faithful description of the responsibilities that I have incurred as a result of my position in the Miami-Dade County Public School system, my resume would more resemble a gangsta novel than a non-fiction text. Unfortunately, that is the reality of working at a job in an underresourced, understaffed, underregulated, and overlooked low-income school. Several events serve as fantastic exemplars of these types of activities. The down side of trying to be a responsible person is that you end up picking up the slack when other people can't seem to do the things that they are required to do at their job.

For some reason, there seems to be a miscommunication about what is and is not part of different staff members' job description, creating confusion and often chaos when incompetant assholes decide that their job includes 2 hour lunch breaks, taunting students, and encouraging physical violence. Apparently, these tasks are the purview of the high school Security Guard, unbeknownst to me. Really, someone should send out a memo about modified job responsibilities to clue in the rest of the school, just so we're all on the same page.

Two Thursdays ago, before the rash of suspensions that spread through campus quicker than syphilis British Renaissance royalty, I wish people could have just done their jobs. My job, in case I haven't been explicitly clear, is that of a teacher. This means I am responsible for maintaining certain documentation, controlling the classroom, delivering instruction, and assessing my students. While I was in the process of doing my job, two of my little darlings decided to get into a shouting match.

The smaller of the two, a 4' 4" young man who likes to talk a lot of smack, may or may not have instigated the confrontation when he came into class late. Regardless of whomever was responsible for starting the conflict, he and his antagonist, a girl expelled from her previous high school for pulling a knife during a fight, began to abuse each other verbally. As with many confrontations at my school, most of this centered around whether or not each child was ready to "step," or engage in a physical fight. Also, as can be expected, the insults soon degenerated into the steadfast "yo' mama" comments. The most colorful of these I believe was "That's yo' mama's pussy that smells stank."

After taking the steps necessary to fulfill my job requirements, I write down what each child is yelling at each other, give them verbal warnings, and confront them both with what they have said. Keep in mind, I would have to be straight up insane to approach either student physically in order to separate them from each other. That is most definitely not within my rights or responsibilities as a classroom teacher. That's why we have another staff member on campus called a "Security Guard" who is allowed to physically remove a student from class. Playing by the book (stupid Thea, when will you learn how infrequently this ever has positive results?), I walk outside and request that the Security Guard remove the more aggressive female student from the class.

I'm not an expert on the best-practices for Security Guards, but I'm going to hazard a guess that when a young lady is screaming about how stank somebody's mama's pussy is, calling her name softly from outside the door is not going to be your most effective strategy for dissipating the conflict.

Hey, guess what, I was right.

As I turned my back from the incident to grab a referral form from inside my desk, the girl gets up out of her seat, walks over to the boy sitting at his computer, and punches him in the head. Not even knowing what to do, the attacked kid tries to hide against the computer. At this point, the security guard has done nothing. Incredulous, I run across the room and frantically try to think of what I need to do to solve the crisis. I'm not thinking "Hey, that fat fuck over in the corner should be handling this" or "Why doesn't that useless ignorant sorry excuse for a sentient being move his lazy ass." I'm thinking "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." With these eloquent words rolling around in my head, the larger girl takes the boy's head and slams it into the computer monitor. The monitor slides off onto the table, and my first thought is not "Wow, I really shouldn't have to deal with this" or "Oh, I'm sure the security guard is rushing over to intervene." It's "They're going to fire me for letting the kids break computer equipment."

Then, the boy starts to fight back. Both fall to the floor, and my fear of reprimand from the administration gives way to my very real concern for both students' safety. I kick my way into the fight, trying to separate the two. As they writhe away from each other and stand up, still yelling nonsense about somebody's mamma, they fly at each other again, knocking over three desks and a chair, nearly flattening two frightened timid girls. I grab one student's shoulders, and another student intervenes to grab the other belligerant one. I can't even remember which was which.

Now that the immediate violence has abated, I whip around to assess the classroom situation with as much rapidity as I can manage. What should I see but our security guard grinning at the doorway, arms crossed over his rolling gut.

Apparently, he needs a friendly reminder about what is and is not in HIS job description. Call me a lunatic, but I'm going to guess that it was his responsibility, not that of a TEACHER and a STUDENT to break up the fight in the classroom and ensure everyone else's safety. If I do nothing else this year, I will get this man fired. He is the scum of the earth, and a fantastic example of why Miami-Dade Public Schools are fucked. Speaking purely from my own personal anecdotal experience, our school is falling down a long spiral into whatever sort hell your spirituality permits you to imagine: the deep, dark, fiery pits of it.

This was a Thursday, about ten days ago. Mercifully, I'd planned a trip to New York that weekend, and was able to escape the torments of Miami's blistering inferno...for the biggest blizzard to hit Manhattan in recorded history. See, I didn't know it, but I'm actually a well-refined magnet for calamity, natural disasters included. Nearly every day since then, there has been some sort of traumatic event at school, save today.

On Monday, the school board voted to change the calendar, moving the semester up two weeks, making failure notices due in three days. For the next three days, I spent 11 hours at school. I spent more time on 35th Avenue than I spent in my own damn house. On Wednesday, a student in my 4th period stabbed a boy in the arm with a pencil. He was bleeding. Now, I officially reached the end of my rope. Fraying fibers, rope burn, grasping frantically for sanity. My job is no longer teaching, but crowd control. I shut down into war mode...



Phase I 13:00 casualties at zero, maintain position and await commands from headquarters.

13:35 combat site under lockdown, following aggressive action

Phase II 14:30, new bogies intercepted, 18 incoming hostiles

RETREAT!! 15:35 RETREAT TO BASE!!!

Base is now Starbucks, where I reconvene and attempt to process the events of the afternoon. I will narrate them thus:

Girl 2 (not Girl 1 who attacked small boy at computer on Thursday, but different, wholly unrelated girl) says something like "get away from me, little bitch" to Boy 2 (not small boy beaten up Thursday, but singularly different boy) who stands over her at a table. Boy 2 does not move, but Girl 3 stands up out of seat and begins screaming. Girl 3, hitherto to be known as PPLPOSDC (psychotic pathological liar piece of shit devil child) gesticulates wildly while yelling "Now, I know you heard that! That's a referral! [Girl 1] was cussin'! If that was me, you'd a wrote me up! Ms. Williamson, I know you heard that!"

Thanks. Caught that the first time.

Girl 3 is now officially hysterical, so I ask both her and Boy 2 to come outside to discuss their behavior. On his way out, I see blood (albeit a small amount) dripping from his arm. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Now, in the less than a week, blood has been spilled in my classroom. I probably saw more bodily fluids that week than my roommate's boyfriend, who is in medical school. PPLPOSDC continues to yell at me outside the classroom, and considering how this has happened at least 12 times so far this school year, I decide that it's not my job to stand there and be verbally abused by a spoiled 16 year old, so I call security.

Ha.

Did I say call security? I should clarify. By "call" I mean raise the volume of my voice, since there are no phones and no electronic means of communication with either the Central South Office or the security guard, incompetent fuck that he is. I ask an administrator visiting from the Main Campus where I might be able to find someone to take this screaming child out of my presence, and he tells me, I kid you not "I'm looking for him too. He's been missing for an hour." In disbelief, I spend a fraction of a second pondering the ironic fact that Girl 3 hadn't even been the cause of this fucked-up situation which had now escalated into a full-scale conflict, then begin to scream myself. Because that is the only recourse that I have left, when all of the proper steps and countermeasures in my job description have failed or were never even there as options as the first place. When I can't do my job, when I am completely powerless and want nothing more in the world than to ball up my fist, take aim, and land my knuckles right on her mean, abusive, deceitful lips, I scream.

"S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y"

I walk to the corner so that my words rattle the paint flakes on the concrete walls, and force all my anger out through my lungs: "CAN I P-L-E-A-S-E get some SECURITY?"

I bellow down the other corridor, towards the Madison office: "SECURITYYYYYYYYYYYYY"

Finally, a security guard employed by the Middle school which does not employ me took PPLPOSDC away so that I could deal with the sheepishly bleeding Boy 2 sitting on the bench. I talk to him about why he got stabbed with a pencil, and by now it's almost time to switch classes. My kids come out of the classroom, the halls flood, and PPLPOSDC comes back along with the Madison security guard. I tell both of them, as is well within my rights as a teacher, that I will not speak with her until I see a parent, so she should please leave the room.

Fuming, I resume the duties in my contract, to fill out a 4-ply carbon copy "SCAM," or behavior referral on all three students: Girl 2, Boy 2, and now PPLPOSDC. A good ten minutes later, now nearly an hour since the original pencil-stabbing took place, Fat Ass (as I now call Mr. B---, our friendly, useful security guard) comes into my class.

His words, concise and to the point: "Uh, somebody said you needed me?"

Slowly pulling my seething eyes up from the third referral form to inform him "I needed you twenty minutes ago, when a student was screaming in my face. It's under control now."

From this moment on, when my concentration returned to the green paper underneath my ballpoint pen, Mr. B--- has ceased to exist on the campus. I do not look at him, I do not acknowledge the fact that he is a group of cells which intakes oxygen and releases carbon dioxide, he is not my peer nor my colleague like the custodians, the secretaries, the administrators, or the students who do their jobs. If you can't figure out how to do your fucking job, then I'll do it for you, AND mine too. It's not like I've never had to do that before.