HEY! TEACHERS....LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE!

We have several people at my store that are going to school to be teachers... GOD BLESS THEM!! I worked for our county school system for seven years; And I am here to tell ya. "It ain't an easy job." When we first moved to our current home 11 years ago, they were redistricting the schools at LEAST once a year. I decided to get a job with the best elementary school near our house (which crazily enough we were NOT allowed to attend.) It was unbelievable, we had two really good elementary schools closest to our house, yet we were assigned to travel over twice the distance to a school that had terrible test scores and a racially and economically unbalanced student population. So ole MAMA bit the dust and took the only job at the school that was open... a "lunch lady." I can tell you, until you have scrubbed pizza pans for 800 students, you just haven't lived. I will admit the kids loved me. When coming through the line, they always declined the butter beans, english peas and limas, until I started telling them that we had hidden prizes in some of the beans! Baby, those beans started FLYING out of my serving line! On Halloween, I wore my "BUBBA" teeth, and those were an even bigger hit. It used to kill me when the older women would refuse to give out an extra packet of ketchup to the kids... they only got one... and when you are having hamburgers, and french fries... one pack of 1/2 ounce ketchup just won't get you through a meal. Anyway, isn't it their parents tax money not only buying those tiny packs of ketchup... but paying all of our salaries as well? I was notorious for slipping all the kids extra ketchup, mustard, mayo, honey mustard.... if they had to eat the slop, let them be able to cover it with sauce. I will have to say that we did a pretty darn good job at our school of putting out a decent meal... but HEY... it's still a school cafeteria. I worked with all women who were at LEAST in their sixties... sweet women, country women, but sometimes they drove me nuts. Like when the first group came through, and one of them, seeing the kids lining up in the hall, would say " Here comes the kennygarden class!!" I just couldn't bring myself to tell them that you did not pronounce it that way. After four years of giving out WAY too many french fries, mashed potatoes and ketchup packets; not to mention that I ALWAYS gave them at least four more Tater Tots than I was supposed to; I left the sweet old girls to go back to their previous ways, and got a job as an assistant coordinator for the Afterschool Program. At least I wasn't mopping floors and scrubbing pans anymore; anyway I was doing enough of that at home. I worked for a girl probably eighteen years younger than me...straight by the book kind of gal, that I drove nuts with my crazy, anti establishment, renegade way of doing things. But the kids were happy, and they loved me. The kids were the easy part... the parents were a whole different bag of tricks. Some of these kids had it SO much better at school than they had it at home, that it really broke my heart. One little girl who was so pitifully treated by her Mom, came in after Christmas holidays, and my co worker and I asked her how her Christmas was, "What did Santa bring you?" She said, well he left me five dollars and a candy bar. This little girl's mother came in every day with her acrylic nails done to perfection, dressed a LOT nicer than her daughter, and by her size, was eating pretty good too. It absolutely broke my heart. I went through my own daughter's closest, brought in a winter coat, pants, shirts, socks, shoes... and just told the Mom that they didn't fit my little girl anymore. As hard to believe, there were even worse cases, but we tried to help every kid that we could, and at least on OUR time, make sure they were loved and cared about. Then County "RED TAPE" starting really ticking me off... they dogged us at every turn, wanting to cover themselves "legally".. What a crock. I couldn't trim a kid's nails that his sorry parents hadn't clipped or cleaned in MONTHS... I may harm him. We couldn't let the kids collect pennies for the tsunami victims when it happened.. the county had a fit... but we did it anyway, and collected over $250.00 in pennies, and donated it to the Red Cross. ACTUALLY, we didn't ask the county (Our Bad) but when the picture came out in the local paper with the Red Cross volunteer standing with all of our kids, with the pennies all rolled and on display in front of the students.. the county said we shouldn't have done it.... WHY? Were we wrong in impressing upon these kids how lucky we were to be in this great Country, and not be in a region where hundreds of thousands of people had lost their lives, parents, children, homes and any sense of the existence they had had before the tragedy struck? It just rubbed me the wrong way.. ( RUB # ONE). Then when the war started.. I stepped up the ante. A server from my restaurant ( that I still worked at all weekend long, after working at the school all week) got called back into active duty from the reserves, and was shipped out in six short weeks.I decided to let the kids pen pal with this dear friend of mine. I asked EVERY parent's permission before I let the kids write to him, and the letters were totally OUTSTANDING! I still have copies of every letter they wrote. They were from Pre K students ( usually pictures) up to fifth graders . Some were astoundingly profound, several of these kids had a parent in the War as well. He sent letters back to the kids, addressed in an envelope to me personally, sent CD's with pictures from the war... he rode the turret in a Humvee. The letters he wrote were sweet, always addressed their questions, and answered each one of them. We sent him a care package.. another one of my obviously "Terrible" decisions that I took upon myself to make. I just started with packs of gum, mints or AA batteries. The kids went ballistic...DVD's, spices, sunscreen, bug repellent, socks, cookies, candies, playing cards, poker sets, popcorn, every size battery that you could use... The package weighed 70 pounds. The fifth graders had a bake sale to pay for shipping costs..... and we were own our way to a happy thing done for all too deserving men and women 1/2 way across the planet. I kicked in boxes of tampons for the women in his unit, and a couple of cartons of cigs that the kids didn't know about.... If I was in Iraq, I would probably want a smoke too. Oh YEAH... once again BIG BROTHER was watching... They said I couldn't let the kids write a soldier.. what if he sent them pictures of himself in his underwear? They were talking about a dear friend of mine, that had written these kids for MONTHS VIA me..not addressed to them specifically. Of course I never told my soldier friend about any of this... too embarrassed about how our county worried SO much about the "Legal Ramifications" of writing a grown man that they did not know. But you know what? These kids ALREADY knew him by this point, and ALREADY knew what kind of guy he was. He was their HERO, he was their FRIEND. They were just little kids making a huge difference in not only his life, but theirs as well. We had sent several board games... MONOPOLY, CHESS, CHECKERS, BACKGAMMON... you know what the soldiers did with them? They took them to an orphanage and donated them to those kids in Iraq. Of course after the "RED TAPE LEGAL ARM" came down on me, I wanted to resign immediately. But I love the woman I worked for, and she needed her job, so I bit the bullet and stayed till the end of the year. When my soldier friend finally came home from Iraq, I had been gone from the county almost a year... but he wanted to go meet the kids. I took him to lunch ( not the school cafeteria.... I had heard they were out of ketchup). When we got to the school, my old boss was there, pumping my friend's hand and telling him how proud he was... which I am sure that he was; but why put up such a stupid stink about such a humanitarian effort from a bunch of kids, that now thanks to us.. know an incredible person that has possibly helped save all of us? I could battle the county system no longer. I did my best; I made a difference in over a hundred kids lives, and an entire unit in Iraq. They beat me down at every turn, and threw every roadblock up that they could. The county would never hire me again (not that I would apply) but while I was there... Baby I was shaking it up, and getting some stuff done... and all that matters to me is that the kids were happy, cared about, AND cared for. Then after I quit the county...( I don't know who was more relieved; me or them ). I went back to my full time job in sales and marketing. My middle son is now in high school, and my youngest daughter in the new middle school. She is twelve, and just a couple of weeks ago, I was leaving to go to work about ten in the morning when I received a text from her on my cell phone. She was in the restroom at school, and had just started her very first menstrual cycle. She was so upset, had nothing with her and was scared to even come out of the restroom. I told her I was on the way. When I reached the school to check her out, the secretary asked me why I was checking her out, so I told her. She asked me how I knew, and I told her. She immediately said she had to write her up for using her phone at school, because the principal(a male) had to be informed. It was just us two mothers... she and I alone in the office. I said to her could she please just let it slide. Of course the answer was 'NO", and by this time my daughter had reached the office. Forms were filled out, copied, xeroxed, stamped, and signed by all three of us. My daughter was mortified that the male principal had to "be informed. " After fuming, I took my daughter home and read the notice I had to sign... It stated any student "observed" using a cell phone, except for health reasons of other stated reasons that were in the code the county had adopted, would be written up. For PETE'S SAKE!! Did they not consider this a "health" issue... not to mention she had NOT been observed? I tried in vain to fight yet another battle with the county, to no avail . I think the whole situation was ridiculous on their part, and I told my daughter right in front of the secretary.. "you did NOTHING wrong, and you had EVERY right to call your mother... you did the right thing.... now sign this paper and let's go home. " Good luck you future teachers.. the county, the state and the federal government is going to throw every possible obstacle, form to fill out, and hoop to jump through, just for you to help our kids in the way that you want ; and they way that they desperately need. Kudos to you all....you are better than me... but truly and sincerely appreciated by me. ROCK ON TEACHERS!!! (especially you CHILI, you will be awesome... The county you will work for just doesn't know what they have coming their way.... KICK EM into shape once for me !) till next time...COTTON