I need to find some really professional looking sneakers.

This resource/part-time thing would be okay if I were just moving between the triangle of rooms that is M's, L's, and my classroom from last year (now a joint office with the health teacher/my resource area), but due to lockdown I now have to go get all the kids. And with PSSA tests, I have to get them to do make-ups, drop off tests to their advisors, find their advisors (since in what they're now calling the lockdown "model" the teachers rather than the students move), and figure out where to drop off said tests if their advisors are not present (as two were not today). So today first period for me went: second floor, boy's side (the school is split between "boys' side" and "girls' side" from back in the days when it was actually physically divided up that way- now it's just a reference), for my class's advisory, third floor girls' side, first floor boys' side, third floor girls' side, second floor boys' side... then I lost track.

Went up to drop off Jay's test. He wasn't in yesterday, evidently he was suspended but didn't know it (he said he was just tired and didn't feel like coming in... figures he wouldn't even know if he had been suspended, despite the fact that a parent is always supposed to come in to reinstate the child after a suspension). I have no idea what for. He was there today though, fifteen minutes late and at his locker as I checked his room. His advisor was out, so they split up her class (which is actually illegal, but not a battle worth fighting at the moment). I offered to take him but he refused, so I told him I'd come check on him in the room he was coming to. This was mostly just to annoy him, since I hadn't actually scheduled any time to see him today.

After trying fruitlessly to turn in his test, I walked around the corner toward his classroom-of-the-day. Predictably, he was out in the hallway with his arm around a girl who was giggling at something he said.

"Honey, get to class. You don't want to flirt with this kid! It's taken him fifteen minutes already to find the number of his classroom, he has trouble counting sometimes. You want somebody who acts smarter than that, right?"

The girl giggled some more and wandered off. Jay was annoyed, to say the least.

"Miss! What are you talking about? I can count! What are you doing? Tryin' to bust on me when I was with the shorty... Always following me around, trying to make me go to class... she's like an advocate or something..."

When a child in my school knows a word like "advocate" it's generally not a good sign. But he wandered into the classroom, I suppose to avoid me further humiliating him in the hall. I went and offered to both the teacher and the coordinator to send him down to me if he got to be a pain. Went back downstairs to try and turn in the test to someone else. The next period I was back up again, trying to turn in another test to another teacher who also wasn't there today. I open the door to a classroom on the opposite side of the building from where Jay was supposed to be... and lo and behold, there he is. It was a gym period, so their teacher, (stereotypically a pretty butch lesbian woman) was in there.

Jay looked up but didn't say anything, he just sighed in exasperation and turned away. I felt almost gleeful.

"Hi Jay!" I chirped brightly at him, and waved cheerfully, to maximize whatever embarassment potential there was. The gym teacher, Ms. Lez, cracked up, and I went over to ask her about the homeroom teacher and chat about Jay. Turns out she's actually fairly tight with him- I got a whole load of info today from her. I offered to take him, at which point he ran out of the room, but agreed to walk around with me while I kept trying to find out where this test (which I was at the point of throwing out the window) should go since the teacher was absent. When we got back to my resource space he checked out and ran back upstairs.
"I'm not going back in that retarded room!"

I called the teacher back to tell her he was coming back up, but we both agreed he'd probably be back in the hall.

A period and a half after that... I'm back up again. I don't even remember why that time (I have been on the third floor more in the last two weeks than I have in the last year and a half...). As I walk past Melissa's partner's class (yet another different room), I notice the same gym teacher again through a broken pane of glass in the door. She grinned at me and waved.

"You'll never guess who I got in here!"

I stuck my head in, and Jay looking up just buried his head in his arms before starting to complain again in his aggravated mumble.

"Damn, man! She's always following me around! She's like a stalker or something, she comes and finds me everywhere!"

Ms. Lez cracked up.

"Well, damn, Jay, what are you complaining about? I'm jealous! I wish I had a woman following me around all day. Especially a hot woman like A. Can we trade places? I want to have a hot woman following me around. I'd be bragging..." she was still talking as I took my cue to exit. She evidently had Big Jay (my Jay), Little Jay (his best friend), and one or two others of the "bad" kids of the eighth grade in the room with Melissa's sped kids. Melissa's kids, like the rest of mine, like to pretend that they're badass thugs, but the reality is that they're just punk adolescents who will one day grow out of it and are mostly just being pains in the butt until they do. Confronted with these other kids, who from everything I can gather actually are badass thugs, her kids were silent with fear most of the period, which Lez thought was hilarious.

After lunch I took two of the kids from my caseload in my normal class to do make-up testing. Halfway through, who should show up but the Tweedle-Jays. (I'm debating calling them that but I'm not sure they would even know the reference)

"Where are you guys supposed to be?"
"We're not supposed to be anywhere. Our teacher isn't here today." As though I hadn't been there the period they were in advisory and got sent to another classroom. I spent a while trying to figure out what room they should've been in just to call the teacher and let them know they were at least with an adult, but gave up. I think they've actually convinced themselves that they belong in the hallway.

"They still doing make-ups?" Jay asked me, looking at my kids.
"Yep."
"They retarded, dawg. Especially you." He pointed at the boy. "You got dropped on your head, like, five times." The boy laughed... he's not retarded, but it's amazing what misguided desire for peer approval will make you do... cause I swear he actually started acting as though he was. Not severely or anything, but I had a momentary flashback to Fuzzy from last year.
"They're not retarded. Trust me, I've had kids who actually had mental retardation in my class before. These two are not. You can argue with me all you want, but I have a degree in this. You might win some arguments, but not this one. Just leave my students alone to finish, please?"
Little Jay by this point had discovered the computer that I had hooked up in that room and was searching for cheat codes for video games. He told Big Jay to leave it alone. The conversation turned to special ed... it never fails to amaze me how that has somehow become synonymous for retarded.

"They think I'm retarded too... my mom did cause I was getting in trouble at school. I'm not though. I just don't do the work. That's why I'm in resource."
"Special ed doesn't mean you're retarded. It just means you're behind in something. You can get out of special ed. You're just behind because you don't come to school, and when you do, you don't come to class."
Little Jay started laughing from his computer. "She's right, dawg."
"You don't have to be, though... I could get you out of special ed. You're not stupid, we could get your levels up. Even if we got it up to sixth or seventh grade, not even eighth, I could move you out of resource into the next level where you don't have to come out every day, someone could just work with you when you're having problems. It's called itinerant level. Then you wouldn't have to deal with me coming and harassing you every day and following you around to get you to come. Right now, though, if I tried to move you, everybody would be like, 'Ms. A, you crazy? Jay? His levels are so low, and he doesn't do any work... no way."

Jay paused to think about it.

"I would stop checking in on every class you're in..." I ommitted that today that had been completely by accident... "You wouldn't have to deal with me anymore. But you gotta commit to working with me a little bit for a while, you can't run away. I have to say, Jay, my feelings are kind of hurt. You wouldn't come down here with me before, you ran away from me in the hall and got upset when I came to your classes... I'm starting to think you don't like me."

Big Jay sighed. Little Jay cracked up, evidently as engrossed in our conversation as he appeared to be on the website.

"Naw, Miss, he likes you. He like you a lot. He talk about you all the time."
Big Jay shot him a look.

"Well, you could just do itinerant with me, then. We could check in but you wouldn't have to come down except when you wanted to, and it'd probably be only a couple times a week. Otherwise, though, you're just going to wind up back in resource in high school and probably with someone you won't like."

"Then I just won't go."

I sighed. But he's only vaguely even planning on finishing high school anyway... I'm going to be kind of surprised if he even makes it through to 10th grade...

Ugh, had more to write but too tired. Evidently four of my boys got arrested today... lots of drama. Tomorrow. Hopefully with no drama of its own...