It's been awhile since my last update. I'm just sitting here on the couch basking in the AC on a Saturday morning. I don't like growing up...my body doesn't let me sleep too late anymore. I think I can sleep in about an hour later than a normal school day.
Anyhoo...I only have 17 days left with my students. I can't believe the school year is almost over with. It seems to fly by some days, and then drag on other days. This week just seemed to drag on. I don't know if I complained at the beginning of the year about my AC not working in my classroom, but it took them a good couple of months to get it working correctly for more than 2 days. Well, this week the AC decided to stop working. It decided to stop mid-day on either Monday or Tuesday, and we complained so we could get it fixed. It was working the next morning, but at about 9:15 as I was working with my small reading group, I heard a loud pop as I saw my lights surge and couldn't hear the AC anymore. That wasn't cool. It was SO hot in my classroom! It was so bad, that when you walked outside to the 90 degree weather, it was cooler out there. It was like that all week. Thursday morning I complained to one of my admin, and all I was told is that I could use certain areas of the building at certain parts of the day. As I was out talking to my admin, everyone else who was having problems (There are 5 rooms around me that don't have AC either) came out to complain too. We asked if they could at least get us fans (since there are no windows that open up to the outside in our school) to cool our rooms down a little bit. They told us we didn't have the budget to get fans. At that point, my room as well as the three connected to it, opened our doors to circulate air and the back rooms opened their doors to the playground to try and get air in. I emailed my sister to ask her to "be a concerned parent" and call our district region to complain about the conditions in our classrooms. I was coming home with headaches each night, and my kids were complaining of being nauseous and getting headaches too because of the heat. Luckily, Friday morning I was told by my admin that I HAD to move my class to another room because of parent complaints. I got to go to the PE room (we don't have gyms in elementary schools out here), where there were no tables or chairs. My kids did their work laying on the floor. I was sitting in one of the only chairs trying to teach yesterday, when I decided I could get on the floor for them too. They decided to complain about how cold it was in the room. I couldn't believe it! This whole thing with the AC is just ridiculous. Back home, I know we didn't have AC in school, but it didn't get up to 80 or 90 for too long in the beginning or end of the school year. Plus, we had windows that we could open and get a breeze going in. Ok, enough ranting.
I'm getting excited about summer. I'll be heading home mid June. Sue and I haven't decided if we're going to drive or fly. I think we're going to drive just so we have an extra car at home. I can't wait to see everyone, and be able to spend some time at home. This year I want to get up to the Dells for some Noah's Ark action though. Last summer just didn't feel right without going there!