Today I reached a point I haven’t seen in a long time. At least, not this far into the school year. Today at about 11 a.m., I just–gave up. When it hit me that I had been at work for three hours and I had not managed to complete one task, I just–gave up. Fluck it. Not happening. What’s the point?
I am expecting six kids on Monday. Nineteen days into the school year, and only one of them is coming from another school. The other five haven’t been in school this year. That’s ten percent of the year they’ve missed already.
Five of the six are special ed. No, not one of their parents had a copy of the IEP. Isn’t acquiring that very important piece of documentation my job?
One of them, as far as I’ve been able to determine–I do know for certain that both mom and son lied about the last school he attended–has not been in school since last February.
The district made up another new job for me. 842 language preferences to enter, and I have to make a list of those who didn’t list a preference by grade, so the counselors can call and find out what language the people want us to talk to them in.
Did you know in–I think it’s Michigan?–this “meaningful access” thing has been taken to the point where the state needs to hire a Klingon translator? Yup, it’s gone that far. Apparently the law says “prefer,” not “need.” So they need a Klingon translator, as some people like to be funny.
Come to think of it, our wording is “prefer.” Maybe I ought to be studying Klingon.
I’ve thought about it. Seriously. The Klingon greeting, literally translated, means “what do you want?” I’d like to be able to talk to people like that. Maybe with the ten to thirty seconds of small-talk bullshit I saved on each person to wander their ass into my office, by the end of the day I might get some of my own damn work done.