Skipping School, Seventh Grade Style

So Mrs. Aide, Mrs. Eagle and I are at breakfast this morning at the local waffle and egg establishment by The School and Mrs. Aide relates the following story.

Yesterday, after she worked the sixth grade lunch, she realized that she'd left something in her car that she needed for one of her small group reading classes.  No big deal, she called up to the front office and left the building for a moment to go out to her car.  However, she's walking to the car and she sees a kid pedaling around the parking lot on his bicycle.  He's pedaling around and around like he hasn't a care in the world.  He sees her, waves, and keeps pedaling.  In fact, he pedals up by her, says "Hi!" and then pedals off again.

And she's thinking, okay, school is in session and there's a kid - whom she recognized as being one of our students - just riding his bike around the parking lot.  Truly strange.

So, she goes inside, grabs Mrs. Sparrow and tells her that she thinks we have a kid on the loose.  "There's a kid riding his bicycle all around the parking lot," she says.

Mrs. Sparrow is incredulous.  "Seriously?  He's just out there riding around?"

"Seriously," said Mrs. Aide.  "I know he's one of ours, and he may be a seventh grader.  I just don't know his name."

So, while Mrs. Sparrow sent out our SRO to check this out, Mrs. Aide and the Guidance Goddess go through the absence list and pull up photographs of the absent seventh graders.  It didn't take long before she was able to identify him.  Not only was he listed as absent for yesterday, but he'd also been absent the day before.

Mrs. Sparrow calls Bicycle Mom and asks her if her son had been at school on Wednesday.  "Oh yes!" she answers.  "He was there."  What about Thursday?  "Oh yes, he was there too as well!," answers Bicycle Mom.  Mrs. Sparrow then informs her that although he may have gone to school on the days in question, it appears that he never made it in the building.

So Bicycle Boy was busted.  (He's one of Mrs. Eagle's kids, not one of mine.)  He earned himself three days of ISS for his little vacation from school.

But seriously, you have to wonder.  I mean if you're ditching school...why would you spend your time riding your bike around the school parking lot???

Ah, the seventh grade mind...

Oh Yeah, I Am Alive

Sorry for the lapse in posting for a while. Didn't mean to run out on ya'll like that.

First we had our guest post April Fool's thing going, thanks to Mr. Teacher. (That Mr. Teacher, he's so silly!)

And then hubby and I went out of town for a weekend to do some Civil War battlefield touring in Georgia before spring completely sprung (you can't see earthworks much past late April due to the plant life!)

And of course Hubby's computer died and he's been using mine until we got a new one and got it set up.

So, I've been out of pocket for a bit.

And, what with dealing with the final review before our Very Big Deal Government Mandated Test next week, it's been a bit crazy.

And of course, there's always Nurse Groupie.

If this kid spent the energy she currently uses scheming for ways to visit the nurse or call home, on her school work, she'd be on the honor roll.

She survived one day without a visit to the nurse or a call to home after we implemented the plan where Mrs. Sparrow, our Assistant Principal, had to approve any such visits or calls home.

The second day she asked each of us to go to the nurse to get "personal girl things", which didn't work because we simply told her to sit down and Mrs. Sparrow would come deal with her. Which she did.

The next day she simply took herself to the nurse between classes to get her "personal girl things," and while she was there to get a baby aspirin (for who knows what.) The nurse, who usually doesn't do anything without a form filled out by a teacher, asked who gave her permission to be there, and she informed the nurse that Mr. Math did, and since she had a hallpass lanyard around her neck, the Nurse went ahead and took care of her. Only problem was she didn't ask permission, and the hallpass lanyard was really her house key on a similar colored lanyard.

Mr. Math was livid, Mrs. Sparrow even more so, and NG ended up in in-school suspension for a day. Mrs. Sparrow also called mom and informed her that it was not the school (or taxpayer's) responsibility to provide her with "personal girl things". Apparently Nurse Groupie's reasoning is that her purse is too little to carry such things so she simply wants to get them from the nurse (every class period, or every 47 minutes or so).

So today we get an email from Mom. Nurse Groupie has contacts. She also has drops with her, but mom says she's not to leave class to put the drops in. She also has some more allergies (and a new doctor appointment to get different meds) but she has a little tube of Vicks that she can rub on her nose as she's not to leave class. However, if a contact falls out, we should send her to the nurse to help her put it in as Mom doesn't want the contact lost. In other words, unless a contact comes out, She Is Not To Leave Class According to Mom.

Guess who's popping her contacts out and then wanting to go to the nurse/bathroom to put them back in every period?

Guess who now has to go to Guidance when her contact "falls" out and has to put them in under adult supervision and is then escorted promptly to class?

Yup, Nurse Groupie.

I wish, while Mom was at the doctor figuring out new allergy meds, she'd get the kid a psych eval to try to figure out this obsession with getting out of class to see the nurse, or to call home and go home. It's not like it's any particular class (it's all of them, even electives), or a kid bothering her, or a teacher she doesn't like, or whatever. Part of me is thinking she doesn't want to grow up and simply wants her mother to baby her and to let her stay home and watch television and do nothing. I don't know.

But man, she's wearing on our last nerve.