My Exciting Day at work

Life as a teacher can sometimes be very exciting and other days quite boring. Well, Wednesday January 5 turned out to be a kind of exciting day. My classroom is right at the end of the hall so a few feet from my classroom door is a door to the outside. One of my friends and I were standing in the hall outside my classroom when I happened to look out the window and see a small building flaming. I found out later it was the announcer booth and concession stand at the baseball field. It wasn't an extrememly large fire when I first saw it. The flame was probably only about a foot or so. My friend ran into my room to call the office, I happened to notice one of our maintenance men standing down the hall so I ran off to get him (okay walked quickly). By the time I returned to the window maybe 2 minutes had passed and the building was completely engulfed. I mean huge flames, 10-15 feet high. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the flames, but I didn't think of getting my camera (which was in my purse) until the fire company had already come. Pretty soon word was spreading around the school and Seidah (the principal) had to make an announcement explaining what was happening and that we weren't in any danger, and telling the kids to go on to their classes and not to wander the halls trying to see what was going on. This happened during my period off so I had an hour of free time so three other teachers and I stood guard to keep kids from trying to get outside, and to urge them on to class. It was pretty funny seeing these kids wander around and the excuses they came up with. The "good" kids would walk by with their head down so that they couldn't possibly be accused of anything like looking. A few kids tried to look past us to see. Then there were a couple who we saw more than once. One kid when asked where he was coming from couldn't think of a lie quick enough and when he told us where he was coming from it was completely on the other side of the school. We said why are you over here and he said that he liked to walk. Really in the middle of your English class, you like to take walks. Pretty funny. Anyway here are a couple of pics that I did manage to get.

This is right after the fire company first hosed it down.

Smoldering frame

Almost out



The charred remains

We have a county sheriff who is our school resource officer. At one point we saw her go running into the woods and thought "Oh good she caught somebody!" Pretty soon she and another sheriff came out of the woods with a couple kids. It turns out that some high school kids were skipping school and got really cold. They decided that to stay warm that it would be a good idea to light a fire in the plastic garbage can that was right next to the concession stand. The fire soon got out of hand and when that happened they took off into the woods. I guess they are being charged with arson and will probably really be in some serious trouble. Just another exciting day in the life of a middle school teacher.