Time to start checking the Want Ads

That's what I feel like doing after my first day back teaching. My previous experience is that the students are really squirrely at the end of the school year in June, we have a few weeks off, the students come back somewhat sedated, and then their behavior starts a slow deterioration until we finish in June again.

After today, it was apparent that the students decided to skip the sedated part. My 6th period class was so out of control, I didn't even get the chance to introduce myself until halfway into the period. It was a total farce of a class. I wasn't the only teacher either. During my 8th period prep, a student knocked on my door. She had been kicked out of another teacher's classroom and was sent to me. I have never seen a student kicked out on the first day, and I'll tell you, I was this close to removing some students during that threshold of hell known as 6th period. Another teacher told me that she would have kicked some students out, but there were so many who qualified, she didn't know what to do with them all.

One thing that didn't help was the number of students we teachers were assigned. I have six classes, and my class rosters for today showed the respective numbers for each period:

1st - 38
2nd - 37
3rd - 38
4th - 35
6th - 37
7th - 36

That's 221 students that - on paper - I have to teach. Granted, not that many students showed up today; I had about 20 absences. Still, that leaves just over 200 students who passed through my classroom today. That is waaaay too many middle schoolers to face over the course of an instructional day. The year I taught high school, I only taught five periods, and I had a total of only about 130 students at most.

Bottom line is that it was a horrible start to our new school year, and now I have to face these kids tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day....

Good Day to You, Sir