Picture Day

Friday was picture day.

I've never before experienced picture day. The English teachers usually aren't out for it, I suppose. I can't imagine why...

I vaguely knew we had to go to the cafeteria. I thought I knew the way. As I had first period line up outside, I saw another English teacher leading her class. I told my kiddos to follow them. Turned out, I would have totally gone to the wrong side of the building if that other teacher hadn't been there.

Then she clued me in that I had to pick up cards to distribute to the kiddos. (The teachers are so helpful. They really are.) These cards had bar codes on them that the photographers scanned. That gave the computer enough info so the students' ID cards could be printed out immediately.

After that, I became an old pro fast. By sixth period I knew the drill. I instructed the two kiddos that didn't have cards (the card system was great, but these things are never perfect) to bring their schedules as the photographer just needed their student ID numbers. (The 8th graders know theirs, but the 7th graders have had these ID numbers for a total of seven days at this point.)

When it turned out the girls' schedules didn't have their ID numbers on them (deep sigh), I knew where to send them.

It was sixth period when the system went off the rails. They were short a couple photographers, so it took us all period to get through that line. Yikes.

During that time, one of the boys was in tears. Uh oh. Was he being bullied?

Then I got the full story. He had touched a fellow student on his shoulder. That boy didn't like being touched. He reacted. And the first boy got upset. But the two of them had worked it out, so they were friendly again.

Whew. (7th grade drama.)

But the one that is the real reason for this story...

I warned the kiddos a couple times during the week that picture day was on Friday. So, several of them had their order forms for their school pictures ready. Alaina was unsure if her mother had paid online or not. She asked if she could call her mom. As we weren't in class (the cafeteria was on the other side of campus), I told her to go ahead. She popped back into the room to grab her cell phone, and then we headed out.

When we got to the cafeteria (Alaina's mom said she had submitted her credit card info to where it needed to go), Alaina realized she had left the bar code card in the classroom. Deep sigh.

Well, no, she couldn't go back and get it. I had locked the classroom before we left. I had the kiddos leave their backpacks in there.

Alaina, of course, didn't know her student ID number. And I suppose I got busy and didn't think to send her to the office to have someone look it up.

By the time we finally left the cafeteria, Alaina was in tears. She thought she wasn't going to get her picture taken.

But I knew differently. Once we got to the classroom, I told her to grab her bar code card and go back. Considering the lines behind us, I knew she'd still have time. It's not like they were checking who belonged to which class. And we weren't doing anything in class that she couldn't miss.

It wasn't the first time that day that a student had to go back after we had finished in the cafeteria.

Crisis averted. Alaina and the other two girls retrieved their stuff from the classroom a good ten minutes after school had ended.

Considering that line, I'm surprised it didn't take them longer.