Another Year

The door opened.
"Get out!"
Pennington ejected.

The assistant principal walked by, "You can't possibly be kicked out on the first day of school, go back in"

So I opened the door, but the teacher didn't want him back in. Its not a good idea to piss off the assistant principal or aggravate a coworker on the first day of school, so off I went on my errands with Pennington ("the boy with two last names" the British evaluator who came to review the quality of our school two years ago, called him. Pennington, a virtual energy pack of activity had spent the whole period, the British evaluator observed, yawning and stretching. This earned Pennington's portfolio extra attention from our friendly Brit. Why we needed to import someone to review the school is a long story and hardly worth telling since the economic downturn means suddenly the local superintendents are capable of assessing quality and anyway everyone knows that the only real way to find out if a school is successful is to look at the standardized test scores-I read the papers!)

But I digress.
Pennington and I strolled down the hall distributing and collecting paperwork.

"Don't be too hard on Ms. Ejecting Teacher," I said. She had a real difficult summer and still is dealing with a sick baby.

"Yeah, I got to keep reminding myself of that, Pennington, acknowledged contritely.

And it was time for him to return to the room

But wait- first my computer had to be connected.


We have a new principal. Things were off to a rough start. Student programs not ready for opening day, teachers' schedules not ready, room assignments -not ready.
Chaotic start.

But my computer works.
Pennington apologized.

Another school year begins.