Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Graffiti

Somewhere between Sunday evening and Monday morning there was graffiti found on my school that said "Virginia Tech" and had tomorrow's date. When I heard it on the news Monday (I had taken the day off), I was surprised, but didn't feel overly concerned. For the past few days, all the kids at school have been talking about it, taking every opportunity to ask me what I think and if I'm coming to school tomorrow. I've assured them all that I'll be there and the school is taking every precaution. I reminded them that if they hear anything specific, they shouldn't hesitate to tell someone, because this is not a joke. They've all told me they heard it was done by kids from our rival school. I think they'd accuse our rival school of doing just about anything, but it sounded plausible. They've all informed me that they're not coming to school tomorrow. I actually had 2 students stop by today to get their assignments for tomorrow. I heard a couple of teachers talk about whether or not they were coming.
I'm trying to remain level-headed, but the closer I get to tomorrow morning, the more I start to worry. I've rationalized it a million different ways. Kids who were actually going to do something wouldn't warn you first...would they? I feel 90% sure that it was a stupid prank, but that 10% keeps nagging at me. What if something happens? We haven't had any kind of faculty meeting this week. The only information given was a written description of what happened and the "security measures" being taken that was distributed to the students. No one has mentioned what we might do if something did happen. There's evidence that someone who is not enrolled at my school was in my class Monday. Another non-student was found in first period today. I don't feel completely confident that the administration has this under control. We have an assembly at 9:45. One thing's for certain, my door will be locked all day tomorrow and my cell phone will in my pocket.

No comments: