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By Cindy Reitzi
Everyone knows that to thrive in a public school environment, you need to make friends with secretaries, custodians and now, increasingly, security guards. Like tendons to muscles, education support professionals are essential to the smooth functioning of schools. Without healthy tendons, muscles function haltingly, painfully, and without proper flexibility. Without good support, teachers have a much harder time smoothly running their classrooms.
Good security guards, like most personnel in schools, play a wider role than their title suggests.They are part police officer and hall monitor, part counselor, mentor, even surrogate parent. And if you're really lucky, part stand-up comic. Security guards are also a good indicator of "follow-up" in a school. Depending on the role administration assigns guards, they can be an invaluable source of information and assistance with students or a wasted resource. I'm always very nice to security guards because they've come to my assistance on numerous occasions when I couldn't leave a classroom and I needed a student escort or someone mobile.
One of my favorite security guards is Jeff. On one occasion in particular, not only did he help peg a "mystery" student, but added humor to a ridiculous situation.
I was subbing in a Resource Room, a small, quiet study center, where students can get study credit and homework help from resource teachers. It's also easier than "regular" study hall for a sub. In Resource Room, if students give you the, "I don't have any homework," excuse or consistently waste time, you can always send them back to "regular" study hall or dock them credit for that hour. You have more leverage than with large study halls.
One student refused to do any work that day and so I opted to boot him back to study hall. Unfortunately, I didn't know his name since the hall runner had already collected attendance. So, when I asked his name, he said, "Antonio Banderas." I was tired and wrote it down on the pass before I realized I was sending "Zorro" out of the room. He chuckled as he left and I went after him.
"Ok, what's your real name?" I demanded. He shrugged, stonewalling. When I told him to follow me to the office, he disappeared. His smugness infuriated me. So I called security. Jeff arrived to search for my runaway. Hands on hips, I sputtered my story,
". kicked the kid out . said he was Antonio Banderas . he disappeared ." I felt ridiculous.
Without missing a beat, Jeff said, drolly, "Well, if you see him again, tell him I didn't like him in Mask of Zorro. No mustache." I snorted with laughter and stopped my fuming.
While Jeff looked for him, I pondered. I knew the student thought he was getting away with this stunt since I didn't know his name. In high school world, that meant a victory the next time I subbed - "Ha, ha, I fooled that sub." So I pulled out my bag of artillery. Since this was a school where I could count on follow-up, I decided to write a referral since he had done plenty to get busted: he lied to me and falsely identified himself, refused to identify himself afterwards, and then, ditched me going to the office.
Since none of the other students would tell me, I'd find out his name later. "Narcing" went against the "high school code."
After the hour ended, I asked another resource teacher if she knew him.
"Oh, yeah, that's 'Colin.' " We matched descriptions and then she suggested that I ask Jeff to look up Colin's picture on Jeff's Palm Pilot. I flagged Jeff down, and he punched in Colin's name.
"Yup, that's him," I said, impressed with the technology. I was then able to put "Colin's" name, grade, and student number on the referral. At this point, I was in a better mood, so I added, "P.S.: Jeff, the security guard, said to tell him that he didn't like him in 'Mask of Zorro.' "
Usually when students pull these stunts, they don't anticipate that I'll return. Just as there is a high school code of silence for "narcing," the opposite is true when it comes to gossip - word gets around faster than a brush fire on a parched Wyoming field. This can work to your advantage as a sub. You get a "reputation."
The first time I realized I had a reputation was when I entered a 9th grade classroom and heard, "That's the one that marks you absent if you're not in your assigned seat."
When I walked into the Resource Room the last hour of the day before a break - usually a deadly time to sub - it was clear to me there had been "follow-up": studious silence and "Antonio" looking like he wanted to hide under the table.
I chuckled to myself. Antonio Banderas? In retrospect, it was kind of funny.
March 24, 2006