Adventures in Babysitting

Monday, August 15, 2011

I resigned

That's it. The title says it all. I resigned from my position at the school. It has a 3 fold explanation:

1. My mother is dying. No really, she is. She has Pulmonary Fibrosis and has outlived her life expectancy by three years. She has tried every experimental drug the doctors can shove on her and I think they have prolonged her life. Not to mention her fierce will to continue living and see her grandchildren do their thing. But now we truly think she's at the end. She's 6 feet tall and weighs maybe 105 lbs. She's on oxygen 100% of the time and doesn't eat much anymore. She turned 74 in June. My dad is 77 and is very healthy but needs to have breaks now and again from the care taking responsibilities. So I quit my job to help them out. Sounds like I'm a real great gal, doesn't it.

2. My husband needs an office assistant. He is a Family Therapist with his own business. I know he could make more money and finish more projects if he had someone to do the books, the billing, and the hodgepodge of office life that I can do so easily. We had thought about it for some time and feel that we can make the leap now without killing ourselves. (God, please don't let us kill ourselves!--A serious prayer.)

3. I was sick of the District I work for. Aside from the fact that the district is the best run in the state and the legislature hate us, which I love, they have a backward way of thinking. It's an good old boys' club. Everyone hides behind each others coattails so no one takes the blame for anything. I just got sick of it. But, and it's a big but, if my mother's health hadn't turned I probably would have gone down in a blaze of glory. I could sue them and win. I could sue the teacher at my school--you know who you are you backstabbing bitch--who sent the district the anonymous letter. It's an anonymous blog people. And for the record I know of a few more people in the district who work in Special Ed that have blogs they write about their students and it's NOT anonymous. Go figure out who they are because I'm not a tattle tell.

And that's where I stand. I am still heavily involved in the PTA. I have one child left at the elemProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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tary school which I was formerly employed. I'm still going to be in the school often enough and have friends that will tell me stories that will make their way to my blog.

So watcha gonna do to me now, Big Bad District? HUH?! What now?!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Email

I got in trouble with the district again over this blog. It's still here of course but I am the only who can view it unless I've invited someone over, which I dn't know if I'll do.

some "anonymous" person sent an email to my school board, the Pal and the PTA President. The only reason I knew it was sent in the first place is becaause the PTA President and I are friends. But by the time she got a look at it and called me about it it was too late. The Superintendent had already put a bug in the ear of the head HR guy. The were able to copy my entire blog (which I hope entertained them. You know it did) and get in touvh with the Pal.

On Monday this week The Pal went up to the DO to talk to the HR guy and was fully expecting to be told to fire me but he wasn't. He asked the Pl what he wanted to do with me. The Pal said I don't know. The head HR guy suggested that they suspend me for a day to which the Pal replied, "Why are you punishing me and rewarding her." They finally decided that tge Pal would write up a formal letter and I would sign it and that would be all.

The thing this person wasn't relying on was my relationships with members of the school board, the Superintendent and the head HR guy. The Pal even asked if it had been anyone else would they have been fired and the HR guy said, Most likely. Makes me smile.

BTW--I've just heard that the district is finally adapting Twitter, FB and other programs to help get the good word out on their website. My suggestion? Be careful who views it. I can't wait to see what happens.

And here is the email for your viewing pleasure:

I am anonymously emailing all of you to inform you of the information below, involving one Mrs. Kara Sherman, employee at Forbes Elementary School, in your school district. I do not live in your school district, not even in your state....but what Mrs. Sherman is doing is WRONG!

Mrs. Sherman became a random "follower" of someone I "know" on Twitter and that is how I became aware of the situation I am about to describe for you. Please follow the links below, as they demonstrate the problem Mrs. Sherman has created.

Once my acquaintance noticed he/she had a new follower on Twitter, he/she clicked on the new follower's Twitter profile:

http://twitter.com/wampumqueen

It was at that time, apparent that the follower was Mrs. Kara Sherman as she had, at that time, listed at the top right of her Twitter page the following information:

Name Kara Sherman

Location iPhone: 40.381561,-111.782326

Web http://elementary..

Bio Wife and Mother Extraordinaire, Family Engineer, Lady of Leisure, Elementary school secretary

This information gives her EXACT location from her iPhone as well as the URL to her own personal blog:

http://elementarysecretary.blogspot.com/

After reading through what Mrs. Sherman "blogs" about from her position as secretary at an elementary school, it was clear to us that she is repeatedly publicly disclosing, and with horrible biases, information that she in her position of employment has absolutely no business whatsoever disclosing on the Internet or otherwise. Also, Mrs. Sherman doesn't just blog about the students of Forbes Elementary School, she blogs about their parents, grandparents, school employees, etc as well. In her blog, Mrs. Sherman passes harsh judgement, gossips, makes gross assumptions, all while violating the privacy of the students and parents she was hired to serve by making it public! It is obvious that Mrs. Sherman has been blogging about events, students, and parents at Forbes Elementary School in a mean spirited, prejudiced, inappropriate manner....all on her personal blog and doing so WHILE AT WORK!

Although on her blog, Mrs. Sherman does NOT list the name of the school she works for, a simple Google search of her name, "Kara Sherman", yields several results, such as:

Her Google Profile, specifically listed her place of employment BY NAME & the School District's Name at first and she has since removed that info. However, your School District's name is mentioned in her LinkedIn info: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kara-sherman/1a/789/698 where she also again posts a link to her 2 BLOGS, one link is now not functional, but her "family" blog is accessible still.

I respectfully submit that anyone can Google another person's name/Twitter name and unfortunately, links to her current blog is what will come up on the worldwide web for all to see, thanks to Mrs. Kara Sherman.

TODAY'S Update: I typed this email and saved it as a Draft MONTHS AGO but never sent it until today. I thought maybe Ms. Sherman changed her ways. Until I saw her Twitter name pop up in an re-tweet today A short amount of digging & it appears Mrs. Sherman has changed her "name" on Twitter to "Elizabeth Poppleton" and removed her Location and her website URL from her Twitter page.....but still has "Wampuqueen" as her Twitter username, which when "Wampumqueen" is googled http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=0h&oq=wampum&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADRA_enUS392US392&q=wampumqueen and searched through Blogger http://www.blogger.com/profile/05958282429189357990 still leads you to her NON FAMILY website, titled: "Adventures in Babysitting" now located at http://queenofsecretaries.blogspot.com/ Please GO READ HER POSTS! :(

Note: She has blog posts on her website from 2/15/11, 2/21/11 and 3/8/11 referencing her "problems with the district", brags about her steps to hide her blog on the internet, references to having a lawyer, how she will continue to blog about the students/school after being spoken to about her blog by the "Pal" Principal, and her intent to continue using her iPhone during work to post, access social media, etc.

Signed,

Anonymous parent of a special needs child, HIGHLY IRRITATED!

Once my acquaintance noticed he/she had a new follower on Twitter, he/she clicked on the new follower's Twitter profile:

http://twitter.com/wampumqueen

It was at that time, apparent that the follower was Mrs. Kara Sherman as she had, at that time, listed at the top right of her Twitter page the following information:

Name Kara Sherman

Location iPhone: 40.381561,-111.782326

Web http://elementary..

Bio Wife and Mother Extraordinaire, Family Engineer, Lady of Leisure, Elementary school secretary

This information gives her EXACT location from her iPhone as well as the URL to her own personal blog:

http://elementarysecretary.blogspot.com/

Although on her blog, Mrs. Sherman does NOT list the name of the school she works for, a simple Google search of her name, "Kara Sherman", yields several results, such as:

Signed,

Anonymous parent of a special needs child, HIGHLY IRRITATED!

Monday, March 21, 2011

Dear Diary

Back before I started blogging I used to make entries into my computer about things that had happened here in the school. Mostly for legal reasons: in case we got sued. Now I just keep the blog.

The following are two entries I made regarding one of the craziest families we've ever had. There were two kids and their parents (both unemployed) who lived with the Grandma who was as looney as a....I don't know what. No, I mean she was out of her gourd. She came roaring in here once and tried to intimidate me as I'm sure she was used to doing then when I wouldn't cow she called me ugly, "You are an ugly woman," is what she said. To which I responded by climbing over my desk to get her but luckily Bossy was coming up behind me and grabbed me before I could get very far. That would have been one dead Grandma.

We called the school they had been in before coming here and found out they had had a restraining order against Grandma and we told her she wasn't allowed in the school her either or we would get a restraining order against her, too. I guess at the previous school she had been VERY abusive to the office staff and they were quite scared of her. Yeah. I don't scare easily. She had met her match.

By the way, they kids only lasted till the end of the year then they transferred to another school. Grandma got picked up for shoplifting, not a first offense, and spent some time in jail. On that note: Enjoy!

11/7/07—At 9:45 am an aide called me to say that as The Whale was going out to recess she heard him say that at 10:00 he was going to get sick and call his grandma and she was going to come take him home. At precisely 10:00 he came into the office complaining of a stomachache. I told him that the aide had called me and told me what he had said and that he was NOT calling his grandma. I told him he could lie down on the nurse’s couch for a minute. He moaned and whined and put on a good act. At 10:05 his teacher called to say that the kids had come back from recess saying that The Whale had gone into the bathroom and ate soap. After I got off the phone I said to him, “Whale! You don’t eat soap. Now you’re really not calling home.” A few minutes later he cam out of the nurse’s office saying, “I feel much better now. I’m going back to class.” I said, “You do that.”

11/13/07—The Whale came in and called his mother asking her to come to an assembly. He said that she told him she was coming. Apparently she came. Anyhow, he came back with his teacher after the assembly crying big crocodile tears howling that his mom and his grandma were going on a big boat ride and he didn’t get to say good-bye and that his real dad was going to come get him and take him away to a foreign country. We let him call home but did not hear the conversation. He told us that she was coming to get him. When she came she asked if he looked really sick and Bossy said that that was not the story and proceeded to tell the mother his story. She was hoppin’ mad and when he got back down to the office he was grilled by his mother as to what he said and he refused to tell her. Finally, Bossy told him that he needed to tell his mother what he had told her and his teacher. After he did his mother just started screaming and cussing him up one side and down the other about lying, etc. which went on for quite awhile…..then she proceeded to check him out of school!!! She yelled at him all the way out to her car and while she was driving out of the parking lot. What did she teach him? That it doesn’t matter what she says he got out of school anyway.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

More Funny Pictures

Passing through the halls I see some fun drawings the kids do. This first one is done by a girl in 2nd grade. They were to write down their 5 top needs that they couldn't live without. I liked her comment about parents (excuse my bloody bandaid covering her name):

You can barely see it but it says Parents: they need your love. All the other signs if they had mentioned their parents said that they (the child) needed their parents love. I thought that this particular one was just so cute.

The next one is by a kindergarten. Since it was President's Day and around George Washington's Birthday they made George Washington hats and then listened to a story about George. Some liked that he was very tall and strong, some liked that he had a dog, some liked that he didn't wear a wig but powdered his own hair, and some liked that he had big feet:

I just stood there and stared. It's of course supposed to be a foot but......

Momma Always Says, "Stupid Is As Stupid Does"

I haven’t posted in awhile. I’ve been letting the turmoil die down a little bit. I have figured out who called the district office about me as this same person, apparently calls the district office on almost a daily basis. She has made a name for herself up there and it’s not a nice name. Speak of the devil: she just walked in. I was less than helpful and borderline rude. I can’t help it; apparently it’s in my nature.

Last week in a meeting with school administration, teachers, PTA presidents and parents this particular person used blanket statements about the school, teachers, and secretaries such as: Everyone thinks this school is horrible, No one care about the children, Everyone wants reform, Nobody likes the secretaries, Everyone thinks they are rude and mean, etc. etc. Sounded to me like a certain religious women’s group had gotten together and talked about it and this is what we’re hearing. This is the problem with rabble-rousers.

Then she went on to introduce a plan to increase morale and increase teacher productivity: To send out a questionnaire with loaded questions on how each teacher is doing individually and what they can do better. Then take all the negative remarks, give them to the teachers, with a timeline of when these specific things are to be addressed. One teacher that was in the meeting started to cry a little bit out of total outrage and responded with this: If you do this and you put anything in front of me I will walk out the door and never return.

Of course, then the reply was: Oh we’re not talking about YOU. But I thought she had used all those blanket statements………

The Pal put an end to her rousing of the rabble and moved the meeting along but not before every person in the room was offended.

She is attending the school’s PTA meeting today to tell them what they are doing wrong. I shall be in attendance at the meeting to keep her in line with a little thing called Robert’s Rules of Parliamentary Procedure. I shall be representing the Region PTA and myself a school PTA member. I can’t wait. I truly can’t.

The meeting was by the way about how to spend state education moneys at the school. She was WAAAYYY out of bounds. But that has never stopped stupid people before.

Monday, February 21, 2011

An Oldy But Still a Goody

Before I start my funny story a quick update on the blog problem with the district. They are desperately trying to find my blog on the web. They don't realize that I am smarter than the average person when it comes to the interwebs and hiding things on said net. So I am still going as of now and I have a pretty good case to back me up if it comes to it. Plus, a lawyer. Yes, I will sic a lawyer on my beloved district.

Anywho...

In the fall about 4 years ago I happened to wander out to the playground to see what was the haps during lunch recess. It was warm so I was there. I'd been out there for a few minutes when several little girls came running up to me and yelling that there were boys in the pine tree (there is a lone, large pine tree on one side of the playground) and they were peeing off the tree. I expected to see the "usual suspects" but was very surprised to find the best 4 or 5 boys in 6th grade peeing out of the tree. They had climbed out of the tree once the other kids started yelling that I was coming over and were trying to get away but I radioed in to Bossy to call them into the office.

Here they came one crying already, a couple smiling sheepishly, and the others looking quite guilty. The one that really cracked me up was a kid who had just had shoulder surgery and his arm was in a sling then tied to his body. I couldn't figure out for the life of me how he'd climbed that tree one-armed then manage to unzip and let it rip.

We took them into the then Pal's office and made them call their mothers--they were suspended for a 1/2 day. They all turned into blubbering messes when confronted by their mothers. Most of them got a good lecture from their moms but the one who had the arm in the sling his mom just laughed and laughed. Which was amusing to the rest of us. We were all giggling about it too. It was just to funny not to laugh.

The other day the kid with the sling (now, of course not in a sling) came in to check out his sister and I said, "Hey, remember when you climbed up the pine tree one-armed and peed out of the tree?" He said, "Oh man, I was hoping you had all forgotten that." He said he would never forget that and he didn't know what had come over him that day. I told him that that was one of our favorite stories to recount. Bossy and I just laughed and laughed while we recounted it with him. His older sister was there with him and hadn't heard the story. We were glad to tell it again.

I finally asked him how he had climbed that tree with one arm and he said he didn't know but where there's a will there's a way.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Pretty Pissed Off

Today the Pal had me come into the office and shut the door. NEVER a good thing. I know because it happens way too often for me. I'm getting in trouble.

I sat down and he came right to the point. Shut down the blog. It was a direct directive/order from the district. Some parent called up to the district office and asked for the Pal's boss then proceeded to tell her that I have this blog. She is worried that every time she opens it up she will see a story about her or her children. Well, DUH! She just might at that. And for that matter, she is now! And by the way, if you don't want to see something then don't go looking for it!

Then he told me that I was not allowed to Tweet from school and that I was to avoid all social media from there.

Here is my solution:

I won't Tweet from my computer, however, I will use my iPhone as the district can't track that. Also, I blocked Twitter a few weeks ago from my Facebook feed which is where the problem came from as some of my Tweets leaked through to Facebook. Also, I blocked my Twitter account so only those who are my followers can see my Tweets and anyone who wants to follow me has to ask for my permission. And, I changed the address to my blog and made it so the old address would not redirect.

I is a college gradeate.

So my friends, there you have it.

If this particular person has found her way to this blog your worst nightmare has now come true. Also, if you want me to censure myself then have the balls to come talk to me yourself.

That is all.