I Wasn't Expecting This!

I was finally going to meet my students today. It was the first day for freshman, and I have four sections of 9th graders, so I was SOOO looking forward to introducing myself as their first high school English teacher. There was one minute (literally) until the bell ran for my students to come to my room, and the fire alarm went off.

Someone must have pulled the alarm, I thought to myself, so I put my cell phone down on my desk, thought about taking my purse with me, and walked out of my room, leaving everything behind.

I helped usher the kids out, doing my teacher duty. Once outside, I found a friend and said, "Was this planned? Did I miss the memo?"

She looked at me and said, "Umm...There is something wrong. This isn't a drill."

My heart started pounding.

The Principal's gathered the staff together and told us we needed to account for all the kids. So we started rounding kids up, calling out numbers and names. After about half an hour, we figured we had rounded everyone up. Next it was time to account for all the teachers. We gathered together by departments, and the English department discovered we were missing five people. We eventually found three (they had left for lunch), and discovered the other two had been taken away to be evaluated because they were both pregnant (no one knew one of them was pregnant-cat's out of the bag, now!)

By this time, an hour had passed and no one knew what was going on. They gathered the staff together again to let us know that there was some type of chemical or gas in the air that was causing people to get sick. One girl even passed out. Rumor has it that an AP was gasping for breath and no one knew what she was trying to say until they figured out she couldn't breathe. That's when they pulled the alarm. They took all the pregnant ladies (three of them had not told anyone they were pregnant-now everyone knows) to the hospital to check them out. Several students were decontaminated, which means they had to take off their clothes and be sprayed down with water before being taken to the hospital.

To make a very, very long story kind of short, we eventually got all the kids home around 2pm. I had to talk to three parents to ask permission if their child could walk home. Once all the kids were gone, they released the teachers. However, most of us had all our stuff still in our rooms, but they weren't letting us back into the school.

I had Shannon's number memorized, so I called her and she said she'd come pick me up. I had to wait almost an hour for her to come, but in the meantime, the fire fighters and police were trying to figure out what the heck was going on in the school. They had no idea what the smell was or where it was coming from. They said that when the vents were off, everything was OK, but when they turned them back on, even some firefighters were getting sick.

Shan finally arrived about three hours after this entire ordeal started. I was ticked off that I had to leave my purse, phone and keys inside, but they weren't allowing anyone back in the building.

Tonight, Shan and Jeff took me back to my car so I at least could drive around (I had a spare at home). There was a police officer guarding the front door, but I decided to ask him if by chance he'd let me inside to get my stuff. Just by pure luck he said the principal was on his way and once he arrived, they would let us in for five minutes to get our stuff. Talk about perfect timing. The principal showed up about five minutes after I did, so I was able to go get my stuff. Yay!

At this point, they still don't know what the odor was that was causing people to become sick (or if they do, they haven't told us). They are doing tests all weekend and airing the building out. They will notify us Sunday afternoon to let us know if school is cancelled Monday.

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Needless to say, I still haven't met my students yet :(

And I learned a very valuable lesson. NEVER, EVER leave my phone and purse in the room in case of an emergency or fire drill. I never knew it could be so hard to be away from my phone for seven hours. I am well loved, though. I had 13 texts from friends asking if I was OK. Some were freaking out since I wasn't answering my phone, but I am A-OK!

How's that for a first day of school? And it's officially my first day of teaching as a first year teacher. Who knew high school could be so exciting? Can anyone beat that story for their first day of teaching and/or high school? These poor freshman. Hope they show up Monday for school!