"I'd take a grenade for you"

There is NEVER a dull moment when teaching sophomores. Unfortunately, the latest incident in room 121 occurred while I was out for the day. Last Friday I received a text message from the teacher who is across the hall from my room. Her text read "Call me ASAP!" Because I was out and had a substitute, (this is a weekly occurrence because of tennis) I figured that the sub was having some minor difficulties with my students. What an understatement. I called Ms. K and she proceeded to inform me that one of my lovely students had brought a fake grenade to school and put it on his desk. Yes, it was fake but apparently very realistic looking and the substitute called for an administrator (she was very discreet, the students didn't even know she had notified them). There was then a fire drill and all students were escorted outside (at lunch, in the rain, 40 degree weather). The sheriffs office came out and arrested the student in front of everyone. Once he was taken away, the students were then taken to the middle school gyms so the bomb squad could search the entire school. The school was on lock-down for 4 hours.
My phone has never gone off so many times in one day! I had teachers contacting me, people in town calling me, friends who had seen on the news and facebook texting me. It was crazy. And so typical for my group of students. It happened during 4th period---the class that I have 35 students and 2 student aid. On any given day in that class there are 38 people in the room. Of course when I got back to school on Monday for staff development I was given so much grief for not even being here. I'm so thankful I wasn't because I do not know how I would have handled that situation but the sub did wonderfully. I think she deserves a bonus because I know when I was a sub, bombs were one of my worse nightmares. Bombs are still a nightmare but at least I go through training and drills before and during school! My students definitely know how to keep life interesting!

News article about MV bomb threat