My son's QUEST class had a tournament for Destination Imagination Saturday. It was held at the Mississippi University for Women in Columbus, Mississippi.
Hubby and I went as spectators. We took our personal vehicle and paid for our own room at the same hotel.
Now that you know the basics, I've documented the trip. This is a very long entry and I don't blame you if you don't want to read it all. I just wanted it documented for later.
I dropped my son off at the school at 7:30 a.m. on Friday and helped him with his luggage. I tried to hand his teacher the required $30 for his food for 2 days. She wouldn't accept it from me because "I was going to be there and I could just pay for his food myself". Okay, no big deal.
I asked what time the bus was leaving the school. 8:15 a.m. she said. She told me I could meet them at a parking lot in town where the other parents and teachers were going to be leaving their cars. We were to meet them at 8:30 a.m.
I went home and loaded the car with hubby's and my stuff. We were packed and ready. We arrived at the parking lot at 8:17 a.m. after topping the gas tank off.
We waited. And waited. Finally the bus arrived. My son's teacher walked over to our car and told us that she had changed OUR room that WE paid for to be adjoining with five of the 10 year old boys room and that she wanted us to "watch that they didn't do anything inappropriate".
Wait a dang minute. The other 3 adults were going as team parents and the school paid for their rooms. We were going as SPECTATORS and paid for our room OURSELVES. Something smelled really rotten.
I told her that I had specifically requested a certain type room so that hubby would have ease in setting up his bi-pap machine and we needed internet connections so that he could work from the hotel at night and that she should not have changed OUR room. I was getting a little anxious. Hubby was getting more than anxious.
The first stop we made was at a truck stop in Jackson. There was a bathroom on the bus, but some of the teachers did not want to use that bathroom. Hubby talked to the bus driver for a few minutes and asked which route he was taking to Columbus. He was a real friendly guy and he and hubby talked until the bus was loaded and ready to go.
Our next stop was in Starkville to eat at a buffet-style restaurant. The crazy teacher in charge of the itinerary and trip had not thought to call ahead to see if they could handle 37 kids and 6 adults (not including hubby and me or the bus driver) for a 12:15 rush hour lunch.
The bus driver phoned ahead and made the necessary plans. Not his job, but he did it.
At this restaurant, you paid before you ate. There was something for everyone. Kids were $5.00 each with free beverages and adults paid $6.49 plus $1.59 for their beverages. The 15% tip was included in the bill. Not a bad price for a great meal at all. The bus driver ate for free. Good for him!
They escorted us to a private dining room and the kids all sat at a table of their choosing with whomever they wanted to. They were having so much fun. Next thing we knew, son's crazy teacher was YELLING at them to be quiet. I just looked at her. You could hear her over the kids at any given time.
Hubby took it upon himself to quietly go to the table where our son was seated and told the boys there to keep it down to a whisper. That worked, so he went to all the other tables and asked them to just whisper. The kids were really quiet, mainly because they didn't know hubby. *snort*
The only noise was coming from the teachers table and the kids DID pick up on that and laughed about it quietly while we shot winks at each table. After about 30 minutes, the teachers realized that the kids were being totally quiet and THEY were the loud ones. Lesson learned.
The kids were scheduled to go bowling. The bowling alley was located right next to the restaurant, but did they go bowling then? No. They loaded the kids up on the bus and went to the hotel and checked in 30 miles away. They let the kids wander around the hotel...mostly unsupervised for a couple of hours.
We were located on the second floor with five 10 year old boys staying in the room next to us. The rooms did not adjoin. The rest of the group was located on the third floor.
The kids staying next to us didn't leave their room that we know about. (My son included.) All of the kids rooms were supposed to have an adult staying with them. All rooms except for 3 had NO adult in the room. The teachers all stayed in a room together. Two ladies and one man stayed in 3 separate rooms with 3 kids each.
You do the math. 37 kids (ages 10-12) with only 9 of these kids having adult supervision. Yes, 28 of these kids were mostly unsupervised. **We secretly DID try to keep up with our son. The whole idea behind us going was to check to see if it was SAFE to send our child on overnight trips with the school. We purposefully did not sign up to be team parents just so we could be behind the scene to see how things were handled.**
Since we were on the second floor, they continously "forgot" those 5 kids next door to us. As in "the bus is loaded...where are the kids next door to you...we're WAITING?".
How about ringing the room and letting us know something. Give us a schedule. Send one of the unsupervised kids to tell us. Do something, but don't yell at us for not knowing anything. WE don't have a schedule, remember???
The last 5 kids finally loaded up on the bus and we followed them back to Starkville to go bowling. The bus driver was trying to make sense of a useless schedule. We felt sorry for him and listened to him explain this teacher's craziness.
He said he'd tried to rest a bit after the kids were checked into their rooms but the kids were running wild and jumping around on the beds and that he couldn't nap at all.
At the bowling alley, the teacher told the kids that they were planning on eating at the deli inside the bowling alley. It'd only been a couple of hours since all the kids ate lunch. They weren't very hungry at all.
This crazy teacher began making the rounds of asking each child what they wanted to eat. She even took my son's order. I waited until she was finished taking the orders to ask her how much money we owed her for my son's meal. She barked at me to order it myself because she'd already TOLD ME to handle that back at the school early this morning or did I forget our conversation already???!!!!! Then she stuck her hand in my face like "talk to the hand".
I told her I didn't have a problem ordering his food...but why did SHE bother taking his order? She didn't know why, she just did. Oh, and I wanted to slap her hand out of my face but I didn't. I just chalked it up to her acting like a two year old and let it go.
The lady at the deli felt my pain. She took my order before she would even take the teacher's order. She made her wait forever. The deli lady told me that kindness goes a long way with her and that I was too kind to that crazy teacher. She said if she'd stuck her hand in her face like that, she'd be drawing back a nub when she got through with her. She asked me what happened to common courtesy? I told her that I gave up on being treated with respect a long time ago with that woman. We both laughed.
The teacher saw me and the deli lady joking around and she came over and barked at the deli lady that the kids were waiting on their food and didn't she need to get busy cooking or something instead of making nice with me?
Oh my gosh. That deli lady let her have it. She told her that she took orders for food only. She did not cook. She did not clean and she did not take crap from any teachers no matter WHO they were and WHERE they were from and if she didn't back off out of her face, she'd throw her out of the alley. (I later found out she was the owner's wife.) Wahooo. I backed away slowly during the great debate and went to watch hubby bowl with the kids.
The other two teachers came over and talked to Hubby and me. They couldn't believe how this teacher was treating all the parents (woohoo...3 going free and hubby and me paying our way) and how restrained we were. They said they would have lashed out immediately. Of course, they saw her coming towards us and shut up real quick. Yeah, they're so confrontational. I bet hubby that if he screamed the word BOO! at them, they'd drop dead in fear.
Crazy teacher "forgot" to order the "team Parents" food but later said that they were on their own about their food. One of the parents saw me eating a pretzel and asked me if the teacher had ordered it for me. I told her that the teacher told me to keep up with my son's meals and ours and we would have to order it separately from "theirs".
This parent said she'd handed the teacher the $30 for her daughter that morning and everything was fine. Then at the bowling alley, she screamed at her to order her kid's food herself. This parent told the teacher to give her back the money she'd given her for her daughter's food and she WOULD order it.
We finally left the bowling alley and went back to the hotel. The teacher announced that the kids would have "free time" from 7:00 p.m.-10:30 p.m. and they basically could do anything they wanted, provided there was a chaperone with them. Most of the kids were still unsupervised. My son wanted to go swimming and so did the other boys in his room. Out of those 5 kids, only one could swim well enough to be trusted.
Hubby went in their room and gave them a set of rules. He told them if WE were going to be chaperoning them, which seemed likely, they would have to obey OUR rules. If not, he was going to get their belongings and take it to their teacher's room and she would chaperone them for the rest of the trip and there would be no coming back to that room for the remainder of the trip. They happily agreed to listen to us and not get too rowdy in the pool.
We were the first to arrive at the indoors pool. They did an excellent job of behaving. The non-swimmers stayed in the shallow end and tossed a football to each other. The kid that could swim decided to stay in the shallow end and play too. They had a ton of fun and were wearing themselves out nicely. Heh.
After about 2 hours, 32 more kids showed up at the pool. One parent came with them. They were showing out and screaming and yelling. Generally making it miserable for the kids we escorted to the pool. Hubby called the kids we were watching out of the pool. He asked them if they were hungry.
Of course, they were. I escorted them to their rooms and told them all to take a good shower and shampoo their hair, brush their teeth and get dressed for bed. It was 9 p.m. Hubby took our car and went to scavenge for snacks and drinks at a nearby store.
After their showers, the kids were watching sports on TV. I think they were glad that someone was next door to them, though they never would have admitted it. Hubby came back with the snacks and they nearly knocked him down trying to get to the food.
WE called lights out at 10:45. The crazy teacher rang our room at 11:30 and asked that we tell the kids next door to us to head to bed. (she had to call us because she had the phones turned off in the kid's rooms) Hubby told her that those kids had BEEN in bed almost an hour and were soundly sleeping. Hubby said she seemed shocked that we had everything under control.
Hubby and I talked about everything that was going on about this trip. The other kids were running wild with no supervision. We watched several of the girls out on the lawn at 11:00 p.m. doing cartwheels with no adult out there with them. I told him that I was glad I came to see it firsthand. No way in hell my kid would be traveling with this school again. Not unless we go too. He wholeheartedly agreed with me.
He set our alarm to wake up for 6 a.m. so we could help the boys next door get their stuff packed up and ready to go. We got them downstairs at 7 a.m. They put their bags in the lobby on a luggage carrier to make it easier to haul out to the chartered bus. I went back to their room and checked it again to make sure no one left anything. I crawled around on the floor and found a belt, a sock and a t-shirt and got them back to their rightful owners.
Hubby collected the room cards from each kid and turned them and ours in to the clerk at the front desk and told the clerk that he wasn't responsible for the kids in the room next to ours but that someone had to watch out for them. The clerk said he hadn't received any complaints about the kids that were tossed upon us but that most of the other hotel guests had complained about the other kids on the third floor yelling, screaming and running up and down the halls until about 5 a.m. that morning. He told us that one of the boys had actually slept in the hallway. I could not believe it.
We took "our" boys into the dining hall and let them eat their breakfast. They were polite and made a line. They didn't fuss when another hotel guest cut in line, though they probably wanted to. The bus driver looked miserable when he joined us for coffee. He said he couldn't wait for that day to be over. He made the remark that the crazy teacher was stupid and that you can't fix stupid.
About that time, we overheard the crazy teacher coming down the first floor hallway screaming at one of the kids to go wake the other 5 boys up on the second floor and get them downstairs immediately. She was talking about how WE (hubby and I) should have already called HER to find out about the schedule. And she talked just loud enough for us to overhear her. She didn't realize we'd already done HER job and were waiting for her to just show up.
The bus driver asked if we knew which room she was staying in so we COULD call her for information. Hubby assured him it must be privileged information because we had no idea what her room number was. The bus driver just shook his head. He asked hubby when he was going to turn me loose on her because he was going to place his bet on my side. Hubby told him that if I didn't confront her, he was surely going to.
We helped the 5 boys load their stuff on the bus while the others dragged their feet to the dining hall. Then we went and waited in our car and watched "our" 5 boys toss the football around on the side yard where the bus was parked. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Nah, I was fuming mad and decided to distance myself away from that crazy teacher...for the time being.
A confrontation was indeed brewing but not in front of the kids. I don't roll like that. So I bit my tongue and sat in the car. We waited for about an hour while all the kids were rounded up and heads were counted and the teachers finally boarded the bus.
The bus moved about 20 feet and stopped. The bus driver walked back to our car and told us that he'd just loaded the bus full of kids for that crazy teacher to make a run to Walmart. Hubby asked why she didn't just ask him to take her to Walmart instead of loading all the kids up. It made sense, that's why.
So they went to Walmart and came back to the hotel. They sat there for about another 45 minutes. No one got off the bus, but a student (forgotten?) and teacher (who knows?) boarded the bus.
We finally made it to the college for the tournament. We got tired of begging the crazy teacher for information so we asked the tournament judges where spectators could sit and watch the events for each building. The official judge gave us an itinerary and a map of the campus. Score!
I took tons of pictures of my son's team while they were outside practicing. Crazy teacher saw me snapping away and told me that she needed my camera to take pictures of the other kids that were competing in other buildings.
Hubby just bought this DSLR camera for me a few weeks ago and I told her I didn't loan it out. I brought it with me to take pictures of my son's team competition. She assured me that she wouldn't let anything happen to it. I, again, told her NO!
I asked her where her camera was. She said she packed it in her stuff and it was on the bus. I told her to just go get it off the bus. The driver was still on the bus and he'd let her in to get her bag with the camera.
She rolled her eyes at me and I just stared back at her. She asked me if I had a problem with her and I assured her that I did indeed have a problem with her and we would discuss it when there were not kids around.
She stomped off like a spoiled 2 year old. I kid you not. It was pitiful to witness. Later, another teacher approached us and asked what was going on. Hubby got up and went inside to wait for the competition to begin in 5 minutes. I smiled at the teacher and told her that we were just now going in to watch our son compete and I'd see her later.
She told another teacher (the ONE that made any kind of sense) that we had "completely blown her off". Oh my! How dare we blow THEM off. She asked a question. I answered it. That's all.
We studied our map of the campus that one of the judges had given us and soon became familiar with the buildings and the rooms where the competetions for all the schools were. We had an official judges itinerary so we knew what time to be and where.
We met up with my son's team after their first competition and they had time to go eat lunch around 1 p.m.
Lunch consisted of grilled hamburgers, hotdogs, nachos, snow-cones, sodas, ice cream and candy...stuff that kids love! Plus it helped raise money for some charity. I forget which one. Everything was around a dollar or two so we donated $20 and ate what we wanted and let them just keep the rest.
They had karaoke going, inflatable jousting and some sort of inflatable maze with a huge slide. Very cool. The kids needed this down time to de-stress. We had some wonderfully talented girls with amazing voices doing the karaoke thing. It was fun to sit back and watch them command the audience. They were naturals. My son sang a few songs and many parents from across the state wondered how he knew the lyrics to some of the old songs because he didn't use the screen. A lot of the parents called out requests for him to sing. It was funny to see him deal with all the cheering for his songs. Heh.
My son's team parent asked me over lunch what time the next competition was because she saw the "official" schedule in hubby's hand. We compared schedules and found out that the crazy teacher had the times all wrong on everyone's schedule after lunch. If our team parent hadn't thought to ask about it, they would have been over an hour late for the events, which explains why some of the older kids were completely stressed out.
She marked her schedule with the new times. She wondered if the crazy teacher knew about the times being screwed up. Hubby told her not to worry the teacher with it, just to get the kids where they needed to be and on time. He told her that emotions were skyrocketing with the crazy teacher. She agreed with him. She said the other teams needed to know about the correct times so Hubby and I made sure all the other team parents marked their schedules with the right times too. We didn't bother with the crazy teacher. Let her figure her own mess out.
After the competition, we went to the auditorium to wait for the awards ceremony. The workers and the staff were so very friendly. We met with a teacher from the math and science building and she talked to us about sending our son for his junior and senior year in high school. She gave us a lot of brochures and paperwork and told us to really think about it. She explained that the school is a campus within a campus and he would be allowed to participate in college extension opportunities as well.
She was very encouraging and had the opportunity to talk with our son for a few minutes earlier that day. He told her that he was interested in robotics engineering and planned to go to Mississippi State or the University of Tennessee. She said that since Mississippi State was 20 minutes away, what better chance would he have getting a full scholarship than to attend the school for mathematics and science?
Uh, we're not ready to commit yet. He just turned 11 and we still have a few years to think about it.
My son's crazy teacher noticed the lady taking up a lot of time with us and I guess curiosity got the best of her because she stomped over and demanded to know what kind of brochures she had given us and why was she just handing them out to us?
The director was flabbergasted. She looked at us and then at her and told her that everyone was welcome to have a brochure and that we were just chatting before the ceremony started. She also told her to take her voice down a peg or two because she was in a quiet zone.
We said our goodbyes to the nice director of the important school and went to find a seat for the ceremony. We opted to sit on the back row so that we wouldn't bother anyone while taking pictures.
One of the students walked over to my husband and told him to "go get his car and take one of the teachers to another part of the campus to load up the props". Hubby told her he'd do that AFTER the ceremony. The little girl got all upset and screamed that THE TEACHER SAID you HAVE TO!!!!! Hubby didn't know how to respond to that so I did it for him. I told the girl to go get the teacher and have her meet me in the foyer.
Hubby decided he'd better come with me. When she got there, I reminded her that they'd had 2 hours of free time to get their props back to the bus to be loaded. We were not going to miss the ceremony to do their dirty work. We were going to watch the ceremony and after everything was over, Hubby would take her to pick the stuff up.
This particular teacher was not quite as crazy. She actually listened to us. Then she asked why we were sitting on the back row being "anti-social". I told her we were not being anti-social, we were trying not to disturb the view of the rest of the people there while we took pictures. We were being courteous of others, not anti-social.
Then she asked me what I really wanted to say...off the record. I told her that there was plenty that needed to be said and I would be glad to talk to her about all of it after the ceremony. She agreed to meet with hubby and me after the awards were given out.
The good news is that son's team placed 4th in the state. They really came together and worked as a team. Some team members were disappointed that they didn't win first place, but overall, most of the kids were happy...especially when I told them that many teams competed and 4th place was something to be really proud of. Hubby thanked each kid for doing a great job.
It was time for Hubby to haul the teacher to get her stuff. My son and I made a quick trip to the restroom and came outside to wait for Hubby to get back. He was severely aggrevated when he returned. I knew better than to even ask what happened.
Crazy teacher had a conference after the ceremony but forgot to inform the bus driver. He started the bus up and one of the other teachers finally told him that she was in a meeting and it might take a while.
The teacher that had wanted an "off the record" meeting with us walked over and I suggested that she sit in the car with us so that no kids would hear what was said. Son and some other boys were tossing a football in front of a nearby hall.
We told her that she needed to get her ducks in a row because the poop is going to hit the fan when all these kids get home and tell their parents that they were, for the most part, unsupervised for the trip and what all they "got away with". She was from another school in our district and didn't mind telling me that she was shocked about it too. She teaches junior high QUEST.
We told her about the lack of adult supervision, the kid sleeping in the hall, little girls out at 11 p.m. doing cartwheels on the lawn, kids staying up running wild until 5 a.m. and the total lack of respect shown towards us. She came to the conclusion that we were owed the money back on our room, mileage on our car and gas reimbursement because we worked harder than the team parents did. She was furious that the teacher had used us. She had been under the impression that we were team parents.
She went and pulled the crazy teacher out of the meeting and we met on the front steps away from all the kids. Crazy teacher got really upset about that. The other teacher told crazy teacher: "You need to make a formal apology to these parents. They went above and beyond for you and you totally disrespected them AND made them PAY for it. You should really be ashamed of yourself. I was under the impression that they were team parents and you LET me think that!" She never did apologize. Didn't even come close to it. She just stood there and tried to outstare me. (I won. Heh.)
I told crazy teacher that my son would be riding home with us instead of riding the bus. She asked "Why? Are you going to pick his brain for more evidence against me? and why do you feel I disrespected you?" I told her that "I didn't have to pick his brain because I KNEW where he and his roomies were the whole time we were there. Remember? You dumped them in our laps and forgot about them."
The other teacher asked if there was MORE evidence against her than what she'd already found out. Woot!
Hubby calmly told her she "DID disrespect us and she knew it. She used us. We surely wouldn't have let our son stay in a hotel room with 4 other boys the same age by themselves. That was not a good idea and was most probably illegal."
I started to tell her something else and she put her hand in front of my face again. I calmly told her to remove her hand from my face and quit acting like a spoiled child and in case she hadn't noticed, she was supposed to be setting an example for the kids, not acting like one. Boy, that there pissed her right off. Sent her over the edge.
She really started raising her voice at hubby, me and the other teacher. She told us that we would NOT be invited on any more trips. I could not believe my eyes and ears. She was screaming and stomping her feet at us. I just shook my head and looked at the other teacher.
The other teacher took over and told her that there probably wouldn't BE any more trips because of the stunts she'd pulled on this one.
Then she told us to contact the principal of the school when we got home and let them know what happened. She also said to tell the principal to call her to back us up. She was livid. She told the crazy teacher to go back to her meeting and to behave herself. She was not going to warn her again.
The bus driver walked over and asked us how much longer it would be before the crazy teacher boarded the bus. We didn't know the answer to that question. He told the other teacher that if she didn't board within 15 minutes, he would not have time to stop to let the kids eat dinner. The other teacher told the bus driver to let the kids eat and let the crazy teacher explain why they were 2 hours late getting home.
We left and headed to Tupelo for some down time. We were mentally and physically exhausted. We drove by Elvis' birthplace and saw the famous hardware store. Then we went to the hotel and slept. Around 11:00 that night, my son woke up with a virus from hell. I kept him home from school today. He still had fever and diarrhea, but had stopped throwing up.
I placed a call to the school and told them he had a horrible stomach virus and had a fever and he wouldn't be there today. One of the other teachers overheard the crazy teacher telling some of the other teachers that I was probably too embarrassed to send him to school today. This particular teacher and I are friends outside the school so she called me to find out what happened on the trip. I told her everything.
She said that must be why the phone had been ringing off the hook. I called the principal and scheduled a conference with her for tomorrow morning to discuss the whole thing.
Then I called the crazy teacher and told her I was NOT embarrassed to send my child to school. He was very sick and if she'd like to come help me clean my bathroom for the 7th time today, she was welcome to it. She said she had no idea what I was talking about.
I clued her in that I have MANY MANY friends working at the school and she probably shouldn't run her mouth about things she hoped wouldn't get back to the person she was talking trash about.
Then she went through the whole "I never talk about anyone...blah blah blah". So I just said "whatever" and that I'd see her in the morning.
She probably has no idea I have a meeting scheduled with the principal. She also probably has no idea that the other teacher plans on meeting hubby and I there to back us up. She probably doesn't realize that the bus driver called us and said he is going to make a formal complaint against the school and her for lack of adult supervision for those kids.
Ah well. She'll learn to quit screaming and yelling. She'll learn not to put her hand where it doesn't belong one day. She'll learn how to answer for her own mistakes. One day.
Cheater glasses - November 20, 2008 Don't mess with my iced tea - November 18, 2008 Happy Birthday Danny DeVito - November 17, 2008 Mrs. Beasley - November 13, 2008 foot ailment - November 12, 2008
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