The Worse Day Ever for me was April 14 of 2009.  I had let the kids relax 5 minutes before the end of class since they had worked hard, and I was away from my desk handling a situation in the hallway (kids skipping, in case you were curious).

When the bell rang and my students went to their next period, I noticed my phone was missing from my desk.  I have many moments like this but a few minutes of frantic searching usually returns good results.  This time no dice.  I would find out later that one of my students, while I was disciplining students in the hall, stole my phone.  (Retrospective fact:  This thief was a white male and came from a rich family.)

During the last period of the day, I started having trouble with a student who is usually quiet.  I asked him to remove his headphones (they are supposed to pay $15 if they have an ipod out in class but I usually just take it up and give it back at the end) and he said ok.  About 5 minutes later he still had them so I asked for the ipod.  He immediately cussed me out, really pulling out the big guns as far as profanity is concerned.  I was shocked, but not angry, I started toward my desk to call the office to have this kid removed.  But wait!  My phone was stolen earlier and there's no classroom phone.  So I ask this little punk to come with me to the office, at which point he immediately runs down the stairs and out the door.

So I have to leave the class and WALK 3 flights of stairs to the main office to tell them to radio security and look for the kid etc. etc.  At this point, my cell phone (with all personal numbers and texts on it) is in the hands of some malevolent teen, I have just been cussed out for no reason, and my class is unsupervised.  I started crying in the main office.

The bell rang, people went home, I spent an hour meticulously filling out paperwork against the thief and the cusser.  I made copies of the referrals and submitted them to the administrators.

Both kids were in my class the next day.  And the next day.  The next day, one of the police officers searched the kid who stole the cell phone (this is 3 days after he stole it, as if he's going to bring it to school) and found nothing.  Neither student was ever punished.

I looked into it, and found this little gem:  in order to be expelled from school, a student must

• receive 6 different referrals (each referral comes after 3 warnings and parent conferences)
• from 6 different teachers
• all in the same 6 week period

This episode led to the creation of my "Skull and Bones" book:  my documentation of all the times I submit referrals or have parent conferences regarding violent or disruptive students with absolutely no reaction from the school administration.  It was full after 6 weeks.