Friday, January 4, 2008

We don't need no stinkin' badges...


Well, apparently I do.
Even though I consider myself a stay at home mom, I am lucky to have the ability to do a little freelance testing for our locat school district. My mom works with English Language Learners and my job is go and test the English of all new students. It is a very sweet gig.
These days school security is a big deal and everyone is supposed to have an official district badge. Since I am a contractor, I am not eligble for a badge. Most of the time, this is no problem, but today it was.
I was at one school this morning at 8:00 AM. My hair was done, I had make up on and I was wearing nice jeans, black clogs, gray sweater and a gray fleece jacket. Casual yes, but I have worn this before. I went to check in with the woman who gets the kids (I've been there a million times) and she is sitting there looking at me in kind of a weird way. She looks at my "visitor" badge (which is a avery lable with the date and my name written on it) and asked why I don't have a badge. I explain and then she says, "Well, you don't look very "official". I don't know if the teacher will let you take the kid. You look like you could be a kidnapper." What?????
I kept waiting for her to smile and say "just kidding", but she didn't. I'm so sure. I am in almost all the secondary buildings in the district and the dress code of the teachers is horrible. I went into one class and the teacher (who was young- early 20's) was wearing long basketball shorts, hitops and a hoodie. I haven't been out of the classroom that long, but we could only wearl jeans (and nice ones at that) on Fridays. You still had to look like you were at work and not about to putter in the yard. Anyway, so there I was thinking I looked pretty good for being up and aobut so early to find I look like a kidnapper. Nice.
My ego took another hit later when I was at my old jr. high. Of course, I walked into it, but still. I told the girl I was testing that I went to the school when I was in jr. high and she said. "wow, this is an old school."
Hope everyone's Friday was better than mine
:0) Laurie Anne (AKA the kidnapping granny)

2 comments:

~*Marie*~ said...

Laurie, that is too funny, but on the other hand it could have been worse, they could not have said a thing to you at all and just let you in without checking to see who you were and what you were doing there. I am sure it was shocking to hear someone say that to you!

Jenny said...

That is dreadful!!
I know that the standards of dressing (with teachers) has dropped in our public system dramatically over the past decade. I alway try to look decent (even if I don't feel like it), and would never wear shorts unless it was a sports day.