Tiled.

School starts in 9 days.

This is hard to believe for many reasons. First, we are starting in August for the first time ever. Second, and more importantly, I haven't been in my classroom in over a week.

That last detail is not my choice.

Several years ago, probably twelve or fifteen years or more at this point, my high school was completely remodeled. It looks fantastic on the outside, the building is about 100 years old, so it looks kind of like a red brick castle, complete with turrets (one of which is where our printer lives). But the inside is not so great. The overall picture of the inside is pretty good, but a combination of 1200 kids tramping around for 181 days every year and not the highest quality of materials used in the remodel means that on the third floor (where I dwell), the tile floors keep falling apart and the kickplates on the stairs keep falling off.

So this summer, the plan was to re-tile the third floor of my building. I am not totally sure how this works, but I know that there is glue and tile involved and that it takes a while for the glue to set.

Just as a reminder, we got out of school on June 22. Officially, teachers do not have contracted work time between June 22 and August 25. Realistically, you can find. someone there most days, but the lowest chance of finding teachers there is during July. In August, teachers start coming back, with more and more there every day as the month progresses, so that by the second and third week of August, you have a good chance of finding most teachers at school for at least part of the day every day. During the last two weeks of August, everyone is there all day getting ready for school to start.

So then logically, the best time to retile the entire third floor, cutting off access to all social studies and language arts classrooms is clearly the last two weeks of August.

Making it worse, the original plan was to retile the floor last Monday, giving us access Wednesday, maybe thursday at the latest. But then, SOMEONE WALKED ON THE FLOOR before the glue was dry, messing up most of the hallway, and requiring a major repair. Which consequently bumped our access back to today.

But on facebook this morning, teachers who went up to school posted that the third floor is STILL closed off and will probably be that way until THURSDAY. I may or may not have torn my hair and gnashed my teeth at this.

While I understand that officially, we are not contracted to be at school until August 25, meaning that the contractors have access anytime between June 22 and August 25, I wish that the district officials who plan these things would use a little logic. After all, a lot of them used to BE teachers.