Commencement

Although it was 7:00, the winter sky was as dark as if it had been the middle of the night. Thunder rumbled as dark clouds threatened to let loose a torrential rainstorm on the city below. Tamiko hurried along the street hoping to get to the school before the first drops began to fall. Luckily she made it. After signing in at the office, Tamiko took a look at the Daily Bulletin posted on the office bulletin board for any schedule changes. There was only one change listed in big bold print:

  THERE WILL BE NO ENRICHMENT PERIOD THIS MORNING FOR THE FOLLOWING TEACHERS: MISS ROBINSON, MRS. WOOD, MR. HULE, MR. ORVIS, MS. RICHARDS, MRS. STEELE, AND MISS BYNUM. INSTEAD THERE WILL BE AN EMERGENCY FACULTY CONFERENCE IN ROOM 415 AT 8:00am. ALL INVOLVED PLEASE BE PROMPT.

  “Now what do they want?” Tamiko sighed. She would have thought it was bad news except there were other teachers on the list that the administration liked. Tamiko hurried upstairs and got her classroom set up for the day’s lessons. She hoped she could get everything done before the meeting started.

  Tamiko was in the middle of changing her math centers chart when she heard a knock at the classroom door.

  “Come in.”

  “Hi, Tamiko. Here are the games you wanted for the math centers.”

  “Thanks, Rosalyn. You’re the best.”

  “The 100th day of school will soon be upon us. Do you have anything planned yet?”

  “I was going to do cereal necklaces for math and a 100 words book during word study…oh, and I bought this book over the weekend on the 100th day of school that I was going to use for a read aloud, but I don’t know what else I’m going to do.”

  “I have an 100 days of school activity book for teachers. If you’d like you can flip through it and see if there’s anything that catches your eye.”

  “Thanks, that’d be great. Ros, before you leave, I wanted to ask you something. Do you have any idea what this emergency faculty conference is about?”

  “I haven’t heard anything from Stone or Nettlenerves, so I’m not sure.”

  “Do you think this has anything to do with...”

  Before Tamiko could finish her sentence, an announcement came over the PA system.

  “Please excuse this interruption. Good morning to all teachers in the building. It is now 7:55. I hope those of you who will be involved in this morning’s meeting are making your way to the conference room in 415 for our emergency faculty meeting. We need everyone to be there on time so we may begin promptly. There is a lot of information that needs to be discussed, so it is imperative that everyone be on time. Thank you.”

  “I guess we better be going. We wouldn’t want to be late now, would we?”

  “Not after that announcement”, laughed Tamiko.