When a sewage smell in a public school hallway led to teachers moving their classes, the principal sent out an email forbidding them from leaving their classrooms without permission. In response, one teacher decided to take the email literally and encouraged everyone to call the office for every movement, resulting in a clarification email from the principal and a good laugh for the support staff.
Source: Reddit
Do not leave your classroom without asking permission. This happened yesterday. I teach at a public school. Occasionally, in the hallway I teach in, there is an overwhelming sewage smell. Normally it’s an inconvenience but not so drastic we have to move rooms. Yesterday, it was the worst I’ve ever experienced since I started teaching at this school.
Teachers immediately tried to move their classrooms, get out of the hallway, etc etc. One class moved into the principals conference room, and from the gist of it – our principal was livid that her space was invaded.
We received an email stating that we are not to move our classes without notifying our supervisor, now that seems logical. However, the email went on to say that we are not allowed to leave our room to stroll, visit another classroom, etc etc without speaking to our supervisor or the front office.
I was absolutely fired up when I read this email. I wanted to make her regret sending it as quickly as possible. I notified everyone in my hallway that they should be calling the office every time they needed to use the bathroom.
I encouraged as many teachers as possible to constantly be calling to notify of their movement around campus.
Within two hours I had called the front office four times, once even just to let them know I was walking down to the front office. Most the teachers in my building called a couple times.
Once, when the main receptionist was on lunch and another support staff was covering for her, I called to let them know I was going to the bathroom and the woman on the other end sounded so confused.
“Do you need something…?” She awkwardly asked. I explained it was that per the email it was expected for us to notify the office of our bathroom breaks. She chuckled and told me to have a good time.
Within three hours we received another staff wide email explaining “okay, some clarification” and that we should NOT call the office if we need to go to the bathroom, have a stroll on campus, or visit another teachers classroom.
I walked down to the office later that day with the biggest grin on my face and every support staff knew exactly why I was so happy.
We all had a good laugh. One of the support staff said to me that the principal said “I didn’t mean it LITERALLY!” .. .if you are going to put something in writing to a group of professional educators, and be aggressive and rude about it, you better know exactly what you are saying.
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