drama of last week or The Case of the Missing Computers

Well, I have had these laptops in my room now for ....well since about October I guess. I've had kids actively using them (every day almost) since November. About 2 weeks ago, between 5th and 6th period the keys went missing. This was highly irritating, but truthfully I thought I had mislaid them....for about two days. Just put them down or in my purse or somewhere and couldn't find them.

Then I didn't ever find them.

So I thought, "Ok, some kid is playing a very bad joke and has hidden them from me."

Then no one came forward with them.

So, the next Monday someone put staples in my lock...to try to keep me from locking my door. Well, that wasn't terribly creative, so I took the staples OUT and locked the door. No problem.

Tuesday was TAKS.

Wednesday, someone put glue in my door. At this point I had already moved the laptop cart to the room across the hall because I was to have a sub and didn't want to leave them in there with a substitute. Security came and put a new lock on the door.

All this happened WHILE I WAS IN THE ROOM. That is the most disturbing part.

Then Monday I went to the room across the hall with a new set of spare keys to check on the computers...They were gone. Now, they were there the Friday before. I had been counting them multiple times a day by sticking a pencil through the ventilation holes. Yes, I was cognizant of the risk. But Monday with the keys in hand, the computers were gone...Ok, all but the one that doesn't work because Windows was never loaded on it.

How, might you say, would a thief know that #16 computer is unusable? Did they turn them all on and play with them before they stole them? In a manner of speaking, yes. It means it is someone I know. Some kid that uses the computers. Some kid that I have allowed into my room and put myself out there for. It wasn't some random thug that decided to rip off $25,000 worth of laptops to make a quick buck. It wasn't some kid in my classes that doesn't come use the computers cause those kids don't know that random computers don't work. It was some kid who wanted to use the computers at home. That didn't have one, enjoyed using them and just decided to take 15 of them home to use. And not just one kid, cause no one person could have carted off all 15 in one stroke.

The police are involved. They have a Crimestoppers reward out. We are going to get them. I'm betting we find all 15 of them spread out at my students' houses. The worst part is that we have suspects. I have 4 or 5 kids that I don't trust because they *might* have jacked the laptops. We spent Saturday morning cross-referencing which kids lived next to each other and checking every kid who has ever used them.

Want to know the best part though? They left every one of the chargers. Right now they have 15 laptops that won't boot up cause the batteries should be dead by now. The chargers are about $100 a piece so most of our kids couldn't afford that...well unless they were able to pawn a laptop without a charger, but I doubt it.

That is my drama. I was so upset I almost couldn't teach for about 2 days. I couldn't handle the stress of looking at every kid and thinking, "Are they the one?"

As for those of you who are now worried about the situation where I teach, my school is very, very safe. I just teach kids who, for a lack of a better term, live in poverty. They don't have stuff. It is terribly tempting to want to have something right there in front of you. Daily students asked, as I kicked them out of the room, if they could borrow a laptop and take it home. And they are kids. They don't realize the consequences of taking what everyone is using to only use for yourself. They don't realize that it is hurting everyone cause they only think of themselves.

I, naive as I am, still truly believe that I should try to give students trust and they will live up to it. I don't think it is the kids I always trusted, I think it is those who always bothered me, but I didn't know how to apply too many extra rules to them that I didn't enforce for others. I don't have problems doing that now. I am hoping that someone becomes guilty and fesses up or brags around and gets caught. Regardless, we'll catch them, they weren't so savvy that they could have possibly done this before.