Room Mama Drama

I've been JBoy's room mom for what, oh, one month now and I managed to get myself embroiled in school drama. Perfect.

It all started when JBoy's preschool teacher informed me, chief room mom (I still can't get over how I got suckered into that role) that I really need to start organizing all the parents for the Thanksgiving Feast. It's a pretty big deal and requires a lot of parental cooperation she tells me. I tell the other room moms and one in particular volunteers all these ideas.

The next time I discuss it with the teacher, she tells me to check in with the pre-kindergarten teacher, Mrs. S. (she was Cboys' teacher and is quite notorious in our school primarily because she is married to the coach of an exclusive limited admission private school in our town who is also on the admission's committee. Everyone kisses her butt to stay on her good gracious. She she is a veteran in that school and is well known as the Queen B. If you know what I mean).

So, I go to check with Mrs. S who asks me in no uncertain words, what the hell I'm talking about trying to "coordinate" the Feast because she was coordinating the feast. I tell her that JBoy's teacher sent me over and she replies, in a quite wry tone "She's new. She doesn't know what's going on." I'm like okay. Better coordination would help.

You see, JBoys' teacher used to be a teacher's aid to Cboy when Cboy was in pre-school. The year after Cboy left pre-school, the school did not have enough preschooler's enrolled to justify keeping JBoy's teacher, so they let her go. She stuck around and served as a substitute teacher for the preschool, preK and Kindergarten. That was a horrible mistake on the school's part because it was a disaster to have Mrs. S's aide split her time between preschool and prekindergarten class. I think that was a bad cost saving mistake on the school's part. The following year, they decided to have Mrs. S take both preschool and preK. Another big mistake because the maturity level of a 3 year old is distinctly different than a 4 1/2 year old.

Needless to say, JBoy's teacher got her certificate or whatever she needed to become a certified full fledged teacher and she was hired to teach the pre-school. Enrollment had picked up as Jboy has 13 students in his class. They even hired an aide for JBoy's teacher.

Fast forward to this Monday, to slow down the planning of the other room mom's I told them verbatim what Mrs. S had told me in an email. DUMB ME! I forgot to remove JBoy's teacher from the distribution list. DUH!

I did not notice this until Wednesday night (on Jboy's teachers' birthday nonetheless) I get this email with the principal and Mrs. S cc'd apologizing to me and defending her qualifications and skills as a teacher and she said, "I'm sorry about what was said about me as a teacher" What?!?!? I assumed that somehow that email I sent to the room moms must had gotten out becuase why else would she have a big old formal email to me with the Principal of the entire school cc'd.

I reacted by sending an email, cc'ing the principal and Mrs. S, telling Jboy's teacher no worries and defending her skills and letting her know the entire thing was a misunderstanding and I have the utmost confidence in her abilities as a teacher. Wow!! I really didn't need the extra stress this week.

Well, in the middle of taking my baby sister to her doctor's appointment (an activity that drained a full working afternoon, but that is another story for another day), I get a phone call from Mrs. S. telling me she doesn't understand why she is being cc'd in all these emails and why her name is being dragged into some drama.

She asks me to come in that day (yesterday before 3:30, if I can make it). I did not get back there in time, but in any event, the next day when I see JBoy's teacher she tells me that Mrs. S is a nut job. I said I was clueless about all and apologized for including her in that email to room parents and JBoy's teacher says she just did that because she wanted the principal to see how Mrs. S was treating her! Huh!?! So Mrs. S had been a systematic Byatch to JBoy's teacher all semester long and she used that email as a good opportunity to call her out on it in front of the Principal!!!!

Oh great! she tells me to forget any "meeting" and to avoid Mrs. S if I can. Is that insane or what? Obviously, I'm gonna have to find away to not volunteer at the Feast so I don't have to confront Mrs. S. I really wish I had better discipline and paid better attention to the distribution list as I would have avoided the entire mess in the first place!

oY VEY!!