Emily joins Agent V's army

I was away from the computer most of this weekend because I was off starting a revolution. And also because Boyfriend has a pool.

After the incident with the firing of teachers, new events threw our school into revolt last week.

First of all, those two teachers quit, leaving their students with a substitute for the last three weeks of school and pissing off those of us who went to bat for them. It didn't really surprise me.

Then last week my Best Friend got fired.

I work in a year-round school. Our school's Librarian goes off track every sixteen weeks just like everybody else, and when she does Best Friend works as her substitute. That's been just peachy for me because it means I can sit in the library during my planning period and eat lunch with Best Friend and take Cosmo Girl quizzes to find out whether or not I want a boyfriend while she helps me plan research paper assignments. She also works her ass off at that job, and the kids know her just as well as they know the regular librarian. She is a fully-credentialed teacher with a degree in English and taught at another high school for five years. This is the third semester she has done this job and Principal has always seemed pleased with the arrangement.

Then two weeks ago she showed up at the rally and suddenly the office can't pay her as a long-term substitute. Then on Tuesday she wore her union T-shirt and before you can say the words "abuse of power" she was fired.

Supposedly it is because she doesn't have a library credential. State policy says that she must have a library credential in order to work long term in the library. She was never told this or she would have gone and gotten the credential. This has also never been a problem before in the two semesters she already did this job.

So I wrote an email to every teacher in the school explaining why we have no librarian for the last two weeks of school. Suddenly I'm in the inner circle of the revolution.

We have plans. I won't say what they are in this public forum, but if you catch a school on the news with a pissed off faculty protesting the tyranny of their power-hungry Principal, that would most likely be us. You might catch a glimpse of me in the crowd. I made fliers.

So to recap: In two weeks I went from being a neutral, silent party to being a leader of the Revolution.

My mom was funny about the whole thing when I told her. She was all worried about me losing my job and told me to be careful and maybe I shouldn't speak up so loudly. Then I reminded her about all the times she started her own school revolutions and how she refused to do anything she felt would hurt her students, often getting her in major trouble with the administration.

"You all right! I learned by watching you!" I told her in a fit of giggles. She had to admit, this is all her fault.

Besides, if I get fired I know enough people in the entertainment industry it would take me about two seconds to get a PA job.

I'm unafraid, Principal Tyrant. Bring it.