43 Years in Education

By Charlotte C Lord

In this overview of her 43 years in education, Charlotte shares some of the hilarious adventures and escapades of her students. Names have been changed, of course, to protect the guilty! Names of the amazing teachers and awards of the outstanding students are genuine, and she felt privileged to work wi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Excel Book Writing
• Release date: Jan 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869103871

Book preview

43 Years in Education

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43 Years in Education

______________________________________________________

Charlotte C. Lord

Copyright © 2023 Charlotte C. Lord

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Contents

Introduction

Internship

WHS…The Challenging First Year!

Johnny, My First Paddling!

Carpool Oops!

Commuting…

Transfer To CHS

Mary

The Whole Class?

Oops

The Years Roll By

My 8th Year

Trucks And Cows

They Watched What?

The Florida Writing Project

My Kids!

Administration? Coach Needed Me!

The Referral Said What???

She Called the Police?

Bomb Threat?

No Headlines, please!

Bringing Them Home?

Meeting Professional Practices

A Hog Is Where?

Coach McCall, Principal

The Legend of Fireball McCall

A Sinkhole?

AP to a New Principal

We Saved the Finger!

I Broke my Paddle!

She Did What?

AP to Principal #3

Not a Hero. Just Doing My Job

TB Challenge

From AP To Principal…From CHS to DCHS!

My AP’s

Budget

Golf Carts?

Math Classes Offered Didn’t = Graduation!

All the Details

No Fighting Zone!

Making School Cool!

Pep Rally?

Scholarships

Senior Trip

Summer Prep for Year 2 as Principal

JROTC

Opportunity Class

Teen Court

Cheerleading Challenge

Hiring a Football Coach

Hiring a New AP

NDCC

Computers.

Our Mural

Mopping 101

Our AP Cheerleader

No Weapons Allowed

No Superman Lunch Boxes?.........................................................................

Five Valedictorians!

Hanging Up the Paddle

Continued Challenge of Hiring Teachers

Beta Success!

JROTC and Veteran’s Day!

Our Nick

Technology

NHS

Relay for Life

Kissing a Goat?

Florida Reading Initiative (FRI)!

Alternative ed

Coach VB?

Hire Great People…

To Delegate or Not to Delegate?

Winning!

Caleb

Prom Promise

Making Good Decisions

Seven Valedictorians!

Bomb Threats

Senior Prank

Goat Quarantine

Another National Winner!

Candace

Casey

Back to the Classroom!

I Failed Retirement!

Back to Senior English!

Back to Admin?

Safety

EMS

Facilities

Maintenance

Transportation

Technology

Vocational Director

Working to Get a New School

Bids & Contract

Mr. Gene

Safety Director Wrecked Her Truck!

Meetings and More Meetings

2nd Retirement!

FSTA

Jessie

Truly my Mission

Introduction

Teachers had a profound influence on my life. I was raised by a single mom, and many times, caring teachers made a big difference in my life! From 8th grade, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. So, I attended the University of Florida and enrolled in the College of Education. In my senior year, I was assigned an internship in a rural district at Williston High School, which had been our biggest rival when I graduated from Chiefland High School, as both are located in Levy County, Florida.

Internship

When I received my internship assignment for the spring semester of 1972, I drove over to Williston to meet the principal of the school and the directing teacher to whom I was assigned. This was part of the protocol we were instructed to follow before reporting to teach as an intern.

When I arrived at WHS and introduced myself, Mr. Paul King, the principal, told me to step into his office. He proceeded to tell me that he ran a tight ship and tolerated no nonsense or liberal ideas in his schools. I answered Yes, Sir or No, Sir to his questions, and we had a successful meeting. However, I must confess I wondered about the tight ship when he stepped to the window, whistled to a male student walking by, and called him over. He reached into his pocket, took out money, and told the student, Run across the street over there and bring me a pack of cigarettes! Times certainly changed during my years in education! Remember, though, at that time, parents thought nothing of sending their children into the store to get cigarettes for them. I know I saved my mama many steps running into the store to buy cigarettes for her, usually from a vending machine for 35 cents per pack!

I interned in 8th grade English at Williston High School in the spring semester of 1972. They had had a fire at the middle school just before my internship and had moved the 8th-grade classes to the high school campus. My classroom was in the front foyer of the gymnasium, and they had chained the gym doors shut so that kids couldn’t exit through the area. (Much later in my career, I realized that that was a major fire code violation, but I had no clue of that when I was teaching!) Anyway, my classroom was a long, narrow area, and we had two rows of 15 desks in each row. I stood at the front, at the back, or walked up and down the rows to teach. Yes, I’d learned management by proximity and used that strategy, but I could not place the desks in a circle or rearrange the classroom for other strategies!

Anyway, I had a great directing teacher for my internship. Mr. George Denman had great classroom control and management and was a well-liked and well-respected teacher. He knew exactly how to guide a new beginning teacher and quickly explained his plan. He would teach for three days, and I would observe. I would then teach for three days using his plans, and he would observe me. Then, I would teach using my plans for a week, and he would observe again. After that, I would write the plans to teach the class, and he would be in the teacher’s lounge, where I could send for him if I needed him. We would have lunch together each day to discuss how things were going and meet briefly before and after school, but I was to do all the teaching responsibilities. His philosophy was that I needed to learn by doing, and kids reacted to him if he was in the room…. I needed to be in charge of the kids and have them respond to me! The plan worked well, and I had a great internship! I only had to send for him once, and that was when two young 8th-grade boys wanted to talk instead of participating or listening when we were reading The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I tried standing closer to them, warning them, but still, they persisted in talking and disrupting class. So, I sent for my directing teacher, who removed the two rascals from class. When the class learned that those two had to write the entire story, I had no further problems! No one wanted me to call Mr. Denman to talk to them!

Each day George and I met for lunch, he thought I brought the best lunches! I usually had a sandwich, sometimes chicken, occasionally pork chop or steak, but I always put lettuce on my sandwich. Sometimes, I had leftover spaghetti or rice and gravy with whatever meat had been leftover from supper. George always thought I had the coolest lunch, and I often shared my lunch with him!

I did all the teacher responsibilities as an intern, as George wanted me to have the full experience so I’d be prepared to teach the next year. This included marking the register each morning for attendance. At that time, FTE Registers were legal documents that the teacher maintained, and each school sent monthly reports to the district office. These reports were used by the districts for filing reports to the state to obtain school funding, so they were vital and had to be accurate. Anyway, I marked the register daily, but I was sick for three days and missed school, so George had to teach his class and mark his register while I was out. George had me send him lesson plans for the time I was out…again, just as a teacher would do for actual teaching. I had forgotten to remind him that the register report was coming to the end of the 20-day cycle, and his report needed to be filed.

When I returned to school, George told me not to go near the office. That sounded like a strange request, so, of course, I wanted to know why.

George shared with me that there had been a situation while I was out. George was sitting in the teacher’s lounge after school one day, and one of the ladies from the front office said, George, your register is due!

George said, Oh, my goodness, I forgot! I’ll have it for you in the morning!

Well, when George went to do his report, he wasn’t sure of the exact beginning or ending date of the report. They had missed some days with the school fire, so the dates had changed. He sent over to another teacher, Mrs. Becky Maples, to ask, as she always had all her reports perfect, he said, and she told him she wasn’t sure of the dates either, so he better check with the office.

By this time, school had begun, so George sent a student with a pass to the front office to ask for the correct reporting dates. The student came back to class and said that the lady in the office had been very snippy and asked him to look at the date of the last report and count 20 days; even he could do that! She was really rude! the kid told George.

So, George wrote a discrete note telling the secretary she could be rude to him all she wished but not to be rude to his kids! He sealed the note in an envelope and sent it to the secretary. Later in the day, he received a copy of a letter that the secretary had written to the Superintendent of Schools reporting him for not filing his FTE report on time. Unfortunately, she had several grammatical errors in the letter, including the misspelling of Superintendent! George corrected the errors with a red pen, put a C- on the letter, made a note to write the correct spelling 20 times to turn in after class, and sent the letter to the secretary! Needless to say, we both avoided the office for a few days so there would be no further encounters. George also told me to use extreme caution if I chose to model that behavior!

I learned a tremendous amount during my student internship and thoroughly enjoyed working with George. He had a strong personality and was a great teacher who truly cared about his students! One of my students was a very courteous young lady who had just moved to the United States and spoke no English. By the end of my internship, she could communicate effectively, so total immersion worked for her. I spoke no Spanish, and we did not have a translator. She was an excellent student who attempted to do all the work in English!

WHS…The Challenging First Year!

I had a couple of additional classes to complete in the summer. Then, I graduated from the University of Florida’s College of Education with a Bachelor of Arts in Education. I was certified to teach English, history, and journalism in August 1972 at 20. I interviewed for several teaching jobs in the local area but decided to take a teaching job at Williston High School, where I had interned. It seems Mr. George Denman, my directing teacher, had taken a job teaching English at Lowell Correctional Institute, so there was an opening for an English teacher.

I was hired by Mr. Paul King, the Principal, to teach English II (two sections of 10th grade English), French I, II, and III, and Journalism. I was out of the field in French but had taken 12 hours of French in college as well as French I and II in high school.

I was also assigned to sponsor the junior class, which required lots of fundraisers to raise money for prom! I was the advisor for the school yearbook and sponsor for the Journalism Club. Needless to say, I was just a little busy! So, when Mr. King asked me to sponsor the cheerleaders, I told him I didn’t want to be disrespectful in saying no, but when would he have me do that? He decided that he did have my schedule pretty packed! I also did not have a classroom of my own. I moved from room to room each period to teach in another teacher’s classroom while they were on planning period! I did find an empty area that I was able to clean out and make an office where I could store my teaching materials. I also located a cart that I could push to each classroom with the supplies I would need to teach my class! However, I had to share my office area with another teacher who also did not have a classroom of her own. Unfortunately, she smoked like a chimney and would go to the office between classes to catch a quick cigarette, so when I tried to get something from my side, it looked like the building was on fire! 

I graduated at the end of August and taught one week as Miss Colvin. I married my high school sweetheart the next weekend, on September 2, 1972. (Mama had to sign for me to get married as the legal age was 21, and I was only 20.) I returned for my second week of work as Mrs. Lord. Interestingly, one of the ladies I carpooled with also married and changed her name to Mrs. Dodd, so the kids called her Mrs. God. We were both from Dixie County and enjoyed teaching together during our first year. She was the business teacher, and we often shared stories on our travels from Gainesville to Williston each day.

I was young and quite naive when I first began teaching. One area my husband thought I needed to be educated about was drug education. My husband knew that I had never used drugs and had no idea what marijuana smelled like. He knew from Viet Nam! So, one day, he came home from work and said, We are going to a concert because you need to know what marijuana smells like.

Chesley worked for a plumbing company that was working on the construction of Santa Fe Junior College. It was a new college being built in Gainesville at the time, and there were open fields around the area. He had heard at work that there was going to be a concert in the fields surrounding the area and knew that, more than likely, pot would be smoked at the concert.

So, we went to the concert. We didn’t stay very long, and