Something of Value

Every once in a while I am reminded that you really don't need to watch soap operas if you spend most of your time in a middle school.

Thursday my fifth period kids are coming in to the room to put their things down and get ready for our walk down to lunch.  I'm getting ready to put up my agenda PowerPoint (a scrolling PowerPoint that gives the kids instructions and lets them know what we're doing) and I do a quick check of my email and see one from Mr. Math.  It reads, "If anyone finds a rather large stack of SWPBS money, beware!  I just had a bunch stolen from my desk and they didn't have my name on them yet."

Oh great.  However, I look up from the email and my eye falls on one of my kids in the back of the room who is standing there counting out his HUGE MASSIVE WAD of reward money.  The stack is so huge he has a massive binder clip on it that he's using as a money clip. Amazing.  Especially since this isn't the type of kid that's such an angel he's going to be earning that much money in the three weeks school has been in session.

We drop the kids off at lunch and then the team along with Mrs. Eagle are having our lunch and I mention that Sneaky Boy was in the back of the room counting out his cash and he may be the one we're looking for.  Mr. Math mentions that he had a number of sixth grade teachers email Sneaky Boy's name as well since he apparently did the same thing last year.  At this point Mrs. Language adds that she saw Sneaky Boy counting out a HUGE MASSIVE WAD of cash in her class as well, and in fact, he used five dollars of it to buy a chance to sit in her teacher chair for the period.

(Okay, some explanation - we're trying to have things for the kids to buy that don't cost us things in addition to the real items in our store.  So, kids can buy an opportunity to read the morning announcements, a ticket to sit in the teacher's chair, lunch in the library, and so on.)

Mrs. Reading then adds that Sneaky Boy was also seen in her class counting out a HUGE MASSIVE WAD of cash in her room and he also paid to sit in her chair for the period.  She suggests going back to her room to see what was on the back of the money he used to pay for this privilege, so she went back, and went to Mrs. Language's room as well, and brought back the ten dollars that Sneaky Boy spent with them that morning.

By this time Mr. Math has called The Enforcer and filled him in on our suspicions because we do take this pretty seriously at the school - this is the currency our kids use for a lot of rewards and shopping and it really does have value with them.  (Which, The Principal reminds us, is a good thing.)

I turns out that Sneaky Boy had forged all ten of the dollars he'd used to buy his chair-sitting that day.  He'd written most of our names on several of them (he spelled Mr. Math's name wrong!) and the reasons he gave for receiving the money was pretty funny.  On one where he'd forged my name he wrote it was for "saying yes mame" and another one from Mrs. Social Studies was for "telling the truth".  You can imagine how much fun we had with that.

By this time Mrs. Reading has the rather frightening thought that perhaps, while he was sitting in the teacher's chair in her class, he may have gotten in her desk and taken her supply of money as well.  So back she went to her room only to discover - you know where this is going, right? - that her reward money was all stolen out of her desk.

Mr. Enforcer comes down to the lunch room, snaps up Sneaky Boy, gets a hold of his wad of cash and asks us to sort it all out.  Most of it didn't have a teacher name or signature on it and the rest were mostly forged teacher names.  We have a policy that a reward buck has to have either a teacher's initials or name written in ink, or a stamp (I use a signature stamp) on them to be valid.  So, when you see one that's entirely filled out by a kid (and that's pretty apparent, especially when they can't spell our names correctly), then it's safe to say we may have a problem.

Well, truthfully, Sneaky Boy had the problem.  And he earned himself five days in ISS.

What's funny is that all this transpired in the span of about 15 minutes at lunch.  And it probably wouldn't have transpired if Sneak Boy wasn't so blatant in the counting of his cash.    I hope he enjoys all the workbook packets he's getting instead of labs!