Typical Day
Norma Tu gets out of bed at 6:00AM ready to start her day. She eats a healthy, protein-rich breakfast, puts on her Shmoop School spirit gear since today is Friday—pep rally day—and is out the door.
Norma high-tails it through the drive-thru at Starbucks, where she gets a Venti latte with an extra shot of espresso to give her the energy she'll need for the day (she even gets a teacher's discount).
As Norma gets to school, there's a traffic accident between two parents' cars that is blocking the drop-off circle. Norma quickly swoops into action. She parks her car and breaks up a fight between the two parents using her super awesome diplomacy skills. The parents look like they're ready to kill each other and they contemplate taking it out on Norma, but she stands firm and warns them to get back in their cars before she has to do something she doesn't want to do (she's not exactly sure what this is, but sometimes a vague threat works just fine on kids and parents alike).
By the time the parents clear out their wrecked cars, traffic is all backed up. Norma quickly takes the job of traffic cop, moving the cars swiftly through the circle and making sure the kids get out safely.
She walks into her office and realizes she is late for a staff meeting. She tries to explain why but the principal just glares at her. "It's probably better to just be quiet and sit tight," she thinks. It turns out that the school's test scores are in, and they were less than stellar. A task force needs to be formed to find out where the problem is coming from and to examine the teachers' methods closely.
Norma is put on the head of the task force. She is honored to be given the responsibility, but then again, she is already so slammed with other work that she wishes this one were given to someone else. Besides, if it is the teachers that are to blame, she will have to be the one to break the bad news, and she likes the teachers at her school a whole bunch.
Norma leaves the meeting and goes to check her emails. She has 122 new emails since yesterday. Sure, plenty are spam, but she still needs to weed through them all to find a few urgent matters that she needs to take care of right away.
She's about to respond to a few when Terry Troublemaker is shown into her office. Terry has been causing grief to Mr. Otter, the biology teacher, who sent him in with a note describing his misdeeds. Norma tries to find out what is causing Terry to be so disruptive. Terry denies doing anything wrong and claims that Mr. Otter has it in for him ever since he accidentally caused that explosion in the lab last month.
Norma assures Terry that the explosion is certainly not to blame and that Mr. Otter isn't the only teacher who has been complaining. She tries to find out if things are okay at home. Terry says they are but he finally breaks down and says that he is having trouble sleeping at night, which is causing him to be grumpy during class. Maybe that's it.
Norma asks if maybe she should talk to Terry's parents to find out why he's having trouble sleeping. Terry says no, that he's just worried about his grades. He promises to come in to school support and do better. He asks for another chance. Norma is feeling generous and gives him one, although she could swear he says "Sucker," under his breath on the way out the door. "Maybe he was expecting a lollipop," she thinks. She forgot she has a jar of Dum-Dums on her desk; she should've offered him one.
At the spirit rally, Norma gets to give a short pep speech praising the efforts of the football team, even though they have lost every one of their games this season. Still, there's one game left. She feels like this will be the big winner for them all. The students groan. The cheerleaders mask the sound with their cheers and leaps of joy. The rest of Norma's speech is drowned out with the thumping sound from the cheer number to "All About that Bass."
After the rally, Norma works as the lunch monitor, making sure all the kids behave and clean up after themselves.
She then does a sweep of the classrooms after lunch to make sure everything is going smoothly. It makes her heart swell with pride when she sees her kids working hard in their classes. The kids often smile or say hi when they see her.
After the sweep, Norma has a meeting with a parent who is worried that her daughter is flunking out of Honors Algebra. The parent blames the teacher and says she is not taking into account her daughter's ADHD and isn't doing anything to help with her distraction. Norma didn't know that the student had ADHD and tells the mother that they will do some testing and an evaluation of her daughter. They'll have an IEP meeting about it when the results are in. The mother agrees to the testing and asks what will be done in the meantime. Norma assures the mother that she will talk to the teacher and they will move her daughter to the front of the class to try to help her keep on task.
After the meeting, Norma starts to answer some of those emails, except now there are twice as many to get through. She manages to get through half in between answering the phone and speaking to several students about attendance issues.
The students leave at 3:00PM and the principal heads over to a meeting at the district office. Norma stays and holds down the fort, answering more emails and doing some research on that task force that she's now leading.
At 5:00PM, Norma is exhausted and packs it in. She heads home, hitting rush hour traffic and doesn't get in until an hour and a half later. She watches some TV, fixes herself a quick, healthy dinner, and reads in her bed until she falls asleep. She needs to be ready to do it all over again the next day.