dcps drama: thurgood marshall flooded

yesterday, i had all the girls in the car
in our regular early morning rush to school
when someone tapped on the driver’s side, dew-covered window.
it was the neighbor kitty-corner to me saying that the school was closed
due to flooding.

it was like someone quashed my adrenaline
and i didn’t know quite how to react.
we went back in the house
and i attempted to call the school office and sanaa’s teacher’s office phone.
no luck with the office,
but the teacher’s assistant told me that she couldn’t even get into the classroom area.

later on i got an automated call from the principal.
she said that part of the school had been flooded
due to a faulty sprinker system,
but in other parts the children were in school.

that evening, i got another automated call,
this time from DCPS,
saying that the school would be closed until the board of health
– oh, goodness –
said it was safe for the children,
and that all the children would attend classes at slowe elementary
not too far away on 14th & jackson streets NE.

i called sanaa’s teacher, ms. lee, at home.
she gave me the sad low down,
talking about at least 2 inches of water in the classroom,
damaged classroom supplies, and
furniture that’s probably going to be warped.
(she already gets little to nothing for supplies in the first place,
especially the more expensive montessori tools.)
she foretold of the unimaginable chaos
that today is going to bring:
the school’s plan is to ship all students to slowe by bus in the morning,
as well as ship all the teacher’s supplies to school on that same day
– or maybe that happened last night.
ms. lee didn’t seem too optimistic.

from the little i know about montessori
– but this probably can apply to any classroom –
order is important.
i asked her how is she expecting to do anything
being in a new classroom,
with a new, half-done setup?
i remember that it took her 2 weeks to set up
in a classroom that she’d been in the previous year.
what in the world is going to happen in one day?
less than that, actually, cause the class and
what’s left over of the classroom tools that she could fit in a box
will probably arrive within minutes of each other
if not at the same time.

she told me if she were a parent
and she had the ability to do so,
she’d keep her child home.
it’s gonna be chaos.
it’s gonna be choatic babysitting.
i can do better at home,
so i’ll take her advice
and keep sanaa with me for today.
we’ll see what ms. lee says later on tonight.

the reason the students are continuing to go to school
– albeit a different school –
with little more than a day for the teachers
to set up in the backup school,
is probably because
parents would be angry
cause they’d have to make last minute childcare arrangements.
not because taking a little time to re-organize
would be best for the learning environment.

ishaq doesn’t want sanaa to go to a non-muslim school anyway.
it crossed my mind that maybe this is Allah’s way of saying
she doesn’t need to be there
and i need to continue with my homeschooling plans.
regardless, i’m thankful that sanaa doesn’t have to go to school.