Howdy, Laksehore High Panthers! I hope you had a great summer and are ready for another year of Panther Pride! RAAWR!
A reminder that wearing flip-flops to school is considered “gang-related paraphernalia” – because of that surfer gang in, like, Guam was it? – and is grounds for expulsion.
As you’re getting ready to put away the flip-flops and break out the new school shoes, here’s lots of good news and a few tips to help you prepare for how to make the coming year the best ever.
You may recall last year’s “Keep it Clean, Lakeshore Panthers!” campaign, after the custodial staff was laid off. We were disappointed how few students took the initiative to not get sick (although seeing all those CDC helicopters flying in was pretty neat, wasn’t it?), so this year we’re offering a few specific tips:
- Avoid the restrooms unless… no, no, just avoid the restrooms. Especially the one in E-hall. The less said about E-hall, the better.
- Avoid touching the desks after second period. That way, the germs left by kids in the morning have time to die of old age before the next morning. (we checked with the Science Department to make sure that’s how it works, but unfortunately our textbooks aren’t current enough to cover the existence of “germs”)
- Students who appear to be ill should be shunned with extreme initiative.
Don’t you love taking classes with your friends? Well, good news, Panthers! Classes now average 55-60 students each! The odds of not having friends in class with you are almost nil! It will also be a great way to get peer help on assignments. We’re recommending not talking to the teachers unless absolutely necessary because, frankly, many of them already look ready to snap.
Music classes will be combined with Woodshop, in an effort to drown out the sound of adolescent musicianship. (Note: Patty, find a better way to say that before you send this out)
Great news, weird, arty kids! We’ve managed to save the arts programs by incorporating them into other classes. Art, for example, will now be part of Geometry class. Students who’ve signed up for art will be allowed to, say, put a little guy skiing down the side of the isosceles triangle. Drama will be incorporated into PE.
Thanks to Prop 94, teachers must now teach according to political party platforms. Sudents, double-check your schedules to make sure you’re lined up with the proper instructors to avoid being exposed to new ideas that don’t fit with what you already think.
More great news! We won our lawsuit regarding the nutritional content of school lunches. From now on, lard will be considered protein, on the reasoning that it comes from animals. Or in our case, Larrd™, the petroleum-based lard substitute we’ll be using.
I know we were all disappointed with last year’s state testing results, leading our school to be classified as “Mentally Toxic.” In response to this, we have brought in grief-counselors for students who feel who their self-esteem might be impacted, while we look for easier standardized tests to take. In the meantime, we have eliminated all curricula that doesn’t directly relate to passing the test in core classes.
Also, please refer to them as “sodas” or “pops.” You see, kids, COLA also stands for “Cost Of Living Allowance,” something you might not want to bring up around the teachers who are – as we mentioned – surprisingly tense.
Please remember, Panthers, to drink at least 7 soft drinks a day from our vending machines. In an act of generosity that can only be described as “heroic,” the Insulin Shock Cola company has agreed to donate 1/5th of one cent for every soda bought from the school vending machines, and all they’ve asked in return is that we aggressively push their product on thousands of impressionable adolescents! Wow! Thank You notes are encouraged.
Well, I think that’s it! And welcome Back! Oh, also we had to eliminate the English Department to cut costs. Books are dead, anyway, right? Okay, that’s it. Go Panthers!
***
Click here to read “Welcome Back, Teachers!”
The Byronic Man 
September 4, 2012 at 3:28 am
Unfortunately some of this is not that big a difference….I bet you would enjoy this one that happened in my son’s school: a week before school started someone in the Central Office decided to change out the 5-year-old carpeting in the library. The janitors removed the books in no apparent method from the shelves (which were not moved at all) and they were left in piles. The librarian is trying to get the library aides to reshelve the books but apparently they have trouble understanding how to organize the numbers in the Dewey Decimal system beyond the decimal point. Realistically, other than the mess on the tables and the floor of piles of books, the lack of books on the shelves would probably not have much affect on the usage of the library. Last year a change to the computer system in the school meant the software for the catalog was not compatible and it took 5 months to get that working.
September 4, 2012 at 6:44 am
Sounds about right.
The part that kills me is that Dewey was a raging sexist and, since librarians were typically women, he believed that his filing system needed to be simple enough for “a chimp to understand.” (charming, right?) So, a chimp… but not a public school student.
Oh, yeah. This country’s going nowhere but up…
September 4, 2012 at 3:58 am
This would have been even funnier if it weren’t so close to the truth.
September 4, 2012 at 6:45 am
So more jive-talking robots and sexy aliens, is what you’re saying? I hear you.
September 4, 2012 at 4:43 am
Getting a proper education is a gamble. Does Lakeshore High offer Roulette on their Physics syllabus? It’s a great way to demonstrate centrifugal dynamics and score a little extra cash for sugary snacks. 🙂
September 4, 2012 at 6:47 am
I’m worried students won’t be able to understand the complexities of roulette. Maybe just slot machines? The push-button kind, not where you have to pull that lever every time.
September 4, 2012 at 8:11 am
Ha! I think you may be correct. 🙂
September 4, 2012 at 4:55 am
Oh, you’re so good at these things (satires)… 😀
Drama/PE classes, Larrd™, Insulin Shock Cola…clearly education at its finest.
September 4, 2012 at 6:48 am
Seriously, though: who – who I ask you – wouldn’t like to see Drama/PE class in action?
September 4, 2012 at 9:59 am
Me! I would love to see Drama/PE.
How about a Shop / Band combo class? Who says they’re doing away with electives?
September 4, 2012 at 4:55 am
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. And who needs language arts, anyway? We all know how to talk good.
September 4, 2012 at 6:49 am
& w/ txtng, wrds R d8d NEway!
September 4, 2012 at 4:57 am
Perfect post for the first day of school. And for following up after the GOP Convention.
It’s schools like this that demonstrate just why we need vouchers …
September 4, 2012 at 6:51 am
I know I should be mining the conventions for humor material, but it’s really bad for my blood pressure and sanity.
September 4, 2012 at 5:00 am
It is soooo like Patty to forget to check the captions.
September 4, 2012 at 6:51 am
Isn’t she the worst?
September 4, 2012 at 5:20 am
Books? What’s that? Are those the things our parents used to use before iPads & Kindles. Like with paper and stuff, that you have to turn yourself??? Ok grandpa!
September 4, 2012 at 6:54 am
It’s amazing people ever read at all, what with the turning pages, and non-illuminated pages, and books sometimes weighing, like, 3 pounds?
September 4, 2012 at 5:39 am
Hey… art kids aren’t THAT weird.
DUDE! Wait… this just came to me… the rest of this comment… original interpretive dance…
September 4, 2012 at 6:54 am
I give that dance a grade of “smiling koala bear.”
September 4, 2012 at 6:33 am
I home-schooled my children all summer with an X-Box 360. Now they are much better prepared for their school’s Inaugural Alien Zombie Uprising / Prom.
September 4, 2012 at 6:56 am
Ah, the old “summer brain erase.” There’s nothing like reviewing something you know for a fact they spent 2 months on and getting genuine blank stares in response.
September 4, 2012 at 7:05 am
I almost didn’t finish this post because I got really distracted by what else I could draw on a triangle and ways to incorporate Drama into PE.
Actually, you may want to go more in depth on that, too, because I want to read it…I mean… because then you could sell your ideas before they decide to pay teachers even less.
September 4, 2012 at 11:22 am
Well sure, there’s the jagged line across the triangle, indicating snow. The fluffy cloud. The bear on skis chasing the skier. It goes on and on, creatively speaking.
As you may have gathered, I had trouble staying focused in Geometry.
September 4, 2012 at 7:21 am
Funny post, but as others have noted, sadly too real in many places. Here in BC, it’s especially true, except instead of Prop 94, we have Bill 22. (And yes, I’m one of those beleaguered teachers!)
September 4, 2012 at 11:26 am
So, if I’m reading correctly, Bill 22 forces a 6 month “cooling off” period before teachers are allowed to strike? Or am I reading that wrong?
September 4, 2012 at 10:38 am
Just reading this makes me wish I could go back to the glory days of university…
September 4, 2012 at 11:04 am
Mmmm. Larrd is goooooood.
I love that you found a way to work in isosceles triangle. I have referenced scalene triangles in past posts but they don’t roll off the tongue as well. I push my knowledge of triangles every chance I get since it’s the one lesson in math that the arty kids could get a handle on.
FYI — this post didn’t appear in my reader but I did get the email notification.
September 4, 2012 at 11:21 am
I was going to change it to an equilateral triangle, because that made more sense, but it took me so long to figure out how to spell “isosceles” that I decided to keep it.
That is concerning about not appearing in your reader… that happened to me with a number of blogs, so I un-followed and then re-followed, and that fixed it. In case you’re terrified about potentially missing a moment of Byronic hilarity.
September 4, 2012 at 11:22 am
Isosceles, scalene: good. Just make sure there aren’t any “right” triangles mentioned in class, because we know that all those triangles want women kept barefoot and pregnant.
September 4, 2012 at 11:24 am
Best wishes for a great new, school year, B-Man! Practice unclenching your jaw every once in a while because your new benefit package no longer covers TMJ.
September 4, 2012 at 3:24 pm
I don’t have to worry about grinding, because the crappiness of our health insurance is jaw-dropping.
September 4, 2012 at 12:57 pm
I can just picture it….thanks for the very bittersweet laugh.
September 4, 2012 at 7:16 pm
Let’s get serious for a moment…. OK, now what was I saying? Oh, yeah. There might be a story for you in the (unsubstantiated) fact that a large percentage of our teachers were fired. And then the school board hired teachers from Mexico to teach English as a second language!
September 4, 2012 at 9:12 pm
Unfortunately, this is too close to the truth!
September 5, 2012 at 1:55 pm
Wow, The Panthers are l.u.c.k.y… My son had what we referred to as “Art on a Cart.” Art supplies were rolled into the regular classroom whenever the teacher had time, which was rare. Not too many kids had an appreciation for art. He was a vegetarian, too. So school lunches were a big problem, with ketchup being the only vegetable offered on many days. Ah, the U.S public education system…
September 5, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Yep, I think you captured the essence of school here in Philly. No books, toxic lunches, over crowded classes and crap test scores despite the efforts to turn you into a test taking robot…ahh the future sure is looking bright isn’t it?
September 5, 2012 at 6:57 pm
I’m laughing, Byronic. But I shouldn’t be because it hits too close to home. (I teach 7th grade Language Arts.)
September 5, 2012 at 8:40 pm
Wow, it’s like you’ve been observing the public schools in Texas. Oh, wait, Bush took Rod Paige out of Houston and brought him to Washington so he could screw up the whole country. How could I forget.
(And yes, I’m well aware things were bad before then, but man, did they ever get worse when Every Child Left Behind started the Race to the Bottom.)
Bah.
September 6, 2012 at 6:09 am
During our anatomy lab break last night, the teacher informed us there would be free pizza out in the lobby. woohoo! Score! This education thing is already paying off! But then I remembered the germs left by the previous kids hadn’t had time to disappear yet. And the pizza looked like it was covered in Laard anyway. I think I’ll have to speak to the dean about this tomorrow. I demand better free pizza!
September 6, 2012 at 6:23 am
I’d protest. And give long speeches about rights and the future while sitting cross-legged on the floor of a dorm room.
September 6, 2012 at 2:27 pm
My schools mascot is actually the panthers, how weird.
September 6, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Hey, did you ever read the Choose Your Own Adventure story? Your “holy sweet whale carcass” is in there.
September 6, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Yes I did! I was so happy! Thank you for including it in your story!
September 7, 2012 at 2:30 pm
If art had been part of geometry when I was in school, my grade would have been averaged into an A and I would have gotten that banana yellow mustang from my parents from earning all As in high school. Life is so unfair. 🙂