The Paper Will Kill the Children  

Posted by: rebecca meyer

Okay, the title sounds kind of silly, but just read on...

I am so frustrated with the fire marshall right now. We spent hours, days, money, tons of time, decorating our classroom, making it a bright, cheery environment conducive to learning, and now the fire marshall came and visited our school and we have to take it all down! I am so sad and frustrated that there are no words. It breaks my heart that this person is forcing us to spend our time making our room less inviting.

Here are just SOME of the things we have to change in our room (because if there is a fire, having no paper on the walls will really save the kids):

*Every wall can only be covered 40% by anything (bulletin boards, chalkboards, charts, etc.), so we have to take down:
-Bulletin boards (no, not quite all of them, but still...)
-Birthday charts
-The Alphabet
-A-Z lists
*Also, things hanging from the ceiling must be at least 24" down (everything in our room is!!!!), but... it can't be made out of paper. And, if it is hanging down, it has to be sprayed with a stinky, dangerous, expensive non-combustible spray. So...
-ALL of the students work and art hanging from the ceiling must come down.
-The curtains in our writing center must come off
-More Alphabet charts have to come down

We also have to get rid of the letters students have written to us, get rid of our personal bulletin board...I am just exhausted thinking about it and want to cry. Obviously the fire marshall does not have children or they just plain do not support education, because SERIOUSLY...like making any of these changes is going to protect our kids any more. We wouldn't want them to take pride in their work at school--let them join one of the gangs that hangs out in the neighborhood. Maybe there they will gain some sort of identity.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 11, 2009 . You can leave a response and follow any responses to this entry through the Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) .

2 comments

The fire marshal told Mom that she couldn't council kids one-on-one in the underwater room at the pool because it was a fire hazard. Yeah...to have 2 people in there...in a cement block none the less. I guess it's okay to take groups down there to see how rescues are made though. Just rediculous. Becki I'm so very sorry. How infuriating. (There are lots of big words and no spell check so beware.)

I teach first grade in Austin, TX and we were just told that because our school has no sprinkler system we can only have 20% of our walls covered and absolutely no fabric curtains (flame retardant treated or not). I have students with Autism who have sensory issues and today I was told that the light covers that the SPED dept gave me are against code. Honestly, do these people not have kids or do they just really dislike teachers?

~Katie

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