#60 - "Fighting For The Kids!!" - Rodent Infestation In The Classroom Pt.1 w/Michelle Chung

What if your classroom was infested with disease-carrying mice — and no one believed you?

In this shocking episode, a Boise culinary teacher shares her battle against a rodent-infested classroom, a failing school system, and devastating health consequences after contracting tick-borne illnesses from mouse exposure.

From contaminated student aprons to retaliatory school politics, this is a raw conversation about courage, corruption, and what happens when speaking the truth puts everything on the line.

To listen and download Part 2, CLICK HERE

To follow Michelle on IG: @Mshell085

Transcript

Teacher Discovers Classroom Mouse Infestation

Speaker 1 0:11

okay, this is going to be an interesting one. Yes, you, I'm going to give a little brief intro of what this episode is gonna get, until it's a little bit different. You are a teacher here in boise yep.

Speaker 2 0:28

You're a culinary teacher yep, and I mean, I would say the title is family and consumer science okay that's life skills kind of home back perfect back in the day.

Speaker 1 0:36

Okay, home back. I loved home back one of my favorite classes, but your classroom is infested with mice. They're pissing and shitting on everything. They're in the stoves, they're in the ovens, they're in the washers and dryer, they're in everything Dishwashers, dishwashers. You ended up contracting.

Speaker 2 0:55

Babesiosis and anaplasmosis. It's basically two co-infections of Lyme disease.

Speaker 1 1:01

From ticks coming from the mice in the school district is doing absolutely nothing about this, and your children are in these classrooms in these conditions and you're currently home on med leave.

Speaker 2 1:16

Yeah, okay, yep, that's it All right.

Speaker 1 1:18

I don't even know where to start with this one, but I guess it's wild. Who are you and where are you from? Yeah, this is wild chaos. This is.

Speaker 2 1:27

Yep, it's actually Okay. So who are?

Speaker 1 1:29

you, where are you from? And I've been to originally from California.

Speaker 2 1:33

Sometimes I hate saying that my husband would say we've been here long enough, so yeah. Been here 24 years. Oh yeah, yeah, my. My husband was a BLM smokejumper for 14 years, which is what brought us here.

Speaker 1 1:43

Nice.

Speaker 2 1:45

Yeah, he works for the Forest Service, so I'm just here came to be a teacher and do what I love. So I have two kids. One is 19. She just finished college and a son who is a junior in high school.

Speaker 1 1:56

Okay, so, yeah. So you're right in there. You got the teenage life. I know how that is I. I know how that is. I love having a teenager. That's why I love teaching that age.

Speaker 2 2:05

A lot of people ask what do you do? I'm like, oh, I teach junior high. And they're like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. I'm like what Love that age? They are just rock stars.

Speaker 1 2:16

What made?

Speaker 2 2:17

you want to be a teacher? Actually, my first grade teacher.

Speaker 1 2:19

Really.

Speaker 2 2:20

Yeah, I just knew early on I loved kids. I loved educating and just teaching and I feel like it's it's so good to create a relationship with the kids versus treat them like we own them, like treating them like they're human, versus regulating like, oh, you can't go to the bathroom. You've only had, you know, three times to go this semester. I'm just a little bit more chill. Some teachers don't like it. Some teachers love it. My students love it. I have their respect all the time. I never have a problem.

Speaker 1 3:01

I feel to have the respect of a class of teenagers is probably a very difficult thing to do this day and age. Oh huge, so that shows obviously something's working.

Speaker 2 3:15

Yeah, it's definitely. I mean, that's what they usually tell me at the end of the semester. Or I just received four letters from seniors at Bora and they said, gosh, you know, if it wasn't for you I don't think I would be here.

Speaker 1 3:27

That's incredible. Okay, so you're making an impact on these kids' lives and I love to hear this. Because we're homeschoolers, we're out of the system, because I feel the direction. A huge part of it is obviously the schools and the curriculum, yep, and just the cookie cutter molds which I feel most teachers fall under. Oh, a hundred percent, is that hard for you?

Speaker 2 3:53

So I think we're, we're put in kind of a box sometimes. You know we have to follow regulations, state requirements, we have to, we have to right. But there is a point in time where you get to a place where you're like gosh, I, I want to right. But there is a point in time where you get to a place where you're like gosh I, I want to be able to teach other stuff or I want to be able to venture out, and some of us are creative enough to do it the right way.

Speaker 1 4:14

Um, but it is hard because politics get involved and you know, the unions get involved in the state do you feel public schools would be I don't know how to word this more efficient if they just, instead of these strict guidelines that come down from the government? If they were hey, you're a history teacher they allowed the teachers to be able to build their curriculum, or does that kind of get down a muddy road, because then you can start teaching we do actually okay I mean so, yeah, we have to follow state guidelines, of course.

Speaker 2 4:50

Um, I will. I mean, I I love teaching period and I I do feel like the boise school district is a great school district, minus how we're handling my situation. But we usually get together a lot throughout the school year and really put our heads together in terms of, like, our curriculum. So myself and all of our junior high teachers will get together and the high school teachers will get together and we go over state curriculum and we navigate it Like how can we better do this and what you know? So we, we do have a say to an extent.

Speaker 2 5:22

We really do, and, and I'm grateful for that- yeah it's not like you have to teach this lesson, so there is a lot of play for for myself, as an elective teacher, I can't speak for history, math yep, you know they have. They have a way heavier load, I feel, for education yeah, so especially with like state testing and stuff but I feel where you come into.

Speaker 1 5:46

I don't even know they still did. I'm just gonna call it home ec. Yeah, I didn't even realize they still did it because I did, I, I did it and it was what I learned my daughter, my daughter's like you know how to sew, dad, and I tell him if you ask her yeah, I had home ec when I was a kid and we'd make these stuffed animal. You turn them inside out, stuff them, pull them, like it was. That was like the basics of everything and it can. It carried through life. And then, when joining the military, it was like I knew how to sew. It was just one of those weird things that my daughters always thought it was super strange that, like dad knows how to sew and it goes all the way back to home ec so good.

Speaker 2 6:18

I mean in california they got rid of it. Yes, so I it's, it's so. I'm so glad our district supports it, especially with our D tech building they have a lot of stuff there, for CTE is what we are a career technical education. So there's a lot to offer with it and I hope, I hope they keep it. I really do.

Speaker 1 6:37

Are those their talk of them Not?

Speaker 2 6:39

No, I mean, I feel like they're kind of pulling apart our my curriculum and kind of divvying it out a little bit. So they took like the career side of stuff and they've got like a career class that's mandated for kids to take. So then we were like well, wait a minute, we teach that too. They do health there. There's a finance class they're now mandated to take. That's separate and we teach finance. So there's little bits and pieces, but I see it as kind of a positive thing, because if they're taking a full class, like a full semester class on finance, then I can turn around and put my focus in a different area longer.

Speaker 2 7:22

So I don't think they're going to get rid of it in a different area you know longer, so I don't think they're going to get rid of it.

Speaker 1 7:29

Have you seen kids, have you seen teenagers change in the last few years since COVID? Just because we, we were out, you know, and that was a huge reason during that time with was the games and the mask on, ass off, can't talk, you know it was, and that's where the wife was like we're done. Oh, is that?

Speaker 2 7:45

when the little on ask off can't talk. You know it was, and that's where the wife was like we're done.

Speaker 1 7:47

Oh, is that? When you guys pulled, when the little one went, we? She ended up developing an eating habit like a not, I don't want to say disorder, but it was an eating habit and my wife picked up on it immediately. She's like I want you to watch and our youngest would come home and just stuff her face and then she'd crash, crash and she's like this isn't right.

Speaker 1 8:02

And then we so she wasn't eating at school, because the only time that the kids were able to socialize was during lunch. So they would just blow through lunch, not even eat it, dump their trays and go outside just to talk. So then she's coming home starving and then she's crashing. And so my wife, my wife's like we're done, we're done, I'm not, they're not playing my kid, you start messing with my kid. We they're not playing with my kid, you start messing with my kid, we're done. So that's when we made our decision. But you see so many statistics and stats of these kids and how that period just completely destroyed them socially. I mean, a lot of these kids were dependent on schools to get away from home. Things like that Food, food, just getting lunch, breakfast and lunch at school.

Speaker 2 8:44

And the support too. I mean we.

Speaker 1 8:46

Having teachers like yourself.

Speaker 2 8:47

Realistically, we, the kids, spend more time with us than they do their families.

Speaker 1 8:51

Yes, I've talked about it on this on this podcast I, I. I think one of the last episodes was I oh, I did it with the wife. I saw a study that they did a study on dads and how much time you they spend with their children a day and it came down to 13 minutes on undistracted attention with your child After they get home school. You get home from work 13 minutes on average a day. Sad yeah. So have you know? Back to that question have you seen a change in these kids over the last few years? I mean, you've been in it for a while. I mean, is it getting better or worse?

Speaker 2 9:26

Well, since I haven't I wasn't there this year Um, I mean, I've seen my own two kids and I see them getting better. My son has gotten so much better since COVID. Um, he, he wasn't. He wasn't too affected by COVID like a lot of my students were, but wasn't too affected by COVID like a lot of my students were.

Speaker 2 9:49

But I think social media had a huge impact when we were online learning I mean kids are sitting on their phones all day long and with my elective it was really difficult to give them anything to do with what I teach. We would try to say, hey, why don't you try and make this at home? Or, you know, let's come up with a project, but not all the parents could supply them with everything they needed.

Speaker 2 10:10

So it was a little bit difficult, um, but I I think I do think we're turning around. I think that the kids that are in ninth grade right now are like at that bitter end mark, and maybe I'm wrong, because I haven't been there this year so I don't know. You know how they've been behaving in the halls. But again, I struggle with giving that answer because I I just never really experienced behavioral issues in my classroom.

Speaker 1 10:35

Really.

Speaker 2 10:37

They would. My class kind of became a dumping ground, like if they, if there was a problem kid, it would be like, hey, let's just put it in home, ec, because I'm an elective, and I'd be like, ok, I'll take them. And then a lot of teachers, you know they make comments like, oh God, have fun. And I'm like it's fine, we'll figure it out and it's just. It's just building a rapport with them.

Speaker 1 10:59

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 11:00

And honestly figuring out each kid. You can't, I can't treat, you know, 20 to 22 kids in the class. I can't treat all of them the same.

Speaker 1 11:10

Absolutely not.

Speaker 2 11:10

Never going to happen.

Speaker 1 11:11

No way.

Speaker 2 11:12

So, yeah, I just I, I just treat them like humans and we work through whatever. And I, I started life coaching kids on the side. Really, yeah, because I they. They would just come to me with a lot of problems and I would recognize kids that were struggling and then I would reach out to the counselors and I'd say, hey, I think so-and-so needs some help. And they would come back to me and they would say how did you know? I'm like I don't know. I just I don't know You're paying attention yeah.

Speaker 2 11:38

I just pay attention.

Speaker 1 11:54

Yeah, I think this situation so hard. A lot of people are probably thinking like, oh, she's on vacation. No, it's been worse than not teaching podcast and you can tell that you're very passionate about these kids. Why? Why is there such a disconnect between teachers and students? Is it just? Is it just a job for them? Are they burned out?

Teaching Philosophy and Student Relationships

Speaker 1 12:19

Because I feel the amount of teachers that actually truly care and I'm not speaking for all, but I feel the amount of teachers that truly care for their children are just shadowed by the teachers that are just by the numbers. Here's a curriculum. Have a nice day, get out of my class, move on.

Speaker 2 12:31

I think, I think there's. I don't think people realize how much is on a teacher. I just don't think it's. There's a lot. There's a lot that gets put on teachers. And I and I feel like I have it a little bit easier in terms of not having to worry about state testing and worrying about getting all those kids.

Speaker 1 12:52

Certified.

Speaker 2 12:54

Yeah, and just brought up to speed. You've got. When you're teaching math, you know you've got four or five levels in your class and you're trying to balance the excelled kids. You know the lower end and you have a lot on your plate. So I feel like when you're teaching kind of a solid subject math, science, history, english you have to meet so much criteria. I don't, so I have more freedom to spend more quality time with those kids at all levels.

Speaker 1 13:23

I don't know if that answers it makes a ton of sense, but that also. I have another question. If you're able to spend that much quality time one-on-one time I feel you're putting out a better student than just prepping a kid to take a state test, true? Do you feel if we took away state testing, which accomplishes nothing anyways? There's at least I've, there's right where the fuck are you the day you graduate? What are?

Speaker 2 13:51

you gonna do with it nobody cares right.

Speaker 1 13:54

So if we took away the state testing and it's more focused on the learning learning and a quality of life for these kids like you you're giving them.

Speaker 1 14:03

you would be putting out a better product into society of a kid that actually knows how to function, talk, communicate, enjoy school instead of here's our, here's our ticks here. We have to hit this by checkpoint by this you all need to be tested in at this by this point in the year to pass the state test, because then it comes back on the teacher If you have a bunch of kids that are failing.

Speaker 2 14:25

right, so that's where the pressure comes from With my daughter applying to school. They you didn't need to SAT, they got rid of it. I mean I didn't get rid of it, you still take it.

Speaker 2 14:34

My son just took it, it's not like a requirement but yeah, my son put it up on his lacrosse profile and my daughter's like don't do that, it doesn't matter, and I was like that's crazy, so why does it matter now? So that could be definitely a part of it. I just think that we, the state, puts so many demands on the district and then the district has to pass those demands back down onto us. And sure, I have a few things like I have to worry about, but as an elective teacher, I, from that standpoint, I have it much easier.

Speaker 1 15:04

For sure.

Speaker 2 15:05

But on the other side nobody really realizes. Like I don't give my kids an hour-long test and go sit behind my desk. I am on my feet all the time. I'm at the grocery store at 5 in the morning. I'm at the grocery store at 10 o'clock at night. We're prepping labs, we're cutting out fabric. We're constantly moving, moving, moving. So it's just a different. It's just different.

Speaker 1 15:30

It's not. Oh, it's Friday. Test test. You got a spell test. Yeah, I get to sit down behind my desk and you know grade papers, I don't.

Speaker 2 15:37

I don't have a lot of free time so it's hard to say. I think testing is definitely.

Speaker 1 15:47

I think it takes away from what a teacher could potentially do in their classroom. That just kind of makes sense to me, you know, especially if now that they're going away you see this college it's not required anymore. I mean, maybe some Ivy League school will give a shit, but how many of these kids are going?

Speaker 2 15:58

off. Well, my daughter got into Vanderbilt and they didn't care.

Speaker 1 16:02

Yeah they didn't care. Yeah, that's weird. I wonder where that's going to go in the future. Because you hear about it, you know like california and all these other weird states are doing away with it and you feel that it's a bad thing. But then having this conversation, like okay, well, if that teacher had the pressure off of them to hit these checkpoints just to just to show the state cool, hey, we're good, we get our funding right, let's move on. But instead that teacher could have more of a personal relationship with these kids to be able to connect and just help these kids through life depending upon you, know your, your lifestyle too, at home.

Speaker 2 16:38

I mean, how many kids do you have at home? How many? What's going on in your life? To then come to the classroom and try to, you know, compartmentalize your own life and the things going on.

Speaker 2 16:48

It's just, it's a balance for sure, and we're expected to take a bullet. That's the other part. We don't get paid enough to have to stand in front of all of our students and take a bullet, and I would, I've, I've told my students that, and that's what I feel like I'm kind of doing right now is I'm taking a bullet for every single one of my students in this situation.

Speaker 1 17:07

Because nobody's doing anything about this. All right, let's dive into it. When did this start of this mouse infestation in your classroom? Let's just start there.

Speaker 2 17:18

Okay. So I started teaching at West junior high in 2018. Okay, I was their permanent sub, just kind of came in, rescued their teacher that retired and then I went to North Junior High for a year and then came back to West. So in fall of 2019, I took a mouse home with me in my work bag. It chewed through the lining I was carrying in my stuff, I put it on the floor of my own home in the kitchen and it scurried out into my pantry.

Speaker 1 17:50

You're telling me the mice are so bad in your classroom that they're getting in your personal handbag and you're bringing them home.

Speaker 2 17:57

I brought it home, yes, and I told my, I told my principal. I came back the next day, told my VP, told my principal, and they just kind of laughed at me. They were like, oh my God, that's so gross. Ew, and just kind of in passing, walked by me and I at the time I was getting a emergency credential. So I was, I was disposable, so to speak, like I didn't have protection. My, they could have said we're not keeping you.

Speaker 2 18:25

You're still subbing in a way, or Kind of I was getting an alternative credential, so to speak. So like I, I had my elementary credentials, but I didn't have junior high and I needed my FCS like endorsement certification.

Speaker 1 18:40

And that just comes with time, or yeah?

Speaker 2 18:42

Like you can work while you do it. They have a really great state program to do that. So me being a new teacher, um loving my school, loving the staff I was with, loving the students in my job, I just kind of sat there and said okay.

Speaker 1 18:58

Cause you can't really ruffle any feathers, cause you're replaceable at this point. You're not locked in.

Speaker 2 19:02

Right, okay, and I, like I said, love, love my job how did you?

Speaker 1 19:08

when did you know this was starting to become a problem, or was it? Was there already a problem when you took on the position?

Speaker 2 19:15

I didn't know there was a problem. This was my first indication. The second indication was when I had a substitute um reach out in the middle of the day in my classroom and tell me a mouse ran across her foot in the kitchen room. And so then I was like, oh my gosh, you know. At that point I was just like, okay, you know, we're by a field, we have mice, like it's okay.

Speaker 1 19:34

Yeah, you have field mice.

Speaker 2 19:35

It's a thing they would bring in a sticky trap or two and you know, stick it in the corners. Were you catching mice in these traps like daily?

Speaker 1 19:47

uh, no, at this point it wasn't daily, I would but the my room.

Speaker 2 19:48

Yeah okay, like my room was really small and like my desk has the washer and dryer right behind me and I one day heard this like hissing and I looked and there was a mouse like squirming on a sticky trap between the no yeah, so I'd go get my, my vice principal.

Speaker 2 20:04

At this time we got a new vp, so it was a guy. So I was like you know, hey, mr england, can you come get this mouse out of here? It's like I can't, I can't touch it. You know they would come, they'd get it, and then they'd put a new trap and again I was still. I mean, I was, I was disposable for like two, my first two years, and then and then really we hit covid and then covid came.

Speaker 1 20:24

We couldn't cook so then I wasn't in my classroom, so they just had this chunk of time to establish and nest and do whatever, so I wasn't in there so you got like this ratatouille yes, exactly full-on kitchen thing going well during covid, like you're like cinderella, with all the mice and the sewing and the cooking, and I was like really, that's, that's great okay's great. Okay, I guess Cinderella, yeah, okay, there's fucking birds landing on your finger, okay.

Speaker 2 20:51

Yeah, you're like no. I was like no, this isn't okay. Okay, so COVID came and went. Um, we slowly moved back in to the kitchen.

Speaker 1 20:59

How was okay COVID's winding down? You're able to go back to your kitchen, so now they've had. They, as the mice, have had a significant amount of time to infiltrate and now establish dominance in this classroom.

Speaker 2 21:16

And the building, so like my room, became their nesting ground. The way I understood it from the exterminator once we finally got one in, there is, your room is the perfect nesting ground, because you have food, I have warmth, because I don't have any windows, there's no ventilation. But I have five ovens, two refrigerators, a washer, a dryer, two dishwashers in a really small space. It creates heat. There's insulation in those things. They take the insulation, they make a nest and then they travel through the building, they building, they come back. I mean, because I wasn't the only teacher that had a mouse in their room. My, my neighboring teacher had one. They would come from the outside door and, like, run across her room. They came across her desk. We had them in the office. My principal had a mouse nest in her printer, so it wasn't just my classroom but, but.

Speaker 2 22:04

But they made it their home.

Speaker 1 22:06

This is where you're cooking and you're teaching kids how to cook and you have mice pissing and shitting on everything, and not even just pissing on it. Whatever they touch, they're Everywhere, they're contaminating everything.

Speaker 2 22:23

So after COVID, well, we got back into the kitchens. I'd find, you know, droppings here and there. I'd send the email hey, I found mouse droppings. We might need to bring in some more traps, or you know what have you? And then I came back from Christmas break January of 2023, and I had multiple dead, decomposing mice on sticky traps under my sinks and in my curriculum closet.

Speaker 1 22:49

Like multiple per trap.

Speaker 2 22:51

No or just mice in every trap, just like a mouse or two in under, like a mouse under this cabinet on a trap, and then you know puddles of urine and then droppings on the oven and then you know more droppings under this sink. And then I went into my curriculum closet because at that point when my student found it, because my student found it, I was teaching kitchen safety and I said to this kiddo, I'm like go under the kitchen one's cabinet and grab me the sanitation bucket, because I was teaching them sanitation.

Speaker 2 23:21

And he opened the door and he like covered his face like this and he's like my god and the whole classroom because they all know, like the kids all know, I've been kicked out of my room multiple times because I found mice and parents called and complained and my principal's like, oh, we'll just kick you out for now that was my next question.

Speaker 1 23:36

How are I feel if my wife caught wind of this? She's yeah, they're not happy plowing through this, this school, to find something out. They're not. They're. So you're dealing with, now you're. It's affecting students, yep. So now your students are finding the mice piss and shit and dead carcasses and they're telling their parents. So now you have parents reaching. So now you have that stress of parents coming down, and rightfully so. Right, one hundred percent Can't blame them at all.

Speaker 2 24:09

In 2019, when I my first semester truly there, as, like the actual contracted teacher, I took the mouse home with me in my bag and then I had students pull out baking sheets and we were making Christmas cookies. It was finals week, we make cookies for finals. Baking sheets and we were making Christmas cookies. It was finals week, we make cookies for finals. So we pull out the sheet and one of my students said I think, I think this is mouse poop and I was like oh. So we went and showed it to the principal and she was like no, it's just crumbs, it's fine.

Speaker 1 24:36

Well, that student, I mean you know what a mouse poop is.

Speaker 2 24:40

But I will, I will give. This is the only place I will give my principal any credit. Is I was like okay, fine it kind of. It was difficult to tell at this moment, so I'll give her that. That parent called my principal Principal, came down the next day and said we just need to keep this parent happy, so we're just going to remove you from the room for the rest of the week. There's only three days left. So go to the cafeteria and play games. So that's what we did.

Speaker 1 25:08

That was our solution Just go play games in the cafeteria. Well, they did nothing there while they're. They're helping clean this room during this point, so the room's just sitting stagnant, allowing the mice to continue what they're doing. Yes, but you're now in the cafeteria with your students just playing games.

Speaker 2 25:23

Now, granted, they do the cafeteria or the custodial cleaning every night, right, so they go in, they mop the floor, they sweep the floor, they wipe the counters, they do their standard cleaning.

Speaker 1 25:33

Yeah, but when you have that To me.

Speaker 2 25:36

if we have a mouse problem at that point we've got a sub that's complained. I took a mouse home in my bag. Now we have a parent calling at that point. That is when I feel my principal should have called the district and said hey, I think we may need to get like a quarterly service on our building. We have a problem. Not to mention, she had a mouse nest in her printer. We had mice in the front office. It invaded our food pantry for the students who don't have food.

Speaker 1 26:00

Explain that. What's the?

Speaker 2 26:01

food pantry. So out front there's like a big. Now it's a metal pantry. Beforehand I think it was just like a plastic.

Speaker 1 26:07

Okay.

The COVID Impact on Education

Speaker 2 26:08

Double door, whatever, and it's full of food for kids and they know they can go to it and they can get food if they need to. That's cool. It's very cool. Okay, but it got infested, so they had to.

Speaker 1 26:19

So you're telling me these kids that are financially not and they're able to a lot of kids get food from school yeah, are depending on this. Yes, and now that food is infested with mice?

Speaker 2 26:33

and who knows what they took when it was unknown to be infested until it was known. Does that mean you know?

Speaker 1 26:41

because is this going on right now? Yes, yes. Oh my God, OK yeah.

Speaker 2 26:46

So so fast forward past COVID, we find all this infestation in January of 2023.

Speaker 2 26:53

I send a very detailed email to my administrator and I put the custodial staff on it, like I've been instructed to do, and I got the same standard response that I always get and it actually wasn't even like it wasn't even addressed to do. And I got the same standard response that I always get and it actually wasn't even like it wasn't even addressed to me. She just responded to the custodial staff and said hey, could you get Michelle, more sticky traps? And at that point I was like OK, I don't know what more you need to hear that we have mouse nests behind the washing machine Sorry, in my sewing machines, in cupcake pans. There's droppings everywhere, there's dead, decomposing mice. At that point I would think that I would get some face-to-face contact, that my principal would come down and be like, oh my gosh, this is gross. Let's get this figured out together, like together, because I understand that we have a field behind us. I understand we're going to have mice for sure get it right.

Speaker 2 27:48

Um, but that was her solution and I waited. I waited for almost 14 days before I got another response from her to get any help and at that point I said, nope, I'm going to HR. And that was really scary for me to do, because I never want to get anybody in trouble. I'm always worried about everybody else's feelings and who am I going to upset and who's going to get mad at me and who's going to think badly of me if I go to HR. But I just got to a point where I was like something has to give. Like this is not safe.

Speaker 1 28:18

But now it's. I mean it's probably way past the point of safety for these children. I mean, realistically, this should have been dealt with two years prior.

Speaker 2 28:29

Right, and at the time too I started getting sick and I didn't know why I kept I was seeing my doctor. I had a hysterectomy. She's like your endocrine system's failing. We don't know why. We'll do a hysterectomy. Maybe that will help, because I was super anemic and then that didn't fix it. So then I just kept and I never mentioned. I never mentioned my classroom, because why would anybody need like? Think right that you're sick from?

Speaker 2 28:56

a classroom, right, I didn't think anything of it. And then we got the exterminators in. We started like getting traps and the big you know the poison boxes behind all the ovens, which just kills them, and they run off into the walls and die and stink.

Speaker 2 29:12

Well, and then mice eat on their dead. Yes, Dead mice, bring in new mice. So then I kept finding more mice and more droppings and I kept emailing and the exterminators would come back and you know they'd oh, we'll put a door sweep on your door. Because here's the funny thing is, I kept being told that I was the problem. Like that, I'm the reason the mice are coming in, Because either I left lab food on my back counter during my day and I'm like, well, I teach four different classes a day.

Speaker 2 29:42

All four classes are doing a different lab, so I don't I have three minutes between classes to flip my labs. So like there's a back counter where I leave, like if we're going to make French toast, there's three loaves of bread. So then I would go and I'd flip and I said to, I said to the exterminator, I said so let me make sure I understand this. The mice are coming in from the outside doors and they're like talking to each other and saying hey, guys, make a hard left, go into room 113. I don't think that's the case. This is a building problem.

Speaker 1 30:12

This is not like a me problem, even if you were leaving something out. I feel you should be able to leave something on your counter in the middle of the day, that's what I said.

Speaker 2 30:23

I was like, wait, I should be allowed to use my classroom as it needs. And here's the part that really got under my skin. As I started getting, I felt I was being harassed. It was just always me. Make sure you have the food in mouse protected containers, make sure everything is in a box, everything's in a plastic container. But yet all the other teachers in our building who we all put snacks in our desk drawers, no one was ever told. My principal would never, ever put out like a mass email to say, hey, you're the problem.

Speaker 2 30:58

I'm the problem. And then I would go into the break room and I would go to get like a cup of coffee or something and I'd open the cabinets and there's a loaf of bread and bags of sugar not in plastic containers or cookies and scones and stuff and shit all over the table like for the snacky and I'm like, wait a minute, like I get they're nesting in my room, but they are not just in my room, they're all over. So why can't we? Why couldn't we all come together and all of us fix this problem?

Speaker 1 31:31

Nothing. So let's get back to the part I kind of detoured a little bit of you getting sick.

Speaker 2 31:38

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 31:39

So you're telling me you had a full hysterectomy?

Speaker 2 31:43

You're telling me you had a full hysterectomy, which is huge.

Speaker 1 31:48

I feel as a woman, it's a pretty big deal. I'm not speaking for women, but it was hard emotionally, physically.

Speaker 2 31:55

Absolutely I know I was done having kids, but but still Still.

Speaker 1 31:58

You had a full hysterectomy because of the problems that you're having.

Speaker 2 32:07

And you had no idea it was related to your classroom and it sounds, even saying it out loud, to me it was weird. When my doctor told me this, I thought this is crazy, are you sure? And they were like we're sure.

Speaker 1 32:16

Sure what.

Speaker 2 32:17

So once I kept, I finally went back to my doctor and I was like, hey, I don't know if this is possible, but my classroom is infested with mice. This was in March last year. So I did the hysterectomy, I did a whole bunch of tests. I was constantly going back to the doctors.

Speaker 1 32:35

Nothing's coming up.

Speaker 2 32:36

They're just like we don't know what it is. Your endocrine system is crashing. Your pituitary gland's not functioning. You're in adrenal failure.

Speaker 1 32:43

your pituitary glands not functioning, your in adrenal failure, did you think?

Years of Infestation and Administrative Neglect

Speaker 2 32:46

mold by any chance or no. I mean like they think environmental right when you start. So then I was like referred to functional medicine. So then I went to functional medicine and they're like, you know, maybe, maybe it's a detox of something. Are you in a weird environment? And I was like, well, I mean I work in a building. So and they were like, well, tell me more. And so then I kind of dropped little tidbits but I was very like, oh, that's just weird, right, it's just weird. And then last March, while I'm going through all these tests different things, different medications I was cooking with my students in my room and I had a guy come in to look at my oven to fix it because it sounded like a spaceship.

Speaker 2 33:25

He unscrewed the top room. And I had a guy come in to look at my oven to fix it, cause it sounded like a spaceship, he unscrewed the top. Yeah, so I was like I got this guy coming in, got permission from the district to have him come in, so it's not like I did anything, you know, out of line and he unscrewed the ovens and my kids were making pizza and he lifted the top and he kind of tells me to come over and he lifts it and the insulation of the oven was soaked in mouse urine and covered in hundreds of droppings. So then he's like do you want me to go check the other ones? And I was like, yeah. So he went and checked them all. They're all infested.

Speaker 2 34:00

So I immediately I felt so stupid, but I started to cry. So I was like, oh my God. So I told my students. I'm like, stop what you're doing. And he's like they're fine, let me go get the principal. And I'm like, yeah, go get my principal. I want her to make this executive decision of what we do next, because I have been the one begging to get help and I was just spent.

Speaker 2 34:26

I was so pissed and so frustrated to be in this situation again. And I do want to take one step back, though. When my first infestation happened in January of 2023, they gutted my entire curriculum closet and put it into another room and then made me go in there and like thumb through everything and put the stuff I wanted to keep to one side and the other stuff to this side. And now there's that not only did they take the contaminated closet, turn it into the custodial closet, which then contaminated the custodial closet but they put everything from the closet like into the hallway when the kids were in the building. So then it was airborne and being. I mean they were urinating all over my cookbooks and urinating all over cupcake liners and pans and books. I mean you name it.

Speaker 1 35:13

So your curriculum, closet with which holds everything everything that you're cooking, sewing, whatever home ec anything is covered in everything.

Speaker 2 35:24

Yeah, we had to throw away a bunch of stuff and I was getting mixed messages. I was told, oh, you can't touch it. But then I'd get an email saying you need to go in there and you need to go through everything and you need to tell the custodial staff what you want to keep, what you don't want to keep. I was never given like PPE. I never had a mask, I didn't have gloves and I and I just was, and then they shut down my kitchen room and they, they shut down my lecture room. They moved me upstairs into a bigger room. I had to move all my stuff it. It was utterly a nightmare, an utter nightmare, and it really made I think it like made my principal and I butt heads because it was so insane. It was just, it was just wild chaos. It was just wild chaos, it was wild freaking chaos You're living it.

Speaker 1 36:10

Legit, you are living it.

Speaker 2 36:12

I'm glad I was told to come on here Legit and so yeah. So it just made me angry because I kept getting the runaround the entire time. It just was. I could never get straightforward answers. I could never. I never felt like anyone was working like with me. It just felt like I was on this Island by myself, trying to make it safe.

Speaker 1 36:38

So obviously the principal has a mouse nest in her printer. Other teachers haven't run across their feet and they're seeing these mice. None of these other teachers are stepping up and be like, hey, our kids are in, like these.

Speaker 2 36:52

I can tell you why we're afraid.

Speaker 1 36:57

Really.

Speaker 2 36:58

Yeah.

Speaker 1 36:58

Of what? Losing your job because you're speaking up Well like what I'm experiencing right now, like this is lonely, it sucks so now you feel like you're, you're the target for speaking up for these kids and trying to do the right thing.

Speaker 2 37:14

Okay, this is what doesn't yeah, sorry it makes me a little bit emotional.

Speaker 1 37:18

I mean, you're, you care for your, these kids and you. You haven't been here this whole year. You're missing a whole entire year with your students. I mean you're very passionate about it and the staff.

Speaker 2 37:26

Like our school. It's amazing, like my school, that I work for minus minus my principal and my situation with her, every single teacher in that building, is incredible. Okay, every single one, okay good you could not walk through that hall and point out like, oh God, you know, everybody supports everybody, everybody loves everybody, and I feel like I'm being looked at as a shit disturber.

Speaker 1 37:52

And I guess from all the teachers or the principal all the teachers, because why, though, if you're, if this is putting kids health at risk you had a hysterectomy and you have you contracted two diseases from Lyme disease, from these mice why aren't these teachers standing up and saying something and coming together?

Speaker 2 38:11

because of what? Well, I mean, you see what's going on in the district right, all the stuff there's a lot of shit going on a lot and, in all sincerity, I have no support from the entire district.

Speaker 1 38:23

So you're the whistleblower on this and nobody has your back on it.

Speaker 2 38:27

Nope, In my opinion.

Speaker 1 38:30

I just keep getting lied to and like they're, just they're, they're making light of the situation.

Speaker 2 38:36

Well, I'm just, I'm led down these rabbit holes of, oh, we fixed it, and then they didn't, and then it would be um, don't worry, we replaced the ovens and they didn't, and so, and I'm, I do feel, I do think there's like a stigma around me as like, oh, she's just not a very smart person or she's not very strong, and they have underestimated me.

Speaker 1 39:06

And why would they think that I don't?

Speaker 2 39:08

know, it's just this feeling I have, that they think I am some stupid housewife teaching FCS.

Speaker 1 39:16

Like oh, because you're not considered.

Speaker 2 39:17

Yeah, I'm not like a history teacher or you know this big wig math teacher and I teach FCS and to me legitimately, I feel like I'm a stay-at-home mom for 160 kids every semester. That's how I feel because I love it.

Speaker 1 39:31

I feel like that would be probably besides a gym coach, that you get to have a great relationship with kids.

Speaker 2 39:38

Yeah.

Speaker 1 39:38

You're not stressed on doing. Is it like a jealousy thing because you have a good relationship with these students?

Speaker 2 39:44

I just think they don't think I'm very smart.

Speaker 1 39:46

Okay.

Speaker 2 39:47

And I am, and I just caught them and I had my own ways of doing it. They'd say I fixed it. I'd be like, okay, so I'd go back down to the school, I'd screw I know how to use some tools and I would open up my ovens myself.

Speaker 1 40:06

And I'm like, oh no, so they're straight lying to you the principles my opinion, your opinion, the principles straight up lying to you well hands.

Speaker 2 40:13

It's, it's more the district as a whole now okay then it so after the 2023 infestation and working through all of that, then we get to march of 2024, where I found all the ovens infested. At that point my husband's like I'm done. Like I'm done with this shit show. So that night we went down there to my classroom and he unscrewed the dishwashers and when he shimmied them out, we're talking like a hundred plus mouse droppings just fell out from the dishwasher and then there was like mouse diarrhea, like like sliding down, and then there was kids are sitting in this classroom all day and it's probably no bigger, maybe a hair bigger than this room in all reality.

Speaker 2 40:57

It's not a big room, it's not? So then he got down on the floor with a flashlight and there's mouse nests underneath the dishwasher. So then he went and pulled the other dishwasher same thing and it just got to a point where I was like, why is this so hard to just be like, okay, we got a problem, we're going to fix this, Michelle, on a day-to-day basis. Like what does your class look like? What does this look like? What can we do? How long do we think you know you could be out of here? We need to do this. We need to do this. Should we check the refrigerators? Yes, let's check. Like, let's work together. Let's just talk to each other and work together. I would have never went and got an attorney. Even being sick, I would have never went and got an attorney.

Speaker 1 41:39

And I don't even think we've really covered all of you being sick yet. There's so many different angles that we jump onto. So when did you find out they related everything from the Lyme disease to that? When did you start putting the pieces together that these mice that are infested into your home ec classroom have now carried over to you, causing you to to be sick, you to get a hysterectomy, you to go through all this testing to realize it's you got two diseases from lyme disease right so in march, when I found the ovens, I went back to see my doctor.

Speaker 2 42:18

I had like a scheduled appointment and I said hey, I'm like okay, my room is like really infested again and I said could I be sick from this? She's like let me go talk to the head honcho of our place, dr Holdhouse. So she goes to him and he's like you know, it might be rare, but she could have Lyme disease. So let's test her. That's a thing. So I'm like okay, and I hemmed and hawed. I really did, because I was like is this even possible? And at the time I was also seeing a rheumatologist who, come June, was like you have RA. And I had also been told like, do you have like tested for Hashimoto's, all these autoimmune diseases? And one of the things with Lyme disease is it's hard to diagnose because it mimics autoimmune, it mimics other things. So it was mimicking MS. They did a head CT and a head MRI because they thought I had MS.

Speaker 1 43:13

Good God.

Speaker 2 43:14

They thought, oh, you have RA, so they put me on all these meds.

Speaker 1 43:17

What's RA?

Speaker 2 43:18

Rheumatoid arthritis Because I couldn't use my hands. I kept cutting myself with my knives at school, which I had to go to the nurse many times, almost to get stitches at the ER because my hands wouldn't work. So I was like, well, you know, let's do the test. Well, it's $2,000. So I was like, all right, fine, I don't care, just do it. And sure shit, in July came back positive and I was dumbfounded. And they were dumbfounded because they were like all right, let's narrow this down.

Speaker 2 43:45

Well, I had one picture in my phone. So I started going through my phone to rally all my mouse pictures, because I take, I documented everything. And I came across a picture that I sent, actually a live video I sent to my husband as I was sitting in my desk chair and I had like eight or nine bites like around my watch band and I remember sending it to him like what the hell is this? And when I showed that to my doctor they were like those correspond with the tick larva bites that would come from a mouse. And they were on my desk. I mean, my keyboard to this moment, with proof from my inspection, is covered in mouse urine. So the mice are running across my desk, so I didn't know that's what that was at the time.

Speaker 2 44:29

So, putting everything together, so then they're like, okay, well, you're going to need treatment. And I was like, and at this point, come March, my doctor's like you are in adrenal failure, it's actually you could go into cardiac arrest, so I need you to stop working. And I was like, no, because I had a group of ninth graders that I had had since seventh grade and March end of March, it's spring break. It was spring break. I had two months left with them and I was like I'm not not going to say goodbye to them.

Speaker 2 45:00

Like they're going on to high school. So she made an agreement with me to work part time. So then I just depleted my sick leave and ended up like working every other day to try to like reset the adrenal system and all the chaos that was going on.

Speaker 1 45:17

So when did you start to make a recovery?

Speaker 2 45:20

I still have not. I've done 27 rounds of treatment. I just had one yesterday.

Speaker 1 45:27

What's a round of treatment consist of so sorry, today's Thursday.

Speaker 2 45:32

So Tuesday it's a five and a half hour infusion. It's like getting chemo.

Speaker 1 45:37

I was going to say like a chemo treatment.

Speaker 2 45:38

Yeah, so I go in. How often are you doing this? Once a week since August, and it's not covered by insurance. So because it's Lyme disease, so they don't like.

Speaker 1 45:49

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 2 45:51

So I'm out of pocket. I told you it's wild chaos.

Speaker 1 45:59

You can track this at school because of the infestation in your classroom that the school, in your opinion, isn't taking care of. Correct, okay, and now you have to get treatments every week to help take care of.

Speaker 2 46:15

So it's really gross actually, if I were being honest. So they are flooding my immune system, so they take my own blood out.

Speaker 1 46:23

Filter it.

Speaker 2 46:24

They put it into an oxygenated ozone treatment machine and then they pump all that blood back into some weird solution. Then they pump more ozone through it and then they all that blood back into some weird solution. Then they pump more ozone through it and then they put the blood back into me.

Speaker 1 46:36

so it's supposed to kill the parasites in my body and you're paying out of pocket for all of this in the school and you're yes, because I got denied workman's comp twice. Because your husband's a big dude. Is he not murdering motherfuckers?

Speaker 2 46:51

or what. He tried to go down to the school two weeks ago just to get my mail and they locked him out, which, by the way, my mail apparently has been thrown away.

Speaker 1 46:59

I don't have any mail.

Speaker 2 47:00

ironically, there's just a lot going on.

Speaker 1 47:03

This is fascinating.

Speaker 2 47:04

They shut down my mailbox. They took my name off the outside of my classroom as if I don't exist.

Speaker 1 47:15

And you're dealing with all of this and they're just, they're just trying to hush, hush you. They're not even like offering to pay you. They like shut you up and you go away. Oh, this is no, this is. I don't even laugh, but this is.

Speaker 2 47:24

This is almost like you're making this up honestly, though honestly, that's why it's it's hard for me to articulate it, because it sounds so ridiculous it's like a lifetime movie.

Speaker 1 47:33

articulate it because it sounds so ridiculous.

Speaker 2 47:33

It's like a lifetime movie that I'm living. That doesn't make sense, because from the very beginning it could have just been.

Speaker 1 47:40

Cleaned up. So fucking simple.

Speaker 2 47:42

Like let's just do this together, like let's just fix it, it's not hard, right? No, and maybe show a tiny bit of compassion that I'm sick from it and let's just move on.

Speaker 1 47:53

No offense to you, but like the kids.

Speaker 2 47:57

There's one student that has Lyme disease at my school that I'm aware of, and there is two teachers that I know specifically that have the exact same symptoms as me, and I have tried to get them to take these tests.

Speaker 1 48:14

And they won't do it.

Speaker 2 48:15

No, because they'll never. I don't think they'd admit it. I don't think they would admit that they're afraid but it's scary to do this. It's not. This is not easy. It took me a really long time to physically speak to my attorney after I retained her, because I was like to physically speak to my attorney after I retained her, because I was like it doesn't have to be this way, because I love my job. I genuinely like eat, sleep and drink my job. I love it.

Speaker 2 48:40

Which is, I feel, if I had kids in the system that's how I would want my teachers that they're their teachers to be. What gets me is we have all these educators who are getting arrested for sexual assault, abuse, rape. We have TAs killing themselves or special ed aides that have created crimes. And I'm a really good teacher. I am a really good teacher.

Speaker 1 49:01

And you just want-.

Speaker 2 49:01

I just want to do my job in a safe classroom, that's all you're asking for. All I've ever wanted. I wanted nothing. I didn't even want help with treatment coverage or anything. I didn't even want to apply for workman's comp. I just wanted my room clean, and that's all I still want. I will not stop. So if they're listening to this, I will not stop until they clean that building and clean that room. Okay.

Speaker 1 49:25

So how have there been any inspections? Or has there been any outside sources to come in and be like okay, it's not just your word, I am an exterminator. Or we have somebody that's coming to look into the walls Like, has there been any of that?

Speaker 2 49:43

So the exterminators are contracted by the school district and have been contracted for a very long time.

Speaker 1 49:49

Okay.

Speaker 2 49:51

They come in quarterly and check the little black poison boxes for activity.

Speaker 2 49:57

They claim there is none. I don't believe that, so yeah. So my attorney asked for an inspector that we hired to be able to go in there and like inspect the room to make sure it's safe, because I wanted to come back. I was willing to like work through getting treatment and I wanted to come back, but I wasn't going to go back unless I knew the room was safe. So from Christmas to April 25th I fought and fought and fought to get the inspector in there to check my room. They just they wouldn't allow it. They just drug their feet.

Speaker 1 50:32

How Like what they just they had. They need approval.

Speaker 2 50:35

I don't know all the details. I just know that my attorney kept saying hey, like we want to pick a date. We were going to try for spring break and then somehow, miraculously, that didn't work and and I kept pushing, and, pushing, and pushing and, um, it got to a point where I think they caved. I don't even know the details of how my attorney managed to arrange it, but he was in there on April 25th and he said my room is diseased, it's covered in mouse urine. Plates, cups, bowls, mugs, cabinets, floor, my keyboard is soaked in mouse urine. The walls, the knobs of the ovens, they all have mouse urine. And then there's a dustpan in there that I've never seen before because I don't use this particular dustpan, it must be new and he shined his little UV light or black light on it and there was secretion or whatever he called it he had a special word for it and urine and mouse dropping swept into it, and then the broom that my students use to clean that room is covered.

Speaker 2 51:40

Their. Their aprons have mouse urine all over them. The aprons that my students cook with.

Speaker 1 51:48

It's disgusting. How are these parents not burning this place? They are.

Speaker 2 51:53

How is this?

Speaker 1 51:53

principal, not just publicly hung. At this point I mean.

Speaker 2 51:57

I don't know why. I don't how long has she been there? I think this is her 12th year.

Speaker 1 52:02

That's the problem. They need some fresh blood in there. Why is this so difficult? Like why, why, why? I feel like it's obviously there's a solution to it. Is it money? Is it funding?

Speaker 2 52:17

No, it's my opinion is they don't want the public to know, because here's what occurred in the fall oh, the public's going to know now.

Speaker 2 52:25

They're going to know. Now I've kept this quiet for the safety of myself, my own kid, because my daughter's in college. She's the one that's like mom, go to the news. And I was like, no, I'm not doing that. I did not want my son to. I mean, let's be real, I'm a white woman with a Chinese last name and, because of social media, kids are all friends from every school. So all my students are friends with my son and everybody knows our last name and I did not want my son getting harassed at school or like, oh my God, look at your mom, you know, you know, doing all this stuff I just got.

Speaker 2 53:01

I and I also wanted to respect my colleagues because, like I said, my school has the best colleagues ever and I miss them tremendously and I did not want to put them in a position where I'm putting our school out there or I'm putting a target on the school in itself and I was just trying to do everything right and be quiet about it and just fix it for the sake of my students.

Speaker 2 53:25

And I've just hit this point where I'm like they started messing with my medical leave the district, how. They started messing with my medical, leave the district, how? So I took medical leave in the fall and then it expired so I had to reapply. And because in October, as the teacher of record, I sent out an email to my parents saying I'm terribly sorry I'm not there, I would love to be able to help, if I can. You know if you have any questions, but the sub is whoever. I don't even know who the sub was, because they wouldn't let me the school district would not let me do lesson plans or arrange my sub or speak to my sub or have anything to do with it.

Speaker 1 54:01

Is that normal?

Speaker 2 54:02

No, okay. So I went with it. I was like fine, I don't know who the sub is, but I'm terribly sorry. However, I do want to be transparent with you. At this point the ovens had not been replaced in my classroom. They were still infested with mouse urine and I knew the kids were going to start cooking. So I was honest with the parents. My principal rebuttaled an email. I also sent one to staff too, and my principal sent emails to the staff and sent emails to all the parents telling them that my classroom was fine, that it's safe, they would never endanger anybody, that our safety and wellbeing is her top priority.

Speaker 1 54:45

So that's a blatant lie.

Speaker 2 54:47

In my opinion it is. I think I mean, and so I was very upset because I think lying to parents, not telling the truth, not being transparent, is just the it's the foundational problem here. In my opinion, it's foundational problem yes because everyone knows we can have mice. It's fine, let's just fix it right.

Speaker 2 55:09

So that years into this yes, and that that fired me up, and so at that point I sent another email to the parents and I gathered all the emails I've ever sent my principal informing her of mice, and I took all the All Valley Appliance repair invoices where they found dead baked carcasses in my ovens, the current ovens that are in there, and all the pictures that I had and I put them in a Google Drive and I sent it to all the parents.

Speaker 1 55:35

Shut up. How'd that go over?

Speaker 2 55:36

I got suspended.

Speaker 1 55:39

I mean rightfully so, but that went over like a punch pool.

Speaker 2 55:43

What they ended up doing was sending me a certified letter in the mail. They locked me out of my email, like my infinite campus, which is like my teacher app to take attendance and email parents. Of course, I couldn't access any of my tax documents. I couldn't access my medical leave stuff. I couldn't access anything. They just blocked. Oh and they suspended my key card and said I was not allowed to speak to any colleagues. I wasn't allowed on any Boise district Because I told the parents the truth. They wanted to quiet me down, so they locked me out.

Speaker 1 56:16

And when was this?

Speaker 2 56:18

October I fought and fought and fought and finally in January I came back and I said you guys are discriminating against me for being sick. This is not. This doesn't happen to anybody else. And I had plenty of teacher friends that wrote me letters that said I was on medical leave for this long and this didn't happen to me. And I, you know I had plenty of them.

Speaker 1 56:38

So obviously it's personal.

Speaker 2 56:40

Yeah.

Speaker 1 56:40

They shut everything down at that point.

Speaker 2 56:41

They wanted to silence me, which is huge.

Speaker 1 56:44

If a school is trying to silence you, and that's a huge red flag, 100% To me. That shows guilt immediately. In my opinion, that shows guilt immediately. If you're trying to cover, hide, hush, disappear anything. That's guilt. Because if I'm the principal, hey, yes, this is a problem we had. She's 100% correct, we have a solution to it, it's been resolved correct the.

Speaker 2 57:14

So we've have a solution to it's been resolved the mice we're going to replace the ovens, but see, at this point they hadn't. So that's where I was like wait, you're telling me that you fixed the problem, but I know you haven't, which is why they suspended my key card, because I would go in and check and I'd unlock the objects and I would pull the dishwasher.

Speaker 1 57:32

That makes sense and I would be like this is not fixed because that that is my priority, it's protecting how are you knowing they're not fixed just because of how much feces is in these, or are you seeing the same stuff in the same spots that aren't being?

Medical Nightmare: Contracting Lyme Disease

Speaker 2 57:44

cleaned again. I think they just think I'm dumb and I would go to the same oven okay I mean, I looked, I checked them right, you can't replace the insulation.

Speaker 2 57:55

I called many appliance stores and they said, hey, if they're going to change the insulation, it's going to look like this. I had pictures. Well, it was the same damn insulation and they missed one mouse dropping in one oven and I dated it every time I took it. So I put an arrow towards the little dropping. I put the date and I'd be like, okay, well, this was September. You know October, same dropping. I know you didn't replace the insulation. What turned, what happened is the school district blamed the appliance company instead of taking responsibility for it, which then the appliance company called me and said they haven't allowed us back in your building since April. We had nothing to do with your ovens.

Speaker 1 58:30

So the school is now pushing out the appliance company to come and fix this. Why? Why is this happening?

Speaker 2 58:40

They don't want anyone to know. That's my opinion.

Speaker 1 58:43

I feel that this is so much more of a shit show now than just fixing the problem we could have just fixed it Like the cost to replace the insulation was going to be more than replacing the ovens.

Speaker 2 58:52

That's yeah, absolutely so. Why couldn't? Could have?

Speaker 1 58:53

just fixed it. The cost to replace the insulation was going to be more than replacing the ovens.

Speaker 2 58:54

Yeah, absolutely so. Why couldn't we have just done that? And obviously the refrigerators were infested too, because they ended up replacing both refrigerators. The backs insulation, I think were infested.

Speaker 1 59:04

But not the refrigerators, just the insulation. Yeah, have they actually to this day, that you know of? In your opinion, do you know if they've actually replaced this equipment, or is it all?

Speaker 2 59:14

they have replaced the ovens. So here's the crazy thing my students are super loyal to me and before I got locked out of my email, I had students sending me like it would be like sos, like in the subject matter, and they'd be like we need you back. This is a mess. We found mouse urine in the classroom and then I had one kid send me one that said good news. I see a guy coming in with new ovens and refrigerators. So they replaced the ovens. Finally, after the emails, Years.

Speaker 2 59:45

Which is after so much, like I said in my opinion, dishonesty.

Speaker 1 59:51

Okay.

Speaker 2 59:52

Of just constant being told it was fixed and it wasn't so. They replaced the dishwashers, they replaced the ovens, they got new refrigerators and then, like I said, I got, I got locked out and then come January I just kept. I went to the school board. I wrote a huge letter to the school board. I sent them my Google drive. I said this is discrimination against me for being sick. I am the teacher of record. I had students emailing me telling me that the substitute was informing them that I was acting illegally by having any communication with my students whatsoever via email. She also said that if anyone spoke of my name again, they would all get detention because they kept saying, like Mrs Chung doesn't do it this way. Then they said that they took down anything with my name on it. They got rid of my mailbox and they forget. I have colleagues that are my friends that would reach out and be like dude, your mailbox is gone. I'm like awesome, okay, where's my mail? They're like you don't have any. Are you kidding?

Speaker 1 1:00:53

me. I had students reach out and be like dude. Your mailbox is gone. I'm like awesome.

Speaker 2 1:00:53

Okay, where's my mail? Yeah, they're like you don't have any. Are you kidding me? I had students reach out and said did you get my Christmas card? Did you get? Did you get my grad announcement? It's probably in the trash, which is a federal offense, I mean. So so come January they finally unlocked my stuff, but there was a caveat. The only way I could apply for my second round of leave, my federal medical leave, was if I signed a contract they created for me, and the contract stated that I could not participate in any work-related activities. I wasn't allowed to speak to colleagues. Students come on any campus, email anybody. I couldn't do anything.

Speaker 1 1:01:35

So they're forcing you to sign this contract in order to approve your second round of leave, because you're going through all of pretty much chemo treatment for your Lyme disease, which then I went and filed a federal lawsuit against them.

Speaker 2 1:01:48

Okay, right, I was like that's my federal right. Yes, when I took fmla leave two years ago for hysterectomy, I was asked to do my grade book so it doesn't add up. They wanted to silence me. They wanted to make sure that if they unlocked my stuff I wouldn't say anything, anything to parents and I bided by.

Speaker 1 1:02:11

this is why the other teachers are seeing all this and this is why nobody's saying anything.

Speaker 2 1:02:15

I think so.

Speaker 1 1:02:15

It's still kind of chicken shit in my opinion, because I feel like if I was in that school, I'd be right there with you, I'd be torching torches.

Speaker 2 1:02:23

I tried to connect with one teacher that is no longer at our school who I know is sick. Whether I know she's sick with what I have, I don't know. We have the same exact symptoms, so I tried to reach out to her and so you think that there could be more teachers that have what you have?

Speaker 2 1:02:46

Possibly, I mean it's, or maybe even students, students. Ironically, it's crazy how I learned that somebody at another high school went and told another teacher at that high school that their friend's child goes to my school, was in my class and now has Lyme disease. And I learned it through a whole different high school at a different district.

Speaker 1 1:03:13

Oh boy, this is about to uncover a can of worms. Well, and the?

Speaker 2 1:03:17

problem is too, is this inspection that I had in April. Parents got wind of it, so they emailed the school district and they asked about it, and the school district wrote back and said there is no staff member, no administrator and no third party conducting any kind of inspection. On April 25th.

Speaker 1 1:03:39

Which happened.

Speaker 2 1:03:40

Yes, it was on the day of.

Speaker 1 1:03:42

So they lied to everybody about the inspection.

Speaker 2 1:03:45

That is what the email said.

Speaker 1 1:03:49

Interesting.

Speaker 2 1:03:50

So that's where I was like, wait, wait, you could have capitalized on this. And like was like yes, we've realized there's a problem we're ready we're ready to like jump in and really like aggressively take care of this. Um, we're bringing somebody in to ensure the safety of the classroom before mrs chung comes back.

Speaker 2 1:04:08

Like they could have cap and I paid for it you paid for the inspection, yeah and they told me I had to pay for any holes that the inspector put in the walls with, like you know, putty and stuff. I'm like okay, so how, whatever, whatever, I'll pay for whatever. I'm already paying for all my treatment and I'll pay for the inspection too, because those kids are cooking in there, and it's wrong. It's child endangerment and it's wrong.

Speaker 1 1:04:31

It's child endangerment. A hundred percent. This is child endangerment. This is why I don't understand all these parents are.

Speaker 2 1:04:37

They're working on it.

Speaker 1 1:04:39

Boy, they are so lucky they don't have mom.

Speaker 2 1:04:41

huh, oh, you need bread on the so I am still in the mix of a lawsuit and they don't believe that I'm sick from my classroom. And I have four experts, one at U of I, one at BSU, one doctor in Pennsylvania whose daughter died from what I have, and a lady in New York who is a tick expert at their university, and they've all confirmed that the Western black-legged tick is here. It does host on white-footed deer mice, and I have pictures of all the mice in my room. They are white-footed deer mice. I don't know what more they need, I'm not sure. So so I took a bullet, I got a bullet. That's what. That's the way I look at it yeah, you're taking one now.

Speaker 2 1:05:33

I'll keep taking them and they're never going to shoot me down. I will not stop until they clean that room. That is my goal.

Speaker 1 1:05:42

So when the inspector came and he's putting holes, a little drill bit they're running cameras in the walls. He couldn't.

Speaker 2 1:05:50

Because they cleaned my room with so much bleach, his mask shut down on him so he couldn't stay in my room.

Speaker 1 1:05:59

Hold on. So you're telling me. Before the inspector got to the room to do this full inspection of this infestation, they tried to clean and cover up everything with bleach.

Speaker 2 1:06:11

They cleaned the room. Huh With bleach, they cleaned the room, huh With bleach, and then which? So he his mask, apparently like it's this big.

Speaker 1 1:06:20

Respirator.

Speaker 2 1:06:21

Yeah, and he said that it's. It's meant to close on him if there's toxic fumes or gas in the room.

Speaker 1 1:06:27

And this kept shutting.

Speaker 2 1:06:28

And it kept closing on him. So he and he didn't bring extra filters. Because why would he? And this kept shutting and it kept closing on him. So he and he didn't bring extra filters. Because why would he? Why would he think that he's going into a classroom that's like, you know, got some gasoline in it or gas of some kind, some toxic gas. The janitor or custodial staff member from the district that was escorting him into my room couldn't even stay in there. It was too strong. He had to leave.

Speaker 1 1:06:52

So there's no windows. You said earlier, right, so this just, it's just it's a box.

Speaker 2 1:06:58

It's a box. So he he's like I couldn't finish, I couldn't, I couldn't do anything. And he said, with looking at your room, there was enough evidence to show there's a mouse problem. I don't need to go in the walls. You've got seven years of decomposing mice in your walls. I don't need to go in there.

Speaker 1 1:07:17

I don't know he didn't even get a chance to conclude his inspection and found enough to say that it was infested just by well yeah, because like the whole, like I said, the whole room's covering a mouse urine yeah, so he's just black, lighting it and seeing everything glowing and he's like.

Speaker 2 1:07:29

You can see they're smearing it like when they clean, because you have to clean mouse urine and stuff with certain chemicals, I guess.

Speaker 1 1:07:36

Yeah, or you're just pushing it around.

Speaker 2 1:07:38

So they're just brushing it around and yeah, so I, like I said, I my end goal is that I return to my classroom and it's clean.

Speaker 1 1:07:51

That's all you want.

Speaker 2 1:07:53

The building needs, but we're hosting summer school. Oh, and here's another great one. This is actually really great. So community ed uses my room to cook what's community. You know, like when you can do like cooking classes, like you and your wife could go take like a class, or your kids can go do classes through the community and they're all over the Boise school district schools.

Speaker 1 1:08:10

They're using this classroom.

Speaker 2 1:08:11

Well, they use my room usually, but this year I'm still, because I'm still a teacher of record. I still get all the emails from my school and my principal sent out the schedule and my classroom is blocked out in giant red and it says no culinary allowed. So the kids are allowed in there, but the community members are not. So the kids are allowed in there, but the community members are not. But the community members have been cooking in a mouse-infested classroom as well for six years.

Speaker 1 1:08:41

Seven years. Oh my God, mice are so gross too. God they carry some diseases. You might as well have a bunch of whistle pigs running around in there, just a bunch of rodents bunch of whistle pigs running around in there, just a bunch of rodents, I mean.

Speaker 2 1:08:55

And so, like I said, it all stems down to it being reported in a timely fashion so that we could take care of the problem. I even went, I even emailed my superintendent last year begging him for help nothing he said he couldn't help me because his sister works at our school.

Speaker 2 1:09:11

So he said, and he said he said unfortunately, because my sister is aware of your situation, because she's my friend he said I can't help you. My husband emailed him and said I don't think you understand the magnitude of this and what it's doing to my wife as a teacher and I'm watching her like I was just super emotional and I was getting so frustrated and so angry and there was just so much stress in our life. This is before like I even started treatment and they said no, they can't help me. I filed two grievances against my principal and the district didn't find anything wrong with her actions Nothing. They said everything was fine.

Speaker 1 1:09:51

So next, I mean where do you? I mean, obviously you have the.

Speaker 2 1:09:56

you have a lawsuit against I have two state lawsuit for the like illness and you just want to be taken care of? Yeah, out of pocket yeah, like I I mean you don't need to go in detail no, each round of treatment is 6600.

Speaker 2 1:10:09

I'm I'm on my third one, so and that doesn't include, like the medications and the tests and the other stuff I have to do, like I have to go sit in a detox box, like a red light detox box, for 40 minutes. I have to get my lymphatic system drained. Because the problem is I got another test done, so I went through two. I went from August to January getting treatment and then I took a two-week break and then I took the test again and it still showed a problem. But the problem it's showing now is that the parasites have moved into my capillaries, so it's in, like my red blood cells, and they're building nests.

Speaker 1 1:10:48

That's pretty serious.

Speaker 2 1:10:49

Yeah, so it can cause. I guess it causes organ failure because it cuts the oxygen off to your organs, which is what happened to that gentleman's daughter, the doctor in Pennsylvania. His daughter died of kidney failure with it. So he's been actively like hey, you need to take, you need to do, these medications, these supplements, this treatment, you need to hammer this, otherwise you're going to have a problem, and I'm already having organ failure. It's just not like kidney or liver or heart, it's just smaller endocrine organs, but it's still start.

Speaker 2 1:11:23

It's, yeah, it's just and I've got kids, right, you got a family and and I I deserve to have somebody like come to the table and be like let's fix, fix this fucking problem. Like, why are we shining away from this? Why are we trying to cover this up? Why Just fix it?

Speaker 1 1:11:38

Why. That is like make it make sense.

Speaker 2 1:11:40

So I have a list of like. I hope that I can. I mean, we have a court date. It's in January If it's going to go to a jury trial.

Speaker 1 1:11:49

Really.

Speaker 2 1:11:50

Yeah, january is the date a jury trial, really. Yeah, january is the date. So it's up to them. It's up to them what they want to do.

Speaker 1 1:11:58

They want to go to court. Let's go. What's your attorney? How does she feel with all this?

Speaker 2 1:12:00

She does not. She doesn't really express too many opinions on like an outcome, just because she doesn't want to get my hopes up or anything. She's frustrated because she's just been watching this unfold for a year and the amount of information that she has tried herself writing letters to the district like, hey, this is a problem, can we please just fix it? We have waived every single white flag to be like let's just fix it. I really just want to go back to my job. I really just want to go back to my job. I really just want to go back to my job.

Speaker 1 1:12:34

That's all I've ever wanted and they've made you to be the villain because you're even imagine like how, how do I do it?

Speaker 2 1:12:40

I want to, but I'm afraid that my colleagues think poorly of me, or okay. So let's say cool, they got all new equipment rooms, the whole school's tented but we're hosting summer school this year, so I don't know how they're going to do that. Hopefully they cancel that and bomb the building or something.

Speaker 1 1:13:03

Let's say they do, and then they let you come back. What type of work environment is that going to be?

Speaker 2 1:13:10

I don't know.

Speaker 1 1:13:11

Is that something you would? Even I mean? How's that? I mean, I know you're there for the kids and, at the end of the day, I go back and forth, like I.

Speaker 2 1:13:18

I go back and forth. That. How do I have a supervisor? She's the principal next year, apparently, as of right now, she's not going anywhere. So how do I have a true you know? So how do I have a true you know, equal opportunity in that building? I have to go to staff meetings. I have to go to our PLCs, our CLCs.

Speaker 1 1:13:41

You're always going to be that person, but I don't feel.

Speaker 2 1:13:48

One person wrote one story on this back in October and there was a couple like comments and stuff, and so that's what freaked me out to like even do this.

Speaker 1 1:14:00

There's always going to be comments. It doesn't matter what you are doing. You could be saving three legged cats with Bob tails and someone's going to talk shit on it. That is one thing I have learned being in this world, and we've had a charity for over a day. I mean, it does not matter how you're helping somebody making a difference, so you have to fuck everybody that has an opinion. You know you're going to have it regardless.

Speaker 2 1:14:24

I that is one area that they may have on me is that I am. I am always for everybody else, and like my parent, my I am always for everybody else and like my whole family, my kids, everybody, they're always like mom, you got to think about yourself, but I always am worried about everybody else but myself. Even colleagues, like I'm always worried about them, like this fight has been for them too. Like, don't go in my classroom and make the staff luncheon, do not put that food in there. Like, do not eat that. Like, don't go in my classroom and make the staff luncheon, do not put that food in there. Like, do not eat that. Like, don't go in there. And they got a rebuttal email from my principal saying my room is safe.

Speaker 1 1:15:02

And they're in there just.

School District Cover-Up and Retaliation

Speaker 2 1:15:04

Don't go in there. I want to do like an Erin Brockovich, where I go in that room, I bake some cookies and I hand it to everybody. I'm like, oh, here there's compliments of my mouse infested classroom. Do you want to eat them? The amount of food, though, that I've made in there for my own family, like on, like I remember it was like my daughter's birthday and I was like shit, I don't have time to make the cake at my house, so I'm going to do it on my prep or my lunch break, and so I would bring all my stuff, I'd bake the cake and I would use those ovens and I would make my kids cookies, or I would just stuff I took home that they ate.

Speaker 2 1:15:40

Staff members ate. Staff members ate a lot of food from my room.

Speaker 1 1:15:46

Man, I'd make something special for that principal.

Speaker 2 1:15:48

Right Gratitooey.

Speaker 1 1:15:51

I'd be Salt Bae some, some little mice turds.

Speaker 2 1:15:53

All chocolate chip cookies for that woman seriously there are so many things you can get from from mice yes, urine, it's actually really. I've done a lot of research I was.

Speaker 1 1:16:04

I almost asked if you're a mouse expert at this point, because you find no. Seriously, though, when you get, I talk to somebody not too long ago she was involved in something crazy and she was. She was like I never in a million years would have thought I'd known the facts on all this.

Speaker 2 1:16:17

But like because you just you're surrounded by it, you're worried about your students, you're sick, you've you've gone through I know more about Lyme disease and co-infections than I do mice, but Rightfully so, yeah, hopefully so, yeah, I mean, it's not a a lot of people look at it like it's not a big deal, but it's actually, it's deadly, like it's it's and it's forever. I will have this forever, just because I had so much, I had such a long level of exposure and I didn't know it. So I've got like a dormant version of it, I've got an active version of it and then I've got the anaplasmosis, which is an infectious disease, version of it. So I have like three different versions of it. So I'm just going to have it forever. So it's really, it just angers me, but at the same time I'm like it's not this big of a deal, let's just fix it that is fascinating.

Speaker 1 1:17:10

do you think now that, like it's, it started the spiral and I think they spiraled and couldn't get out. And now they're just digging and digging. And then now with your medical issues, that compounds on top of their.

Speaker 2 1:17:26

Right, well, already out of control.

Speaker 2 1:17:28

In my opinion. I think that they don't think we'll end up in court, so they don't care what they do because it's never going to go to in their eyes. This is just my thoughts. No one has told me this, but it's just how I'm looking at it. Like I feel like they know this is never going to go to a jury trial. They're going to try to get me to a table and I'll be like great, I don't want to talk about anything except fixing my classroom. Are you going to fix my classroom and you're going to pay for the teachers that need testing? Any teacher, any child? You're going to pay for it. Take care of the staff, take care of the room and take care of the kids.

Speaker 1 1:18:09

I mean, but how are they going to do? Are they going to send out this mass email to all the school, the kids and then the previous three to four years, like, hey, your kids have these symptoms? I mean, I feel like that should be the least amount that they should do is allow the last several years of of parents to know that, hey, if your kid is suffering from nervous system system so many things, there's so many things that it does that lyme disease does, oh yeah, like, where do you? It's how many? I mean, I wonder if there's kids at home right now that are battling like just sick. Their bodies are shutting down, their parents have no idea and it's from eating a fucking cookie yeah, or or just being in there and inhaling like, honestly, it's the ticks

Speaker 2 1:18:46

yeah, yeah that it, and I guess they're in larva form, which I don't really know what that means, means exactly. But I started looking it up and then it made my skin crawl so I was like, no, I can't, I can't read anymore on this situation, but they just need to fix it.

Speaker 1 1:19:04

That's all you're asking for.

Speaker 2 1:19:06

Yep.

Speaker 1 1:19:07

That's all I've ever asked for. That's why it's so weird, because it's not. It's not like you uncovered some scandal and now the district's covering it and the school's covering it and the mayor's involved. It's not like we're that deep. This is just some mouse. I don't want to say just.

Speaker 2 1:19:24

No, it's legit.

Speaker 1 1:19:26

It's, it's, it's. You're dealing with these. This fecal matter ticks from mice. All they have to do is come in here and clean it up.

Speaker 2 1:19:33

Yeah, I don't know what that entails to this depth. If you have to take a room down to studs or you have to tent it, what does that look like? If you let somebody in and inspect the walls but then you have to think bigger, though. You've got dead carcass in the walls.

Speaker 1 1:19:53

You've got live mice 've got dead carcasses and then you turn your hvac system on.

Speaker 2 1:19:56

You turn your heating, then you're spreading it through the whole building, so you like you're talking like some bubonic plague, right, you kind of do like a full, just do a full inspection, be honest. Be honest with the parents. Do a full inspection, like not with the district contracted person, find somebody different, have them come in, do a full inspection and then let's create a plan.

Speaker 1 1:20:22

Shit. There's a pest control guy that lives the next block over.

Speaker 2 1:20:24

You want to know the funniest thing the pest control company that they use. I was driving behind the car of it and it says if we don't fix your mouse problem, it's free. I took a picture and sent it to my husband. I think the district should probably get all their shit for free because they are not fixing the problem.

Speaker 1 1:20:44

The contract.

Speaker 2 1:20:45

Yeah, the company.

Speaker 1 1:20:46

Which is somebody's brother. Yeah, who knows? Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:20:51

So it's actually a simple fix. The problem is it's going to be a public simple fix and that is what they don't want. But it's going to have to happen, Cause I'm not, I'm not stopping.

Speaker 1 1:21:03

Good.

Speaker 2 1:21:04

Good, I'm this far, Trust me. I got offered a job at another school and I had to turn it down and I was really disappointed. And I had to turn it down and I was really disappointed and I told the superintendent. I said I thought this would be done by now. I thought like I thought we would have gotten to a point to fix it and we're not, and so I'm not leaving until it's done.

Speaker 1 1:21:25

This is sad. It's sad for you. Now your life has changed forever. Your husband's life has changed because he's going to have to help you in the older years, because it's not gonna get easier no, and then it's. It's extremely sad for these kids that are in these disgust.

Speaker 2 1:21:42

God, almighty, I couldn't even imagine if I found out yeah, if I was a parent, yeah, and this happened to my child at his school, then that's. That's the craziest thing, though. The people I talk to, like at my son's school, teachers, other people, other teachers I'm friends with at other schools they're like this would never happen at my school, like our principal would have just dealt with it. Like once they realize like okay, wait, this is chronic problem, let's, this is a chronic problem. Let's, I'm going to call the district. It's so easy.

Speaker 1 1:22:14

That's why this whole time you're explaining this and I'm like what is so difficult? It's not like the school's infested with mold, Right? We're like oh God, we got to shut everything down. We got to ship the kids off to different school. They're fucking mice. Get everything cleaned up. Get in there, seal what you need to seal up. You got to clean the walls. I mean, you got all summer, you got three months to get this thing back on track.

Speaker 2 1:22:33

Everybody had holes in their cabinets. I mean, I had so many holes in my kitchen room that we had to fill and there's still holes in my curriculum closet that are up top and I'm like, dude, you guys got to fill that. They're crawling so in, they're climbing down like the piping that. I don't know where it goes, probably the bathroom but they're crawling and shitting as they go and I can see it.

Speaker 2 1:22:56

Yeah, and then they come onto the cement pillars and I kind of like I'm not a short person, so I stand up, I can see all the shit and take pictures of it. I'm like they're still in here. There's a huge bottle of mouse urine in my curriculum closet as we speak.

Speaker 1 1:23:10

A huge what.

Speaker 2 1:23:10

Puddle of mouse urine in my curriculum closet.

Speaker 1 1:23:14

Right now, as we speak yes, right now.

Speaker 2 1:23:15

From the inspection, which means they're still in there.

Speaker 1 1:23:20

So Do you have like a bunch of parents' emails that we could just you can just forward this link to and like hey, this is what your kids are dealing with.

Speaker 2 1:23:28

Well, so I'm waiting for the inspection, which is what took me so long to get here. Okay, my attorney said it will be done Friday and it will be public record for parents.

Speaker 1 1:23:38

A new inspection or the previous inspection that's going to go.

Speaker 2 1:23:41

The report. Okay, yep, the report. So they created they're putting a whole report together and sending it to the school district and so now it's public record. They have to give it to parents. They have to interesting. Yeah, and I'll give it to the parents if they want it. So interesting yeah, so I don't know. I I know there's been talk of parents taking legal action so is there a little like little buzz?

Speaker 1 1:24:12

I mean, are the parents starting to catch on now? Yes, okay, that's okay. So we're moving in that direction because the whole you're explaining this and I'm like God, if my kids came home. We're like there's mouse poop in our room. My wife's coming after your ass and she's coming after everybody's.

Speaker 2 1:24:28

I don't think the parents understand the magnitude of it Because it's played down. Well, because when I've emailed them, I'm not putting the district down, I'm not criticizing them, I'm simply stating the facts like hey, my ovens were infested. They have not been replaced. If I were the teacher in there this year, I would not take them in there to cook.

Speaker 1 1:24:52

And when you sent that, what did that do I mean? That obviously makes it back to the principal.

Speaker 2 1:24:58

So that's what caused her to send the parents an email, which she deleted me off of. So, I couldn't get it, and she told them that my classroom is safe and that there has not been a mouse problem in over a year.

Speaker 1 1:25:11

Which you have piles of pit.

Speaker 2 1:25:12

So like right. So, like in October, march is when my ovens were found infested, along with the dishwashers and the refrigerator.

Speaker 2 1:25:20

So I'm like that's not. That's not over a year. So that's when I sent the email saying, hey, I can't. What I told my parents is. I said I can't in good conscience stand behind that email and if it gets me in trouble, so be it. You deserve to know the truth. Here's my Google link Go look at the pictures yourself. Go look at the repair statements. That shows the dead carcasses found inside the ovens. I have recordings of my principal telling me yeah, it's fine to cook in here. The day I found my ovens infested. I have her recorded on my phone because I asked her. I wanted her to take accountability, I wanted her to tell me what to do. And I said do you still want me to cook in here? And she's like yeah, it's fine, just don't touch the ovens, it's fine does she have kids?

Speaker 2 1:26:12

She's my neighbor, your principal's your neighbor.

Speaker 1 1:26:15

How?

Speaker 2 1:26:16

awkward is that it's terrible. Yeah, it is we have the same birthday too.

Speaker 1 1:26:22

Like are you talking next door neighbor? Or like, neighbor, I go to the corner. Oh, so you don't have to see her every day, but she's still there.

Speaker 2 1:26:28

Yeah, you know, the saddest part is I really liked her.

Speaker 1 1:26:33

She was a great person. She just can't take accountability.

Speaker 2 1:26:35

She was great, and then this happened.

Speaker 1 1:26:39

That sucks.

Speaker 2 1:26:40

And I just I tried so hard I gave her what? Five years thinking she was doing the right thing.

Speaker 1 1:26:45

I feel like you gave her four years too long.

Speaker 2 1:26:48

Probably. But I again, like she's a nice lady for the most part, she really is.

Speaker 1 1:26:54

She's a good mom.

Speaker 2 1:26:57

She's funny, she doesn't micromanage us, she lets teachers do their thing for the most part, and I yeah.

Speaker 1 1:27:05

But once it got to the point, once it got, to this point.

Speaker 2 1:27:08

I was like, dude, do you not care? Like the stance I've taken is what if I was your child? Like my parents are floored and I'm like think of if I was your child, your adult child trying to do her career, you know, do what she's been hired to do, and your child is sick now from her teaching environment that you promised me would be clean. And I trusted, I believed. I'm so gullible, I believed that they were doing the right thing and I trusted that they were all doing what they were supposed to do.

Speaker 1 1:27:47

So what's next? This is going to go. This is going to come, obviously out next week. We're going to air this one soon, Just so you can start getting the word out. But is there?

Speaker 2 1:27:58

I think, um like. My prediction is that they're going to want to mediate because they'll give me an NDA. They won't want me to talk about this.

Speaker 1 1:28:11

Well, this is going to be live.

Speaker 2 1:28:12

It's fine with me, I, I again, it's I. Well, this is going to be live, it's fine with me. Again, I will walk into that mediation room and I will say I'm not talking about anything, but we're mediating that. So how do we do that? I mean literally the building's right there next to the district offices. So what are we going to do? What is your plan? And it needs to be contracted out. Who's going in there to inspect it? How are you going to clean it? How are you going to maintain it? Because now they're building apartment complexes right across the street from our school, which is going to stir the ground and it's going to get so bad.

Speaker 2 1:28:47

So let's come up with a plan, because I'm not signing anything. I'm not talking about anything until you talk about this and you take care of staff and students if they need testing. Because it's too expensive, I've spent $4,200 just on two blood tests for this. That's just blood tests. It's nothing else. So you guys need to make sure you're going to take care of these people.

Speaker 1 1:29:14

I'm not the person like. I've been in so many situations where I probably should have sued and we'd be not doing this podcast. I'd be in the Bahamas somewhere, but this is one of those situations where you should be getting paid out Fat.

Speaker 2 1:29:29

You know what, though I have said this so many times they could hand, they could, they could be like fine, we'll give you $5 million, sign the NDA and walk out, and I would rip it up and I'd be like no.

Speaker 1 1:29:42

I respect that, I mean.

Speaker 2 1:29:44

Fix that, fix that Like, go fix it.

Speaker 1 1:29:48

I respect that.

Speaker 2 1:29:49

And pay for my medical stuff please, but like. And a couple couple vacations but just fix it like that is genuinely all I've ever wanted, because I don't know who. If I don't go back and another teacher comes in and they and I don't fix this, somebody else is going to get sick for sure it's just going to get worse.

Speaker 2 1:30:11

and then if that principal leaves and doesn't communicate with the other principal, it's, it's just going to snowball and it's never snowball and it's like a house with mold, where you find a little bit and just keeps growing. So don't even try to talk to me about anything other than remediating the problem. And you're going to tell the parents the truth.

Speaker 1 1:30:31

That's the biggest.

Speaker 2 1:30:32

That is on my list. You're going to tell the parents the truth, you're going to tell the staff the truth and you're going to fix this.

Speaker 1 1:30:39

I think it's to go back to the parents' previous years, not even just this, I mean.

Speaker 2 1:30:43

Oh 100%.

Speaker 1 1:30:44

I mean those kids were. They were exposed to it. It's like being asbestos or something. Just because those kids are dealing with it now, everybody prior to that is still exposed.

Speaker 2 1:30:52

You got eight years and I'm a two semester teacher. So fall and spring are all new kids. And the sad part, some of these kids actually a lot of them I have such a good relationship with them. They just keep taking my class no-transcript.

Speaker 2 1:31:35

Exposed to any bacteria viruses? Yeah, I, if I were, and and I they said, hey, fine, we'll pay for testing I would take my kid in just to be safe because, like I said, they thought I had ra hashimoto's, they thought I had all this stuff, and they're like, oh wait, it just mimics it, it's like a. Well, it makes me think of the movie venom, you know that. It's like body so that is.

Speaker 1 1:32:02

This is wild, yeah, and it's sad, it's I've. This is one of those situations that should never, ever have gotten to this situation. It's such a simple, easy fix to be able to remediate some mice or roach, whatever you know, like it's. It's cool, right, and I feel as a parent, if the school sent out this letter like hey, there's mice, we're taking care of it over the summer yeah, cool, yeah, nobody would care.

Speaker 2 1:32:28

Thanks, nobody would care oh, hey, there's.

Speaker 1 1:32:31

There's mice in the in the, the food, the extra food for the kids that need it, like we're gonna take cool thank you a parent. Do you need help? Like I can help buy a shit, whatever I mean, I feel that this is one of those situations where it's just best to communicate and be upfront and honest about it, and it sucks. I mean that you're you're in this situation because obviously you're very passionate about these kids, and which rightfully so. You're a teacher, that's what we do.

Speaker 2 1:32:57

We don't teach to get rich. There's no way.

Speaker 1 1:33:00

I feel that it's just this whole situation, like we should not be having this conversation.

Speaker 2 1:33:08

No, and I can't wrap my head around why that's the biggest question why? Why? Why was this so hard?

Speaker 1 1:33:20

is she just so worried about her image?

Speaker 2 1:33:24

I mean why, but at the same time, like you're jeopardizing children's health part of me just wonders if it not a big deal to her, like just no, just like, okay, found a mice, okay, whatever, like maybe just Not a big deal there. That's when they were like whoa, wait a minute.

Speaker 1 1:33:53

This is a problem.

Speaker 2 1:33:55

But I don't think they've been aggressive enough with the problem to like rectify it so like sticky traps in little poison boxes. I don't know that that's going to. I mean they, they pass that point. Well, every six weeks they they have a litter.

Speaker 1 1:34:09

So that's a lot of litters, and then all your dead poison rats are into the wall and then all those litters are eating the dead, the dead rat mice. So here's a question at any point did anybody walk the principal to your classroom and be like did she ever see? In january?

Speaker 2 1:34:30

of 2023. She was forced to like. She was told like like okay, this is your school, you need to go check this out.

Speaker 1 1:34:39

Who told her that?

Speaker 2 1:34:40

The district.

Speaker 1 1:34:41

Okay.

Speaker 2 1:34:42

So then she was like more actively, like okay, here's what we're going to do. The other part of it that I forgot to mention is now. I told you that because I went to HR, I feel she was taking aggression out on me because I put a spotlight on our school.

Speaker 1 1:34:59

Okay.

Speaker 2 1:35:01

Two Sundays in a row. So I would get told your room has been signed off, your room is clean, it's ready to go. You can go in there and cook.

Speaker 1 1:35:10

Signed off by who?

Speaker 2 1:35:11

The district Okay, it was always the district.

Speaker 1 1:35:13

Who's the district?

Speaker 2 1:35:15

The custodial staff, the district custodial staff, health service, health food services. Maybe I think was one person from the district.

Speaker 1 1:35:25

Okay.

Speaker 2 1:35:25

It's never been like the health department or OSHA or any state entity, it's just been the district. They are the ones that have signed off on everything.

Speaker 1 1:35:33

Okay.

Speaker 2 1:35:33

So I would get told it's good to go and that would be on like a Friday.

Speaker 1 1:35:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:35:37

So then I would rewrite my lesson plans again to start cooking the following week. That Sunday I would get an email from my principal where she went into my classroom and she took the whole room apart and sent me pictures at like nine o'clock at night Super Bowl Sunday nine o'clock at night and would say sorry, we weren't sure if your room was actually clean, so I went in and did it myself. Sorry, you're gonna have to put it all back together. Mind you, I have five kitchens, so five sets of everything that is equally distributed. Then I would come into my room and everything would be pulled out of cabinets and laying all over the tables, and everything would be pulled out of cabinets and laying all over the tables and she would get praised for taking the time to go in there and clean my room. But it was just clean on Friday and this happened multiple times in a row, and I would come back after writing my lesson plans over and my room would be Trashed.

Speaker 2 1:36:30

Trashed and I'm like what the heck?

Speaker 1 1:36:32

And you have to put it all back together. Yeah, trashed and I'm like what the heck? Then you have to put it all back together. Yeah, so she's got hands on eyes on the problem.

Speaker 2 1:36:40

So she knows there's no denying in your opinion no, she went in there cleaning herself to to ensure so she can't say, oh, I never saw, so she was in that room yeah, which honestly worries me, because she exposed herself.

Speaker 2 1:36:55

Yeah, I don't want anyone having to do this. This sucks. I don't want anyone having. I don't care my worst enemy could be in there. I don't want anyone getting hurt or sick anybody and she exposed herself too, but it was just this chronic, like I felt like it was. How much more stress and chaos can we add to this woman's life for reporting me and my school to age?

Speaker 1 1:37:18

So that's how you feel. So once you put the spotlight on the principal, she turned the spotlight back on you and just did everything she could. Yeah, you think she was trying to get you to quit and move on, so the situation would just go away Possibly.

Speaker 2 1:37:31

But again they underestimate me so like I've never. In the eight years I've been teaching, I've never had a bad evaluation.

Speaker 1 1:37:40

And after I went to HR she put in my evaluation that I bring ill service to all of my students and so you have students that are reaching out years later, inviting you to graduations like updating you on their life, and now, out of nowhere, she writes that about you. How did that make you feel?

Speaker 2 1:38:01

Um, I spent four hours in my bedroom crying that night when I got it, cause I was like my students are like my top priority outside of my own kids and my family, and I was like it'll serve, it'll serve my students. How do I? I don't even know, and I I remember going back to class and my, my students are very intuitive with me because I'm intuitive with them. And I had this one boy I don't want to say his name because I don't, but he saw me and he's like Ms Strong, look, you've been crying and I couldn't help it. I was just honest. I'm like, yeah, I got a really bad evaluation. Apparently, I bring ill service to all of you. He marched himself down to the office and got in trouble because he was using swear words and chewed out the vice principal about my evaluation.

Speaker 1 1:38:49

It's good for him.

Speaker 2 1:38:51

And he got. He got detention and I felt bad but at the same time it felt good to have somebody kind of stand up for me a student that knows I would never do that. And then it went. Then I had my meeting with her, like with my principal, to go over it, and she denied writing it. So then I was like it's right here. You'd like literally put it right here. So she's like, well, I didn't mean it and I'm like, but it's already written and now it's in my personnel file. So it's just things like that and unfortunately it's not just me that experiences this. This is a you asked me at the beginning of this podcast. Some of the stuff for teachers is principals have authority to make your life a living hell if they want, and they can do it in evaluations. It's protected. The your evaluations are 100 protected from them.

Legal Action and Health Consequences

Speaker 2 1:39:44

You can't fight it really like the union can't really help you. I the next year I got another eval from my vice principal and I was sitting with him and he went down to that section and he said would it make you feel better Because I do not feel that you cause ill service to students in any way, shape or form. Would it be better if I wrote like an opposite statement no shit the bottom and I was like, yes, please, that would be really nice.

Speaker 2 1:40:16

Yeah, because I don't ill serve my students at all, but in their eyes I created conflict and chaos for going to hr and I also was pissed off about it by by last march I was like done I'm done.

Speaker 2 1:40:33

I'm done with this bullshit. I'm done with the constant lies that the feel. Well, the lies that I feel are lies. I was just over it and so sure I'd had a bad attitude. I was walking through the halls, pissed off, and I kept to myself, shut my door, taught my class. I mean the amount of times I had to continue to rewrite my lessons and rewrite my lessons because they'd say it's clean and then it's infested, and then it's clean and then it's infested and then it's torn apart. I just got to a point where I'm like I'm I'm exhausted, I can't. I can't do it.

Speaker 1 1:41:02

When they would clean the room? Was there ever a period like months would go by without any mice, or was it just right back to normal? Did you ever have peace in mind knowing that your students weren't working in?

Speaker 2 1:41:18

No, because it smells.

Speaker 1 1:41:20

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 1:41:21

The room smells no matter what I would do. And before I got a new washer machine and dryer, which was last year, I could never get my towels clean. And one time I went to open the dryer door and a mouse dropping fell out onto the floor and I got on my hands and knees to make sure like I got real like up close and personal with it, to make sure it was a mouse dropping, and under the washer and dryer was a puddle of urine and I realized that they had infested the dryer and that's why my towels always smelt gross oh my no matter what I, no matter what type of like additive or like detergent.

Speaker 2 1:42:01

And so within my state budget I requested a new machine. I didn't, I didn't know if it was infested right, but once I found the ovens and the refrigerator and the dishwasher, one can only assume, if your towels, you know, smell like shit, that there's probably a problem. So yeah, but I mean to answer your question. I I would say maybe I'd get like a month, maybe three weeks, where I wouldn't stumble across a dropping at the most.

Speaker 1 1:42:33

That's it.

Speaker 2 1:42:35

Yeah, I would just like open my and, honestly, at some point I would email and I would get no response. I can't tell you how many times I would email and be like oh, the principal yeah, and.

Speaker 2 1:42:45

I'd be like I found more mouse droppings and I'd get no response. And so then at one point there were all these mouse droppings in my closet again, because I do a fundraiser every year with my school and it's called Wreaths for West. So I have all these extra Christmas wreaths in my closet hanging that we auction off and we give the money to a family in need at Christmas.

Speaker 2 1:43:06

That's cool, it's really fun. And I went to go pull it off the wall and all these mouse droppings fell out of it, so they were nesting in the wreaths. And all these mouse droppings fell out of it so like they were nesting in the wreaths, and I wrote an email and I was like hey, you know, there's mouse droppings in my closet, can somebody come clean them up? Because I don't want to clean them up. And I waited like a week, 10 days, and finally I was like fine, fuck it, I'll go clean it myself.

Speaker 2 1:43:32

So I just went in there and this is horrible, wore my face and swept him up and dumped it myself and I was like and that's when my husband was like we're done. We're done with this. You need to do something about it. So I contacted the attorney and-.

Speaker 1 1:43:47

So I don't know if we've gotten into it too much, but once shit hit the fan literally.

Speaker 2 1:43:54

Literally.

Speaker 1 1:44:00

How bad did the principal try to make your life? I mean, now you're public enemy number one, right? So is it? Was it just relentless, or she? I mean, or was it just?

Speaker 2 1:44:06

it was like um, it was just like this okay like I would.

Speaker 2 1:44:11

I would get to a point where I felt like at one point I was reprimanded, not reprimanded. I was emailed by, like my BEA rep. That was like hey, watch your tone. Cause I had said to my principal, why are you dissecting my classroom when you have no idea what goes on in here? Like what you're doing is make is literally wreaking havoc. And I got kind of my hand slapped like hey, watch your tone. And so I came back and apologized respectfully to my principal. I said, hey, it's been brought to my attention that my tone wasn't the most professional in my last email. I'm very sorry, I'm just very frustrated. I really want more communication with you. I begged her. I was like I need more face-to-face communication with you about this. I need your support. I need your help.

Speaker 1 1:44:55

Nothing.

Speaker 2 1:44:56

I didn't even get a response from it. I had to email her again and say did you get my email apologizing to you, asking for more communication? Oh yes, sorry, I got it. So it just. I would get to these points where I think she's like getting on the same page with me and we're putting all the craziness to the side and she's supporting me, and then something would happen. And then I would go.

Speaker 1 1:45:21

Interesting, like it doesn't make sense.

Speaker 2 1:45:23

No, at one point I had a feeling and assumption that there was a recording device in my classroom Like hidden.

Speaker 1 1:45:33

Please tell me you found one classroom, um, like hidden.

Speaker 2 1:45:38

Please tell me you found one. Well, I have video proof. My husband and I, we got a little apparatus that finds it and I have video of me finding activity. I just couldn't physically find it, so I don't know. That's just my opinion, though there's just some things that they want to go back there. Huh, I know there's just some things that they knew.

Speaker 1 1:45:55

You want to go back there, huh.

Speaker 2 1:45:56

I know there's just some things they knew that they wouldn't know unless they were listening, listening Mm-hmm, like what. For example, the pizza. Like a pizza argument my students were having with each other in my classroom about pineapple on pizza.

Speaker 1 1:46:14

Okay.

Speaker 2 1:46:14

Ironically, there was this debate in my classroom. Oh, it's a huge debate yeah, I didn't know this was and then, randomly the next day, my principal walked up to half my students and was like hey, so what's the deal going on with pizza and pineapple in your classroom? And my students came to me and said hey, I thought it was really weird. So-and-so came up to us and asked why we were all debating about pineapple on our pizza yesterday. And I was like huh, interesting.

Speaker 2 1:46:38

Interesting. And then there were just things I purposefully said and did in my room and then, miraculously, things would happen. So I just got this feeling, so I bought a piece of equipment and what a shitty work environment for you and my classroom so yeah, piece of equipment, and what a shitty work environment. And my classroom so yeah, I don't know. I just it's hard to. It's so hard to even sit here and like talk negative about this because there are so many incredible teachers in our district.

Speaker 2 1:47:20

And there are so and especially at my school, because I've only worked at north junior high and west. And even at north is incredible, my principal there was a flipping rock star and he's the superintendent's husband. He's incredible and I adore him and I'm now I'm at the school. He would never, he would never let this happen, never nobody should no not for well, not when there's kids involved.

Speaker 1 1:47:35

No, you know. No, no, no, I don't know what her excuse is.

Speaker 2 1:47:38

I've never gotten to sit down and just have a face to face conversation.

Speaker 1 1:47:41

No never why.

Speaker 2 1:47:43

Never.

Speaker 1 1:47:45

She just doesn't. She's not one of those or.

Speaker 2 1:47:47

They. I mean I filed my grievance. We had one grievance hearing where she was in there. I explained my side, she explained hers and like she even before kind of all the chaos of like the lawsuit and stuff she would drive through my neighborhood and ignore me as a like as her employee. She didn't even put me on the staff picture two years ago. Kid you, not Kid you not, she's got a personal.

Speaker 2 1:48:12

Yeah, like, like my picture's not on it, and then at the bottom, like if I didn't get the picture taken, it would say not pictured, no, not even listed. It's like I don't exist. So and I don't know why I've. I had never done anything to her, ever Just reported.

Speaker 1 1:48:31

Ask for the mice. Yeah, just some help Get cleaned up, yeah Ask for the mice.

Speaker 2 1:48:32

Yeah, just some help.

Speaker 1 1:48:33

Get cleaned up. Yeah, Well, this is a. I'm sorry this has happened to you.

Speaker 2 1:48:39

Good, like I said, it's a bullet I'm willing to take it, so it sucks. It does suck because I do just want to do my job. I really have missed it this year, so I thought maybe I would enjoy it like oh, being like being a you know, stay-at-home mom with my own kids, um, but like hell no I mean, I loved it, I used that's what I did and it was great.

Speaker 2 1:49:04

But I, every day, I would just think about all my students and then I I have. I do the same things every year and like the way I categorize, like you know, baking bre, baking breads and different things in the holidays and just fun stuff, and that week would come, like this week, this week's huge at my school right now, because they're getting and just being with your colleagues and we've got colleagues retiring. That I adore, that I can't go to the retirement party. It's weird and it's just. It just sucks for just wanting a clean classroom. It's not like I, you know, it's not like I slapped a kid and got suspended or you know, I mean, I've seen teachers slap kids. Nothing happened to you, I got slapped.

Speaker 1 1:49:54

As a kid I deserved him, but yeah, I got snatched up.

Speaker 2 1:49:59

I have seen teachers like flick kids' hats off their heads and like swap them across the side of the face and I'm like dang. So it's not like I did something like that. I'm certainly not doing what.

Speaker 1 1:50:10

I was Just asking for a clean room.

Speaker 2 1:50:11

Yeah, I just don't want, I don't need to be cinderella, I'm good.

Speaker 1 1:50:21

I'm good, yeah, I'm good, unless you're gonna give me some pumpkin, yeah some glass slippers.

Speaker 1 1:50:23

I like some magic, but oh, this is crazy I just want them to fix it, so maybe this will help. No, well, I'm glad you were able to get have a voice. That's kind of the whole point of this podcast is just giving people a chance to talk and give their either their story or something like this, or people need to know about certain things like this is why we sit down and have this conversation, and when you reached out, I reached out to you because it's a.

Speaker 2 1:50:47

It is a conversation versus, like I said, a girl tried to write a story about it in the fall yeah and there was just so many holes and it. It just didn't sound right when I read it. And then the comments coming through you could tell people just did not understand the foundation to yeah. So I was like, okay, I have to be able to talk somewhere where it's here, yeah, like it's, they're hearing me, not somebody else's impression of it.

Speaker 1 1:51:14

Well, I'm glad we were able to give you a voice. Hopefully this helps, because I mean it's a great story, I mean this is fascinating, I mean I'm going to be following up on this because I want to know.

Speaker 2 1:51:23

What's funny is because I have talked about it so much, it doesn't feel like a big deal anymore.

Speaker 1 1:51:28

See.

Speaker 2 1:51:29

So, but when I'm curious, like when you hear this, does it infuriate you to think oh?

Speaker 1 1:51:34

the whole entire time. I'm like mom would be murdering people Like you have no idea the wrath that would rain down if she found out that this was going on and if our kids were in that classroom. It's good to know. And if there's parents that aren't, those parents are a fucking problem.

Speaker 2 1:51:52

I just think they don't know the truth.

Speaker 1 1:51:55

Well, I would hope so. I would really hope that these parents have been somehow blindfolded, pulled out of the chain. But I mean, these kids aren't going home like yo. Our classroom smells like piss. I feel like they'd be like. Our classroom stinks like and I know you're probably trying to do everything you can to cover it up and clean. They'd be like our classroom stinks.

Speaker 2 1:52:19

It's mad, and I know you're probably trying to do everything you can to cover it up and clean, and so it's got to be embarrassing for you.

Speaker 1 1:52:24

Oh man the amount of bath and body work plugins.

Speaker 2 1:52:25

I was putting in there.

Speaker 1 1:52:26

This is not working. It's got to be embarrassing because you've got these students that are pulling out trays and it's got mouse shit in it and you're like God, like you know you're in here. God, like you know, you're in here, you are just want to teach these kids and have a relationship and give them uh, uh even if it's how long is your class? An hour 45 45 minutes. It's 45 minutes for that. These kids know they could come into a cool classroom with a cool teacher and just have fun have fun.

Speaker 1 1:52:48

Yeah, they're not, and they're not in math or we're not learning three or something, not that it's boring, but that shit's boring. Let's that shit's boring. Let's be honest Math, math is God. That's one of those. Yeah, that's one of those.

Speaker 2 1:53:00

It has pushed me into the like. We talked a little bit about your kids and homeschooling. It has pushed my mindset of like do I need to do something else?

Speaker 1 1:53:09

I have a question for you.

Speaker 2 1:53:10

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:53:16

I want you to be as honest as possible either way, knowing everything you know now as you being a teacher, and you get a little taste of both sides of home, if you could do it again, would you homeschool your kids or would you put them back in public school?

Speaker 2 1:53:26

if I would put them in public school at the age that they were? If I was a mom now, I would not put my kids in school.

Speaker 1 1:53:37

Really.

Speaker 2 1:53:38

Things have changed. My kids are 19, you know 17. So Tanner has a year left. Yeah, but if, like I, work out with a whole group of women who are just now having you know, they got like toddlers and I'm like God, I don't think I could put my kid in school and I and our numbers are dropping significantly. Enrollment is dropping. It's freaking people out.

Speaker 1 1:54:04

People have no idea, and this is. This is a conspiracy of mine. I'll 10 add on right now there are millions, millions of homeschooled kids and nobody realizes the number of public school kids are declining at a rapid rate and no one's talking about it.

Speaker 2 1:54:23

They're saying it's lack of growth. Like they're saying my school is losing enrollment because it's an older neighborhood. There's not new development and not new families. That's kind of like West Ada is growing because they're branching out towards Owyhee.

Speaker 1 1:54:38

There's no way there's so much growth and so many people moving here. Everything is maxed everywhere you go, but the numbers of kids going to public school are dropping. Make that make sense.

Speaker 2 1:54:48

No, it doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1 1:54:49

Fascinating. I was hoping I was praying that, but I was going to ask why, if you were going to put your kids back in public school, if you had the chance to start all over.

Speaker 2 1:54:56

No, like if my kids were entering middle school, I would probably consider taking them out and homeschooling, but I think there needs to be more homeschooling cohorts.

Speaker 1 1:55:09

For sure, and I think you know, because I posted a video, because the wife and I did an episode, we just talked and we talked to homeschooling and then we did a big fast and all that crap, oh I watched it actually.

Speaker 2 1:55:18

Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1 1:55:19

And I didn't think anybody watches our show. But um, um, what was I going to say? I lost control.

Speaker 2 1:55:26

Oh sorry, no, you're good.

Speaker 1 1:55:28

It was about um whether or not you would put them back school oh well, we get, we get um about about this, like there's these co-ops and things like that. There's some really cool programs out there but a lot of I don't want to say hate. But the negative side of the of homeschooling is people like how do you do it? You know like how, how am I spoke my, my wife and I both work and I get that it's not for you. Can't like we're, we're blessed, we've made major sacrifices to have this life and I get not everybody has that ability. But if there was these I don't want to say programs or schools or whatever that was almost homeschool based, like if there was like a class where I could teach kids beekeeping and gardening, I would have a hundred of them run through my backyard a week.

Speaker 2 1:56:14

That is my, I know. I downstairs I was like, oh, I don't want to talk about it, but I'll talk about it. So my like vision, future vision, is to have a large building that is an elective homeschool cohort. So, like I don't know, five elective teachers. We all come together so that the homeschool families can bring their kids and be like, hey, we're going to go to FCS, you know, two days a week and then there's art and there's yoga or biology, maybe some cool elective science class, and they get out, but you're still in control of like what they're doing.

Speaker 1 1:56:54

I feel that is going to be the future of schooling is these I'll just call them co-ops where people are coming together and they have a skill or trade or just something to be able to provide, because I feel, as the homeschool starts to grow and people start realizing, oh shit, I don't have to be teacher knowledge trained to be able to raise my kids, because no offense, these kids that are graduating, they're not the fucking brightest.

Speaker 2 1:57:24

No, there's a lot of stuff missing.

Speaker 1 1:57:27

A lot and it's to the point where her, she, she comes home. She's like, oh my God, even our 10 year old hanging out with other 10 year old, she's her, she, she comes home. She's like, oh my god, even our 10 year old hanging out with other 10 year old, she's like they don't. They have a hard time reading that. They don't know how to say it's true words and we're like no, no, everybody. And we try to explain like everyone's on differently.

Speaker 2 1:57:43

She's like no, like basic well, that, I think, comes to class size. Like I was talking with another teacher who was trying to convince me to teach fcs at Mountain View and I think Eagle is hiring and I was like oh, how big are your classes? And she's like 35.

Speaker 1 1:58:01

Is that a lot?

Speaker 2 1:58:02

My class at West junior high has no more than 20.

Speaker 2 1:58:06

Okay, so 35 is a lot, and honestly it's more because my classroom is small. But I could not fathom having 35 kids trying to teach them how to deal with a knife, like a chopping knife, and making sure nobody loses a finger, and I can't imagine 35 kids trying to teach them how to read and write and like the class sizes are too big that I see with public schools and it was a product of how I was raised was I can't sit and listen to you talk and be like oh yeah, this is the binomial and carry the prior squared.

Speaker 1 1:58:46

My mind doesn't work like that.

Speaker 2 1:58:47

Hands on.

Speaker 1 1:58:48

I have to, and so there's such a huge portion of these kids, especially, I feel, now with these tablet kids, and they're so they have to. They can't just sit and watch and listen anymore. Now they have to fidget. Their minds are so wired because Instant gratification, on their Instant there's an instant fix, and so now to take little Timmy and sit him down in a classroom for eight hours a day doesn't work anymore and the whole entire, I feel, school model is is is almost prison, like in these classrooms where these kids are just, it's just cookie cutter, cookie cutter, cookie cutter.

Speaker 2 1:59:30

Yeah, you are so spot on.

Speaker 1 1:59:32

And then you're pushing out this almost pre-programmed factory worker. They don't teach kids how to think. This is why it's cool talking to you, because you have a different approach. I.

Speaker 1 1:59:44

I look at teachers like, yeah, I'll just be honest because, yeah, not you, because you're, you're connected, your, your kids have a relationship with you. But I take a basic teacher that's been in the system forever. They don't have the passion anymore, right, and they're just putting out a product and they can't communicate. They have no social skills, they can't even do basic math, writing, reading, and it's like why are we sticking our kids in these prison style education forms now and we're expecting this to work? Like times have changed so much and it's like everything's evolving in the world. You got AI, we have so much technology, curriculum, history Everything is changing, correct, except for our schools.

Speaker 2 2:00:33

And you know it's interesting how you asked me about COVID and this just came to my mind is because COVID put everybody online. Then the teachers where you still were hands-on like math, went online. So now, even now that we're back in the classroom, my students will sit in my ninth hour which is like our 30 minute end of day kind of class to do homework and get stuff done and they're doing math, but their math is in their Google classroom. They don't have a book and like binder paper and writing and they're not.

Speaker 2 2:01:07

Yeah. And I'm like wait, don't you want to scratch piece of paper, or my own son will come home. And I was like buddy, don't you want like a piece of paper? And like, line that up. He's like, no, no, no, it's like it's right here. I'm like, but how do you?

Speaker 1 2:01:19

see here I'm like what the heck they do? It's, it's, you know. They're on a computer, everything is writing. That's how, that's how the wife is everything. Nope, right, break it down. Yes, it's not just until you hit button, until you get the right answer, nope, do it again from the start and they break. But then these kids aren't writing. They don't, I feel, and I'm not speaking here, but everything's typing or texting and they're losing basic writing.

Speaker 2 2:01:46

They can't have a conversation either.

Speaker 1 2:01:47

No.

Speaker 2 2:01:48

And I in my classroom, one of the lines I say the most. That drives me crazy. And I, my students were so awesome. They made me a huge vinyl sign to put up on my wall and I haven't hung it yet because I want to keep it for myself, but it says read the recipe. And like giant letters, because they expect me to be their walking recipe, they don't want to take the time and, like you know, read all of it and try and process what they have to do. And they want me to tell them. And I'm like no, you actually have to read it. And then you have to take what you read and you have to go measure and you have to actually do what I've taught you.

Speaker 1 2:02:22

And then you have to move on to the next procedure and it's you know, it's part of Because these kids aren't used to that, because they get instant gratification through typing here, or they could just chat, GPT it, or they ask Google and they get it. How do I make this cool? There it's laid out. They don't know how to follow simple directions and I hope you're listening over there because that's how it is here and that's the one of the huge benefits that we feel as homeschool parents is that everything is a lesson, and I'm sure you're the same. You know you basically being like you know.

Speaker 2 2:02:52

Yeah, my kids sometimes.

Speaker 1 2:02:54

Teacher, mom Like mom yeah, I get it Like. I'm not your kid or student.

Speaker 2 2:02:58

My son was so cute last night. He won. He's a big lacrosse guy, so he's trying to go collegiate.

Speaker 1 2:03:03

Good for him.

Speaker 2 2:03:03

Yeah, he's like mom, his season just to show me how to do it, so I can do it. And then I'll get up to like make him breakfast, since I'm home, and he'll be like I can, I'm just gonna do it myself and I'm like what You're like no, no, there's a part of you that are like. I wanna do it because that's your baby boy. I'm a big boy.

The Future of Education and Homeschooling

Speaker 1 2:03:29

It's interesting. It's going to be very fascinating to see how our education system goes in the next few years. And you know, not getting political, but obviously Trump pulling the education system and putting it into the states. Okay, I do too, you see.

Speaker 2 2:03:49

People are freaking out. They're freaking out. I don't know why I mean, what's the famous saying?

Speaker 1 2:03:55

What's his name? You know you send your kids off to the Romans. Don't, don't, don't be surprised when they come back. Romans, it's the same thing when you. And that's when people are like well, why should I homeschool my kid? It's like well, do you trust the government to be involved in your kids' education? Right, that scares the shit out of me.

Speaker 2 2:04:15

Well, and clearly it's not doing any good.

Speaker 1 2:04:19

Anything that the government touches is absolute.

Speaker 2 2:04:22

Like my husband and I were talking about that when you know we look at something that's not working, like smoke jumping, for example. You know they were trying to figure out their parachute Should they run, should they jump square around? You know they go through all the mechanisms to figure out which one's the best. We have an education system. We're at the very bottom in the in the country, in the world, so maybe we need to fix it.

Speaker 1 2:04:44

If our kids are getting dumber, our education system's not changing. Like, why? Why is nobody? So yeah, I'm interested to see how do you feel that that's going to change now that Trump put it on the states? How do you feel that that benefits us?

Speaker 2 2:04:59

I mean, I think it's going to benefit in terms of all of our district curriculums, in terms of what we're given to teach. I hope it changes.

Speaker 2 2:05:09

I hope it does what we talked earlier, where maybe it gives more freedom in the classroom, less like you have to do this, you have to do that, you have to do this test. Maybe it'll help minimize testing. I don't know. I don't think having a department of education and all the union representation I know I'm probably going to be looked down upon about this, but in my experience the union didn't help me. Union doesn't help kids. We don't need it. I think it's paid jobs that I just think it's needed. I think we have a 10-year program that protects teachers that don't need to be protected, that shouldn't be teaching. So I kind of think it's a good way. It's like what they're doing with the government I mean my husband's in the government and sure there's stuff that's happening that I'm like crap, that's really going to affect your retirement, but it's going to help in the long run, hopefully. So I hope that whatever he's doing in the education system is going to help in the long run. Maybe the initial it's going to be hard.

Speaker 1 2:06:13

That's anything we've gone so long with. I don't want to say corruption, but just mismanaged, unsupervised programs. Yeah, when you trim the fat to make things better, it's uncomfortable. It should be like that in anything in life. You're starting a new business, you're starting a new job, whatever it is, it's on. It sucks for a while. I's where I'm. I just I wish we could fast forward to this first year of this presidency, because I'm so over the chaos.

Speaker 1 2:06:45

Shut the fuck up, let it it's. He's been in office 60 days and it's 60. What are you supposed to do in 60 days? It takes congress 10 years to pass something, right? So that's where I'm at with everything. I'm just like you know what. Whatever's gonna happen, it's gonna happen regardless. Here we are, we're in this boat for sure. Strap in right. So. But it's like, okay, if it's, things are gonna get uncomfortable and the schools have to take a step back and be like oh shit on us. Now it's gonna be, everybody's going to be. Everybody should be uncomfortable. If you're uncomfortable, that means there's change happening. And if change is happening, change is usually good, especially if it comes and involves children. Let's make this better for them. So if we have to suffer, we have to make changes. We have to let things go. We have to build it Cool, figure it out, because what's happening now? How this is going? Our kids are getting dumber. They're graduating dumber.

Speaker 2 2:07:39

Well, I have to say I mean I. I hear some kids say like, oh, like. I'll give you an example of my own son next week. He's like, he's like I don't even know why I'm going to school next week. The lessons and everything are planned around seniors. Seniors are gone this week, so I'm spending a week kind of doing nothing in my classes let's stay home yeah.

Speaker 2 2:07:58

So I'm like, well, okay, well, I mean so, and that's how that's happened a lot throughout the year where I'm like what did you do all day? It's like, is that on my phone?

Speaker 1 2:08:09

see, okay, she's done in two hours making bread. We're running that business and running a podcast. It's awesome it's like what life like it's, actually like life it's life and she they're traveling, they're on the road and it's just blows my mind and these and I and I completely were those would never, never in a million years, we ever think we would be these parents. I just want to state really no never, we've never even discussed it.

Speaker 1 2:08:35

They're in the neighborhood, they're in this and they ride their bike through the school the neighborhood they're in school, where they at where did you guys? Where was it? What's this one? Lewis, not lewis, and clark pepperidge oh, that's where my kids went. I lived like down, like literally one street from pepper yeah, so you know the fowlers and probably nick nick's like nick fowler um got my daughter's first turkey, turkey that's how we met.

Speaker 1 2:08:58

She came home saying this teacher wants to take me, honey. I was like fuck this dude, there's nobody taking you, honey. Who's this guy? Yeah, and then we ended up becoming friends. But jessica and I are friends just we're just texting like two seconds. They're ordered bread for a friend of this in town. So yeah, I'm sure I probably know your husband, but um name's quincy and I love my therianth. I don't know that's twice. I've never done that episode before, never being a parent to homeschool oh yeah, so we never we were.

Speaker 1 2:09:25

Where are those people? Like, we're cool, we lived our lives and then, once everything hit, my wife came to me out of the blue never even we've never even discussed it. She's like I'm pulling the girls we're homeschooling. You're either with me or you're against me. Those were her exact words. I was like okay, okay, I'm with you, but I'm like are we sure we know we're doing? She's like no, we don't have a clue. I'm done, we're not playing games, we're out, and so that was it and that was right in the beginning of all of it. And they've never been. We give them the option every year. Every year I tell her I'm like you should want to go. I tell her every year I'm like you should just go back in the school, cause nobody knows who she is. They know because she's with a youth group and she's involved in the Valley. So all the schools, you know now all the boys are sniffing and all that shit. But so yeah, so I'm like you should intermingled things that are angled here.

Speaker 2 2:10:15

It's crazy. Tanner will be like mom, like three kids just reached out to me. I don't know who they are. I'm like oh, those are my students. Oh, that's cool, we're gonna hang out next week like sweet small valley, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 2:10:22

So, yeah, I, we enjoy it. I tell her every year to go back to go. We'll go for like the first week or two and just see how lame it is and be like, yeah, fuck this, I'm out. Because she comes home she's like, oh, oh, my God, like zero drama. She's like, oh my God, these girls, this is what they talk about. It's just insane, yeah. And how cannibalistic it is and just yeah, it's wild. I'm glad I don't have and it's so nice Cause we don't have to deal like, oh honey, I think as long as if you're homeschooling and you're getting some socialization and sports and group and stuff.

Speaker 1 2:10:57

It's perfect. Yeah, well, I appreciate your time. Yeah, I didn't even pitch any of this. I don't know if you're a cop, I'll send. Is your husband in cigars? Yes, is he? Yes, cool, so platoon cigars.

Speaker 2 2:11:12

He's a Marine. Oh, that's cool if you saw my husband.

Speaker 1 2:11:16

You would think he was in the military. Everybody asks yeah, all right, we'll have to meet him. He's a smoke jumper, I'd probably.

Speaker 1 2:11:19

I would be love to have a conversation with him ask fowler, he'll tell you two cigars, marine combat marine got out, became a cop, got shot in the line of duty. Well, he's got an incredible story. We're gonna have him on soon. And then, um, so he started the war machine, which is cigars, then C state coffee I'll send you home with some of his cold brew and some beans he's a recon Marine here, buddy of mine. And then obviously, the sour B from the girls. We made you our stinky B.

Speaker 1 2:11:43

So this is a Gouda cheat or not Gouda? We're, yeah, asiago, sorry, asiago cheese, and we do garlic. And then there's an italian urban. It's one of our best sellers. It rips and it's, it's good. So we try to give every guest guest something. So so cool. Yeah, it was one of those weird things. We started making it. I got into it because of my guts and I picked up a bunch of crap overseas and it just tore me up. And so my wife one day was like we're done, you're done eating wheats and breads and it's all garbage and we started making our own. And then now we have a business. So don't ask, it's one of those stories.

Speaker 2 2:12:16

So I love it. Well, if I ever get back in the classroom, I'll have your wife. Couldn't be like a guest I'm actually the.

Speaker 1 2:12:22

I bake better than her. I figured it out. She quit, she quit. I'm going on the record and she can vouch yeah, I bought her. All you can be my guest speaker I bought her all of this crap because she wanted to get in the sourdough and then she was like fuck it, I hate it.

Speaker 2 2:12:36

Oh my gosh, I just got a ton of stuff for mother's day.

Speaker 1 2:12:39

Oh perfect, yeah, so I was like, well, I just spent all this money on cast irons and just, yeah, the crap that comes with it, you don't need any of it. And uh, it is. And so, yeah, I started doing it. We busted out this loaf and it was like the most amazing bread we've ever, ever tasted in our lives. And my wife and then Brett, was like, okay, I'm back in. I'm like, yeah, no, we do it as a family now and it's a lot of fun. And yeah, so we were up last night till like two in the morning rolling out dough.

Speaker 2 2:13:02

Oh my gosh, that's great.

Speaker 1 2:13:03

Because it took forever to ferment, or to bulk.

Speaker 2 2:13:05

We were making sourdough raisin cinnamon bread. My daughter was gone at school all year. I mean, she's just a BSU, but she was living down there and my husband's like, hey, so when's the next loaf coming out? Because we haven't bought bread in months. And my daughter's like wait, what are you talking about? And I'm like I've been making bread like every three days because I'm bored at home, not teaching. So I talked to my goldfish. I got two dogs. My son is super like busy with lacrosse.

Speaker 1 2:13:37

You're just all so, just like okay, well, I guess I'll master sour dough now because I'm not teaching and I'm bored so so that's what I've been doing, but yeah, it's fun well, good, then you could go home and tell us how horrible this is oh heck. No, that's awesome yeah, I well, I appreciate you coming on and I appreciate you having me letting me thanks for telling the story, yeah, of this craziness that's going on here in the Valley and it's a very unfortunate, of the symptoms you've come down with and the surgeries and the crap that you have to deal with, and then obviously these kids happen to be in those environments and just horrible.

Speaker 2 2:14:09

I'll keep you updated, Please do. I'm sure once this comes out it'll.

Speaker 1 2:14:15

Oh, I'm sure this is going to be like kicking a hornet's nest. So thank you again for for the time and being able to share your story. I appreciate it. Thank, you that was great. Yeah, thank you see. That wasn't bad, was it that was?

Speaker 2 2:14:25

very interesting. I mean I'm