Teacher workshop days were a poor excuse for a day off of work. 

The kids loved it surely, not having to wake up in the morning and drag their body to a classroom for several hours became a simple blessing. That time that could instead be spent playing kick the can or red rover. Days off were not to be spent crossing your t's and dotting your i's. For Joanne though, it meant she had to go to work and not do any work. She would spend the day in meetings, taking notes and nodding in agreement to her colleagues suggestions of what could be improved in the already perfect system. The kids test scores were above average for the state, Probity was a model idea for how a school could be run and yet they still wanted to see constant improvement. 

"Joanne, write that down." 

Mr. Jackson, a colleague of Joanne's tapped diligently on her notepad. Simultaneously Jo noticed the dirt under the man's pointer fingernail. He tapped again, what seemed like slow motion as Joanne used her slender fingers to move her belongings out of the man's reach. "I will write it down." she said in a hushed tone. "Good girl." the man said, resting his hand on her forearm and giving it a gentle squeeze.

Tensing up, Joanne's breathing became non-existent for a moment. His grubby little hand removed itself. "Please excuse me." she called, pushing back her chair as she hurried out of the room and went straight for the nearest single stall, staff bathroom. Closing the door, she locked it and turned on the water to the hottest setting the old lead piping could muster. Scrubbing herself with several pumps of soap, she washed, scalded, washed, and scalded again until she felt a bit better about the situation. Eventually she found herself back in the meeting, and then after that she found herself back home in the living room of her parent's home.

Joanne's father sat in [i]his[/i] chair, a newspaper open in hand. He turned the pages in silence besides a clearing of the throat now and again. Joanne's mother sat in an adjacent chair, as the two women talked about their days. Both bland, but small talk was all the rage, gossip the main contender of any conversation. "I heard her daughter is being sent away for awhile, you know with the pregnancy and all." Joanne's mother said in a hush tone as if the neighbors or passing car could hear into their home. "Yes, she is being taken out of school, they spoke about it during the meeting." Jo responded, her voice tone matched to her mother's. "It's a shame." They both thought, for their own individual reasons. 

A few more words were exchanged before the two were in the kitchen, starting on some food for the company they were expecting.