Betrayal at home...

The end of the year has arrived... THANK GOODNESS!!!!  Well... mostly.  The last day of school was great... and terrible.  It was great to hang out with the students for one more day.  It was a half day with students taking finals.  After their finals, we got to chat about summer plans, etc.  


And yet, I said it was terrible.  During my planning period, I had a student working in my room on math (yes, I really can help kids learn math).  During the period, my co-worker Charisma stopped in for a moment to laugh about something random.  After she left, my student said to me, "Ms, do you know what I heard about her? Ms. Scott?  I don't know if it's true though."  So, of course, I think that students are spreading crazy rumors again, or that he heard a story of something funny Charisma said or did.  He tells me that he heard Ms. Scott had dated a senior the year before.  I started laughing because it was the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.  I assumed the students were spreading rumors, so I asked him who had told him that.  His response struck me as odd... he said, "If I tell you, will you promise not to tell?  I don't want her to get into trouble?"  Still under the assumption that it was a student, I said yes.  Students don't get into trouble for spreading rumors, and it's the end of the school year.  Students were leaving in about 2 hours.  I was VERY unprepared for the next two words out of my student's mouth... "Miss Garcia"  Miss Garcia is one of our secretaries!!  How could an adult at our school, that I have worked with for two years, have been telling these stories to our students?!?  I don't know if I kept a straight face or not, but I know my brain had shut down.  I told the student that I know Ms. Scott VERY well, and that rumor isn't true.  


Then my brain started running a million miles a second...
What am I going to do with this new found information?!  I only promised the student I wouldn't say anything because I thought it was simply a student rumor, but this is SO much bigger!!  An adult!  Telling stories to students... stories that could ruin a teacher's career!!!  So, I did what I always do when I don't know what to do... I went to our counselor, and I asked her what to do.


I had to tell our principal.  And I was really okay with that decision.  I was SO upset!!  How could someone betray us?  Our school, our staff, everything about what we do is built upon trust, and someone we were supposed to be able to trust has begun telling rumors to students!  What the heck was happening?!?  So I reported it... but before I did that, I told Charisma.  That was probably one of the hardest things I had to do.  The look on her face will permanently scar my memory.  She was so hurt, so upset, so shocked all at one time.  It was as though she didn't know how to feel in that particular moment.  To be honest, I know that feeling... I had just felt it about 15 minutes earlier.  


So what happens now?  I report was filed, statements were given, and there is still a huge amount of mistrust in our school when it comes to Ms. Garcia.  We are all left in a state of limbo... what will happen next?  Thankfully our principal knows us very well and knows Charisma would never do such a thing with a student.  But we still don't know what will happen next?  And I still can't figure out how to work in our small school with someone I can't trust.


What to do?  What to do...