I went to school again. Today, they wanted everyone to submit. I did not see anyone ‘randomly’ picked to not go through.

When I got up near the front of the line, I asked the administrator overseeing everything if the policy had changed. He said no, so I said I refused. He nodded and told me to go stand off to the side, just like yesterday. Both of us really had a ‘whatever’ attitude about it, too. I wasn’t going to argue any more; I made my points. He wasn’t going to argue either; the district had made their own points.

So once again, I watched. Today, the angry cop who had been barking at students was on wand duty. He kept yelling at people trying to pick their bags up for standing too close to the metal detector. We still had plenty of orders barked.

It may also be worth pointing out that Mr. Williams was on the floor. He left shortly after everyone had gone through.

I watched. I watched everyone go through. It didn’t hurt any less than last time, but I watched.

Finally, Ms. Clark and Ms. Coggins called me over. They said that they had already been told by the superintendent’s office that they would have to send me home if I refused. I asked them on what grounds the superintendent was sending me home on, since they had admitted to having no policy on WTNH, but neither of them knew. At the end of the day, I handed Ms. Clark a note and asked her to deliver it to Ms. Coggins. It asked that she procure the superintendent’s reasoning, in writing, and forward it on to me for my records.

Ah, but I get ahead of myself. I went off with Ms. Clark to her office so we could update the report. She spent a few minutes on that, then went over the copy of my schedule she had to ensure it was accurate. She was very good about getting my assignments for me, too.

I also spoke with guidance about alternatives. I doubt going to another school district is a long-term solution. So I asked about home schooling and about the dropout process. They’re possibilities. I’m simply looking into my options. She gave me some phone numbers to call and get more detailed information that she could come up with off the top of her head.

So then they tried to call Momma Evans and tell them I was coming home. But, no dice; she was out grocery shopping all morning. So I sat in Ms. Clark’s office and worked on history and English.

After awhile, they still had no contact. A truant officer from the board was sent out to Ms. Coggins office and asked to carry a letter saying I was being sent home. I spoke with him briefly. He was a pretty nice guy. He got up to go deliver the letter, but Ms. Coggins stopped to ask if he would call when he delivered it or if he would come back and make his report in person. He said he’d call.

With that, he left, not to be heard back from. He apparently did show up around here and say he was from the school, although he failed to identify himself as a truant officer. He handed the letter off and asked to have something signed. Momma Evans told him she wasn’t signing anything and ordered him off the property.

And, like I said. Nobody heard back from him. If he did call, his message got lost somewhere in the school, because I sat in the ground floor administrative suite until the bell rang. And they call that an absense…

No matter. I went home and left a message with a laywer that we had been referred to by another one. He’s supposed to be something of a constitutionality expert, from what I gather. I don’t know where that will get me, but…you know. We’ll see.

I did not hear back from Alderwoman Arlene DePino today, either. Nor the ACLU. Nor the Register. Nor the state attorney general (fat chance).

But I did hear from the Advocate. I’ll provide more details on this tomorrow…hehe.

Other important events of the day were relayed to me by Louis. For one, an excellent article about him showed up in the New Haven Independent. I thought it was much better than the interview I did. He focused so much more on the big picture, while I nitpicked district policy.

I also spoke with a junior at the Cooperative School for Arts and Humanities, yet another member of our illustrious district. The girl, who requested I do not share her name or the name of her friend, were asked to step into the search line at their school. They looked at it and decided that it would be too long of a wait, so they refused to enter it. The school official supervising them accepted their refusal and had them go into the other line. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. I feel so safe! What would I do without all of this half-assed ’security’ in New Haven!

A message with an update about what happened today was left on Sara Welch’s voicemail (she’s the WTNH reporter I worked with). I’m not expecting a call back or anything; I just wanted her to know how the story turned out.

The last thing I want to mention is the incredible amount of kudos I was given today by, um, everyone in the district I saw. I had a number of teachers give me winks, whoots, and other such applause. Students kept looking at me and telling me they saw me on the news, one said thank you, and other said they really respected what I was doing.

That trend continued all day. Staff would give me approving looks as they walked by me sitting in the conference room, looking rather bored. When I showed my face at the end of the day, a lot of people commented on seeing me on the news. Some folks down town said hello to me. Hell, a number of people sent me private messages on MySpace saying how great I was.

I got some IMs, too. Louis knows a few people at my school who wanted to talk to me, so he gave out my little-known screenname of OwlManAttTFC and I continued getting m4d props from people.

Hm. Tomorrow will shape up to be an interesting day, nonetheless.