Sunday, February 10, 2013

Student Stealing

Thursday I was in a classroom I have been in once before.  I also have known some of the kids for a long time. Last time it was kind of a tough day. This time I felt quite comfortable with this class and we had a really good day. 
 
As I have mentioned before, I sometimes give a little prize at the end of the day.  Yeah, I am one of those subs.  This can be a tough job and if it costs me $3 to have a good day, I'm totally okay with that. 
 
I keep an assortment of CHEAP prizes in my sub bag, which I will lay out at the end of the day for students to choose.  Typically I will have them come up two or three at a time after they get their backpacks and are ready to go.  On this particular day a student asked me for help and, as I felt comfortable with the students, I walked away to help.
 
While cleaning up, after bus duty, I realized that there were WAY more than 22 prizes gone.  Usually I don't put too many out, but I just pulled everything out this time, for some reason.  So there were more than 60 items gone. 
 
I feel like it is my fault because I should have stayed there, or stopped the line while helping someone else.  I also should not have put out so many things.  But, I still shouldn't expect theft from elementary students. 
 
I can't decide if I should talk to the teacher about it or talk to them about it at the end of this week when I am scheduled to come to the same class again.  Or just chalk it up as a lesson for myself.  I am leaning toward the last one, but I also don't think kids should get away with stealing.  What to do, what to do?

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