What's the tea being spilled on the third floor after school?

They have cushiony chairs and laptops in their own rooms, so what compels these “grown and mature” faculty members of Mount Carmel to have not-so-secret daily meetings? Why specifically the third floor hallway, and why the same teachers everyday? And most importantly, what (or who) are they talking about?

These teachers spend their entire days talking, so it seems odd that when they have free time they spend it doing the same exact thing. Whatever their talking about must be really captivating for them to need to discuss it everyday.

After all, these are educators. They only want to see their students succeed, so they couldn’t possibly be talking about them. Or could they?Every day at 2:35 the same teachers meet with a sense of casual urgency to talk about anything from their feelings to their least favorite students. Taking a deeper look at these “meetings” there’s a certain exclusivity to it. The hallway group doesn’t let any regular teacher join their meetings.“I came up to them one day and asked if I could join,” says third floor teacher Mr. Manuel Medina. “For some reason they didn’t think my favorite Captain America lunchbox was cool enough. Their loss honestly.” He paused for effect when mentioning the lunchbox.

If Mr. Medina was rejected, what qualifications are there to get in?There were varying answers from known members. 

“They practically begged me to join,” said Latin teacher Dr. Jon Berry. “Eventually I felt bad enough and decided to start stopping by.”  

Meanwhile, multiple other teachers said they had to wait weeks to be invited to their discussions. 

“When my classroom was being affected by the wrestling room construction,” said Mr. Tim Baffoe from the second floor, “there was a chance I was going to relocate upstairs. Then I heard those teachers got together and vetoed it.”

What could they be talking about? After weeks of investigation, it was narrowed down to one main topic: students. That’s right, these educators spend their afternoons gossiping. Every day at 2:35 multiple grown adults have a gossip circle about students.

Although it’s a hilarious situation, the teachers need to find some way to vent their frustrations. “I just throw them the ball!” says English teacher Mr. Daniel Haggerty. “It’s not a complicated system! I throw the ball and they're supposed to catch it. Tell me why throwing the ball to someone in the middle of the room leads to Edward Brisco dropping it out the window!” 

Needless to say, these frustrations could last until the next day. Who knows what would happen if these esteemed educators had to go to class with all the pent up frustration that they relieve from their meetings, meetings that help get teachers somewhat calm for classes going forward.

Since that’s what they need to handle their very stressful jobs, it’s a good thing they’ve made their group, and if the group is able to continue their cycle of providing stress relief to  teachers for the work they need to do, then the students and teachers of MC will be able to stay a little more relaxed, too.