ARVADA, CO—According to local middle school gym teacher Simon Kurd, affectionately called “Mr. Turd” by his students, he recently had his “best idea since dropping out of school.”
“Two words,” declared Kurd. “Zoom dodgeball. I was so sick and tired of the rest of these teachers being able to do their classes on Zoom. What about me? What about us gym teachers? What can we do? That’s when it hit me. Dodgeball played over Zoom.”
We asked Mr. Kurd what his students thought of this new take on an old gym classic. With a grin forming, he replied “100%. That’s the percentage of students in my class who are loving this form of dodgeball. I repeat, 100%. You can’t get much better than that.”
We spoke to several of Mr. Kurd’s students and they too share a similar level of enthusiasm. One student told The Oyster, “It’s so much fun! I’ve had a few close calls, but no one’s been able to hit me yet.” Gym class star Tommy Tippets agreed, “Mr. Turd’s my favorite teacher. He lets us keep score. This year, I am shattering dodgeball records.”
However, records aren’t the only things being shattered. After submitting a CORA request, we were able to obtain a copy of school financial records. Buried in the list of expenditures is a line item for replacement laptops. Since Zoom dodgeball classes commenced, Kurd’s students have broken, on average, three laptops per week. Tippets managed to break four laptops in one class period with what Kurd described as “a world class dodgeball performance.”
Vice Principal Rod Keller, known to the kids as “Principal Smeller,” agreed to an interview. During our conversation, we confronted Keller with the documents showing his school’s recent exorbitant technology expenses. “We see that as a taxpayer issue, not a school issue,” explained Keller. “As long as taxpayers are going to keep feeding us money, we have to find ways to spend it, otherwise it might not be automatically built into next year’s budget.”
Challenged as to whether he considers this responsible financial management, Keller shrugged it off. “Of course it doesn’t make sense, but that’s how the education budget game is played. There’s all kinds of waste in there. Heck, this is government we’re talking about. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”