SAFE HAVEN: TEACHERS' LOUNGES TODAY DEBUNK MYTH IT'S CENTER FOR GOSSIP

Forget everything you have heard about teachers' lounges being rooms filled with school gossip -- it's just not true, area teachers and administrators say.

A teachers' lounge is often the place educators blow off some of the classroom-induced steam, but it's also the place where they come for encouragement, said Martha Nothdurft, technology coordinator at Scott City, Mo., High School.

"It's the place where you hide if you've had a bad day, and it's the place where you find out something works. You bounce ideas off each other," she said.

Some teachers work better with a particular student and that teacher can pass on her tips to another colleague. Sometimes talking to another teacher in the lounge, over lunch or a cup of coffee, helps track behavior or attendance problems with students.

"You find out who was in class and who checked out of the office," Nothdurft said.

Only about a quarter of the high school teachers eat in the lounge regularly for lunch. Some have hall duty or eat in their classrooms. The same is true of middle school teachers who share the same lounge area.

During potluck dinners or special events, more teachers will come to the lounge who don't regularly. Once a month students in a special education course cook a meal for the teachers at Scott City.

At Woodland Elementary School, outside Marble Hill, Mo., the teachers gather in an office workroom once each month to celebrate birthdays and special events.

It's a tradition that on the last Friday of the month, the teachers gather before school for treats, said Jo Peukert, principal at Woodland.

"It gives them a chance to socialize and talk about their children's lives so it's not all academia," she said.

No time to relax

Teachers today are doing so much more paperwork and classroom chores than before that they barely have time to visit a teachers' lounge to relax.

Woodland doesn't have one room set aside as a lounge, but uses workroom spaces for both classroom preparation and respite.

Like many jobs, teachers need to vent their frustrations sometimes, Peukert said. "They know they are speaking among peers" when they enter the lounge, she added. "It is a safe haven, if for just a little bit."

Many school districts today are revamping their lounge space into combination workrooms and teachers' lounges, Peukert said. There are fewer schools today that maintain a lounge complete with couch and chairs.

A place to work

Today the teachers' lounge and workroom space houses rolls of paper for bulletin boards, extra boxes of paper, paper cutters and laminating machines, copy machines and mail slots. But there are also microwaves, refrigerators, coffee pots and teapots, dishes and sinks.

Teachers at Woodland don't eat meals in the workroom since they eat with the elementary students. But teachers use the workroom kitchenette often to refill coffee mugs and buy a soda from the machine.

"This setup works well for me," said Tom Gross, who teaches special education for kindergarten through second grades. His classroom is one of those nearest the workroom.

Being that close has been a benefit when he has to fill an urgent supply need or make extra copies of a worksheet for a student. He often comes in after school dismisses to make copies and prepare the next day's lessons, he said.

Connie Killian, a first-grade teacher, doesn't get into the lounge expect to refill a drink or check her mail once a day. "You don't just hear the gossip because we don't have the time to just sit and visit."