“You all need to follow my instructions very, very carefully,” Debuke said, bargaining with the fourth graders about a pizza party as if she were issuing a list of demands with life-or-death consequences. “You’re all gonna move in a single-file line down the hallway, and I’m not gonna hear a peep outta one of you.”

“And nobody better pull any funny business on me when we pass Ms. Trieley’s class,” continued Debuke, wildly gesticulating like a crazed gunman with nothing to lose. “I’m serious! One wrong move and you can kiss your pizza party goodbye.”

“If any of you so much as snicker, forget about scarfing down slices of Big Don’s in June. All you’re getting is a one-way ticket to Principle Quiggley’s office,” Debuke continued, as though leveraging her way through a tense stand-off with an FBI-led SWAT team. “You wouldn’t want that to happen now would you? Huh? Would you?”

At press time, a nearby teacher was demanding a student hand over their phone as if he was executing some sort of bank robbery.