A Music Loving Ghost In The Classroom

My first year of teaching, I got a job as a third grade teacher at an elementary school near Seattle, WA. When I first entered my classroom to set it up for the first day of school, I got a strong unsettling feeling and while I'm highly intuitive and have experienced odd occurrences in the past, ignored it and played it off as new teacher nerves. I had a lot of students with ADHD who were energetic so someone suggested that I play relaxing music to settle them down. We had just begun a Native American unit so I brought my CD player in along with CD's of soft Native American flute music. The kids loved it and would play it during quiet reading time.

One day during math centers, the Native American music started playing. I saw one of my trouble making boys near the CD player and asked him to please not touch my CD player again. He looked at me and said, "I didn't touch it, it went off by itself". Of course knowing his track record I simply said, please tell me the truth. He said he never touched it. So I turned it off and told him never to turn it on unless I asked.

The following day during social studies, the kids were sitting at their desks reading quietly when suddenly the CD player went on again. This time, no one was near it. I knew none of the students had gotten up so I went over and turned it off. Of course my students were all curious and wanted to know why it went off by itself. Then the kid I had accused of turning it on the previous day said, "See, I told you it wasn't me".

A few days later during Writing it went off again, except this time it was the radio that went off. I had never switched it to radio and the CD/radio player was out of students' reach. The students by this time got really freaked out and started saying the CD player was haunted. I said no...I've had this CD player for a few years and it had never gone off by itself. I really didn't know why it was doing that. I finally disconnected the CD player and connected it only when I used it, although at times I would forget and it would go on again by itself.

One day during recess I was getting my mail and when I returned to my room the Vice Principal was in my room and talking to someone. I just assumed it was a student, but when I walked in saw no one. When she saw me walk in she looked shocked and told me she thought I was in the coat closet because she had heard someone walking around back there. I figured a student had run back in to get a coat so I went back and said, "Come on get your coat and head out to recess." Only, the coat closet was empty. The VP said she was positive she heard someone walking back there. We were both creeped out.

One weekend I was doing some work in my classroom and was by myself in the building. I went to the copy room and when I returned the CD player was on playing the Native American music. I felt really uneasy but had a lot to work to do and couldn't leave at the moment. Then I saw someone walk past my classroom very fast. My classroom was near the front door and did not hear any one walk in. The doors were also locked on the weekend for security reasons. Normally when another teacher arrived after hours they would let whoever was in the building know they were there. I looked down the hall but saw no one... So I just said, Hello is anyone one there? Silence. About 15 minutes later I went to take some artwork down from the walls and out of the corner of my eye saw something that looked like a shadowy figure come out through the kindergarten room and run up (fly actually) the staircase at the end of the hall. I curiously walked down to the kinder room but it was locked and no one was there and I never heard the door open or close. By this time I was really freaked out and decided to leave.

A few weeks later I was alone in my classroom on a weekend again and this time turned the CD player on myself, and I think even said out loud "See, I beat you to it!" I went to make some copies and saw something run past the copy room and down the hallway. I went to the door of the copy room looked down the hall and saw no one. So I just once again said, Hell, is anyone there? Nothing...

As I was heading back to my classroom, I suddenly heard this really loud pounding coming from upstairs. It was almost as though someone had a hammer and was hitting the floor. It scared me and I dropped all of my copies. The noise came from the 4th grade room above me, but knew that the 4th grade teacher had gone out of town for the weekend. I said a prayer and felt brave enough to go upstairs to see what was going on. The upstairs was dark, so I turned the light on and started saying...Hello? Is anyone here? I stopped by the 4th grade class and the library across the hall but they were both dark... No one was there... As were rest of the classrooms on that floor. I headed back downstairs to my classroom and the minute I stepped back in, I heard the pounding again, this time even louder. At that point I left as fast as I could. When I got outside I looked up on the roof and around to make sure there weren't any construction or maintenance people there... There weren't. I mentioned the incident to another teacher and he told me that while he had never heard pounding before, he had seen something run down the hall after school hours. The VP also got in the conversation and she told me not to talk about it anymore because she didn't want to kids to get frightened.

I stopped coming in on the weekends and started getting good about disconnecting my CD player, but on a few occasions my students would complain that something pulled their hair or touched their face. At the end of the school year I got a job offer in another city and district so I left.

At my new school, I took my same CD player to my class... And once again used it to play music to my students. NOT ONCE did the CD player go off by itself at the new school and it has never gone off by itself since. Whatever made it turn on by itself was at that first school. I don't know what was roaming the halls of my old school and don't think I want to. Whatever it was it liked music.

This city had a lot of Native American history but I don't know what type of land the school was built on or if any students or teachers passed away there in the past. The school was built in the early 1960's and the gym is in a separate building across the street.