School is... inservice

The time has come for me to put my teaching license to use! The school year is just over 24 hours away from beginning, and it has been a hectic past few weeks! Things have been moving at such a rapid pace that I'm having trouble catching my breath. However, I know that things will die down shortly once the school year begins.

Where do I begin? I moved into my new apartment on the southeast corner of Madison on August 18. My Dad and I hauled everything in on that Saturday, and I have slowly been unpacking ever since. However, I believe that all I have left to do is decorate the walls and hang some pictures!

I started working on my classroom around August 23. It was very difficult to begin tackling the monumental task of preparing the room because two teachers (the retiring one, and the one who unexpectedly moved to a different district) left a lot of teaching items behind. I needed to make a series of phone calls to ensure that they had no intention on retrieving their stuff a few weeks down the road, but I eventually got the "ok" from these teachers, as well as the secretaries, to begin assembling my own room!!


There was a method of thinking preached throughout the summer by a few members of the Union Grove janitorial staff: "If you haven't used it in six months, or have no intention on using it in the next six months, you don't need it." By last week Friday, I had thrown out a variety of items that included moldy blankets, student assignments from 1973, pieces of broken chalk, and probably Abraham Lincoln's old stovepipe hat. The janitors told me they were happy to see so much stuff being thrown out and said that they "love it when new teachers come in because it gives us a chance to 'clean house'." Not a day went by last week that I wasn't in the building until six in the evening organizing and throwing things away. The janitors have been extremely friendly and very happy to see what the new room looks like.

Last week all the new teachers had their first inservice meetings. On Monday we all met at the local intermediate school building where we were given a "crash course" on how to sign-in to the school district's computer system. We were also taught how to use Skyward online gradebook and the school's email account. The training started at eight in the morning and lasted until about noon.

On Tuesday, we all met at the intermediate school where we had our "mentor/mentee breakfast." All new teachers were given special gift bags and had our pictures taken for the town newspaper. We also were given a welcome ceremony by the teacher's union! They informed us at the end of the meeting that they were going to deduct eighty dollars a month from our paychecks (Norma Rae seemed so nice in the movie! What happened?!)

My mentor is my co-eighth grade social studies teacher. He and I get along great, and he always has some neat teaching ideas or hilarious story from years past. He's been teaching at my school for about thirteen years and right now we are reworking the school's big social studies project for the year pertaining to the student council. A lot of teachers seem to have some skepticism with changing a 43 year tradition, but there are also a lot of teachers who are excited about seeing some fresh ideas.

Wednesday consisted of the "welcome back "ceremony at the high school. All the teachers in the district attended this meeting where the superintendent introduced the new staff, gave awards for teachers who have been teaching for 10, 15, 20, 30 years, and also gave a "kickoff" speech. Some students from the high school also sang a song.

After the meeting at the high school, we had our building meeting in the school library. Our new principal went over his expectations and procedures for the year. His style is a lot different than the last principal's, but I feel the staff and students will get along with him very well. The entire middle school staff went to Culvers for lunch after the meeting, and then we returned for our eighth grade team meeting. I'm very happy that everyone in the school gets along so well and that they jump at opportunities to be social with each other outside of school.

I was later asked after the meeting if I would be interested in coaching tennis for the upcoming school year. I eagerly accepted and am looking forward to getting invovled with some after school activities.

Thursday was our first union meeting at the high school. The meeting was rather anti-climactic, but there was some discussion pertaining to changes to the health care plan that occurred during the summer.

After that meeting adjurned, we had our "social studies department" meeting with the high school social studies teachers. We discussed the changes made to the district's geography test and also talked about revamping the eighth grade social studies curriculum around Christmas.

We left the department meeting and walked to the community park across the street where the school board members hosted a cookout for the teachers. The weather was absolutely beautiful and I had a great pork sandwich, yet sadly did not emerge victorious at the raffle drawing (I was ONE number away from possibly winning $50 in cash!).

I continued working on my room after lunch and headed back to school the following morning until about noon. I plan on spending all Labor Day at the school doing some lesson planning and trying to be as prepared as possibly for the first week. I'm not that nervous about starting, but I bet at this time tomorrow, I will not be getting much sleep!