Checking Off the List

• New principal 
• New vice-principal
• Eleven new teachers in our building
• Three of them are long-term subs

A new school year is beginning when the students arrive on Monday. We teachers have been plugging away at it for several days now. We were officially on the clock Wednesday, but many of us have been showing up for a few hours for the week before that. It's always nicest to work on putting your room back together when no one can call you into a meeting!

Some of our new people seem terrified. I don't blame them! They have been plunked down into a whirlwind. If you've never taught before, it doesn't matter if you're a college graduate, this job is quite involved. I helped a couple of them put up bulletin board backgrounds because I have a lot of practice at that. I've been showing them what schedules they can use, and what should go into the parent letter for the first day, and anything else I think they'd need.

As a result...I'm not ready! My room is superficially prepared. I can welcome families at Open-House tomorrow afternoon. But I'll be over there on Saturday, labeling, and putting out books, and reorganizing my shelves, and any manner of jobs I didn't get to yet. Yikes!  If I feel under this pressure, I can hardly imagine how these new folks feel. (Actually, I can imagine, and it isn't a good memory.)

So, I'll be there bright and early tomorrow to get some things done before the meetings, round 2, begin. Then, I'll wolf down lunch and get back into my classroom so that it will look spic and span for the 2015-2016 fourth graders and their parents!  I'm getting excited again!