Another infographic about school

It’s back to school time

…well not for me this year.  If I was still teaching I would be at school tomorrow, making my rooms, equipment, and supplies ready.  I awake during the night, thinking about what needs to be done, and then catch myself, breath a sigh of relief, and go back to sleep.  There are no details that I need to fret over during the night when I can do nothing about it like I did those 20+ years.

I was in Office Max on Friday and started looking at classroom supplies, and just as I reached for a calendar that I liked to have on my office wall, I stopped and realized I have no office for this calendar, and even more so, I have no need for an academic wall calendar.  Found a supply of toys a few weeks ago, and almost bought some for the kids.  Wait, there are no kids coming back to my room because I have no classroom.

Should I be feeling nostalgic?  Maybe, and perhaps I am a little because I always liked getting ready for the first day of school.  I liked to have a new outfit to wear that first day.  I liked to have new lesson plan books.  I liked the anticipation of each new class, to see who was in the class and what they were expecting from it.  Those things I will miss.  But I do not miss the stress that goes along with getting the equipment ready, the schedules straight, wondering if we can sell enough yearbooks.  For that I am grateful.

At this point in time, I plan to be in San Francisco on the first day of school in Fresno.  Far from the maddening crowd and the tyranny of the school bell.

Back to school SWAG

We all have them, those of us in education…those few days before the students return when we are held accountable in meeting after meeting, telling us how we did the year before and how we will do this next year.  They are called inservice days, institute days, buy-back days, prep days.  Ours began on Wednesday, but yesterday was the official day back.  After getting our photos taken, the next step was to sign in and pick up, no, not just our folder of information, but SWAG!

We were each given a t-shirt with our new slogan for the year, a planner, and a book about assessment.  This is the most I’ve ever gotten in my 21 back-to-school years.  I’m so easily pleased!

School preparations

Now I know I’m getting back into the swing of things:  this morning I printed out the syllabus for my four classes.  Fortunately, they are all on file so all I have to do is pull them up and tweak them a bit for this new year.  Word processing, which I’ve not taught in two years, is now called computer skills, so that one took a little more massaging.  Our principal requires two copies of each syllabus by the time school starts.  I can get these copied Monday and Tuesday while I am doing other sundry preparations to get back into the school year.

Monday and Tuesday are freshmen orientation days.  We call them Link Crew with the older kids showing the newbies around the campus and giving them (hopefully) good tips.  I will need to be set up in the cafeteria to push my yearbook sales when the kids pick up their schedules.  Hopefully they will show up with their checks and prefilled order blanks that were included in their back-to-school packets which were mailed home.

I can feel the pace quickening!

Time’s up

My summer vacation is over.  Although the kids don’t come back until the 18th, this next week is filled to the brim, and I have to set my alarm for 5 a.m. again.

Monday and Tuesday are Link Crew days when the new freshmen come for orientation.  I’m always excited to see the new kids, and although I don’t teach freshmen, I will make sure to get lots of pictures of the fresh, new faces and their expressions as they get acquainted with the big campus.

Wednesday is our first inservice day when we hear the numbers, as in how our test scores line up with the rest of the district and the rest of the state.  We’ll see the subgroups and progress of each and then we’ll see if we’re still in trouble.  Makes my stomach churn every year.

Thursday is the first official day back for faculty and my yearbook photographer who does the professional pictures will be there to get a photo of each staff member.  I love these pictures because everyone is well rested, optimistic, happy to be back with their friends and coworkers.  We will hear introductions of all the new staff, and it’s a large number this year due to retirements and the new freshmen program.

Friday is when we rotate through workshops that will give us teaching tips and tell us how to use the new grading program the district is trying out on us this year.  We seem to often be asked to demo these things.  I guess if it works with our school, it will work anywhere else.

Somewhere in there teachers will be required to set up their classrooms, get their syllabus turned in, be ready for the first day.  Since the freshmen classrooms aren’t quite ready, it may be the weekend before those teachers get to set up their rooms.  Here’s an example:

No matter what, though, the kids are coming the 18th.