1st Day
Today was the first day of in-services.
I got up promptly at 6 AM. Meggie got up with me. We had breakfast, and watched some of the Early Show on CBS. Then, I left for school.
Now, this blog is for me to journal about my feelings on my everyday life. However, I have not yet felt as though I can be honest about my school situation. I have taken precautions to keep me from being Googleable by students, parents or administration, however, if someone where to come across my blog, through random browsing (highly unlikely, mind you), they could easily link drfinale, the author of this blog, to who I actually am. The pictures alone would do it. Plus, if you read, you can put all of the circumstantial information together, and it would be pretty obvious who I am. But I feel fairly safe in being honest, as long as I give facts, that in no way could get me into trouble. You can assume, that when I do mention something negative about school, that I most likely feel stronger about it than it actually appears. That being said, let's move on to my day... (and forget you read that last paragraph)
I got to school to find my principal, who I will call Joan. I e-mailed her my band handbook last week, to get her to check out some of the changes in policies I made, and have her give the okay, so that if an issue with a parent comes up, I've got her support. Well, she said she never got the e-mail (I think she just missed it in her inbox), so I had to quick reprint the handbook, highlight the changes, and get a copy to her. I also re-sent the e-mail (including the original date that I sent it). The issue here is that I want to get this thing out to the kids, at the latest, on Friday, and I have doubts that it will get the OK and copied by then. We'll see...
There was breakfast in the cafeteria, where we got to meet our new superintendent, Mr. Martin. He seemed very nice, and made a promise to stay with the district for a while, which is good, because we have not had a long-standing superintendent in a while. He seemed funny and personable, and in no way intimidating. We'll have to see how this goes, but I got a good feeling about him.
I had the next 3 hours off to work in my room. I caught up with Rita, the art teacher, who co-advises the yearbook with me. We opened up our yearbook kit, and did a little bit of brainstorming for this year's yearbook. Then, I got to work on my bulletin boards. I tore down the old paper, put up new stuff, as well as the borders. I spent the next hour laminating a bunch of stuff, and then had lunch.
At 12:15, I started the 1st of three meetings which weren't very helpful.
The first meeting was for IEPs, with Donna, the head of the child study team. This meeting was frustrating, because, as a related arts teacher, I always seemed to be left out of the loop. IEPs are a big deal. They are legal documents, agreed upon by the CST, the parent, and the teachers. If an IEP isn't followed the school/teacher can be sued. I've actually heard commercials for so called "special ed. lawyers" who specialize in just this. That being said, I take the IEPs seriously. But, there is barely ever any information about what modifications I need to make as a music teacher. Everything is directed to the core subjects. A few IEPs actually had something about related arts classes, but most didn't. I think they assume all we do is sing and play instruments. Maybe some music teachers do, but I teach a subject. I give tests, projects, and assignments like all of the other subjects. I need to know how to modify these things. I am going to have to meet with Donna to address this issue, because I don't want to get myself in trouble.
The next meeting was a training session for our new student data system: eSchool. I was very excited about this, as I am always wanting to embrace new technology. The new system posted online handling of attendance, gradebook, lesson plans, IEPs, etc. At the old district I used to work at, we had something similar, and I loved it. Well, I was disappointed to find out, that initially, it will only be used for homeroom teachers taking attendance. Well, since I don't have a homeroom, the program is currently useless to me. Upon finding that out, I spent the rest of the session updating my class websites.
The final meeting was a middle-school teachers faculty meeting. I did get my lesson plan book, which I was waiting for. But most of the meeting was all stuff that doesn't apply to related arts. The main thing I had hoped to get was my class lists, as my plan was to set up my grading book tonight. Well, we were told that the class lists weren't ready yet (what! School starts in two days!). Bummed about this, I decided to rearrange my schedule and stay late to finish my bulletin boards, that way I could get my gradebook set up during the school day tomorrow. I wasn't happy about this, because I wanted to get home.
I was complaining to Rita about this situation, and she said she'd call the secretary over at the other school and have her send lists over tomorrow if we didn't get them. She went to the CST office to use the phone, and Helen, the secretary there said that she had received the lists via e-mail, and would print out a copy for us. Even better, she forwarded me the e-mail, so all I had to do was copy and paste the students names into my grading program. With all of this, i was able to go home!!
I came home, took out the garbage (in pouring rain). Meggie made pork loin for dinner, and then I got to work on setting up my gradebook and my lesson plan book. Tomorrow my goals at school are to:
- Finish the bulletin boards
- Copy all materials needed for the 1st cycle.
- Make my seating charts
- Get my materials set up for the 1st day of school.
Let's hope tomorrow is a little more productive.
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