Preparation Week has been anything but...So five days to get ready for the new school year, lets see what I've accomplished. I wanted to start last Wednesday, but no one was in the building.


Monday - I arrived to get a day early start. This Monday, I was told by my principal that I would have to relocate to another room. Monday was spent packing up the things in my closets and cabinets.

Tuesday - All day training for the new reading program. No moving, no unpacking, and no setting up.

Wednesday - Day 2 training for the new reading program. I was told that movers would come (and I could skip the training to supervise the placement of my materials). However, no movers came. I was told that if my things were not moved by Thursday, then, I would just stay in my old room. No unpacking, and no setting up of bulletin boards.

Thursday - Things finally came to a bit of a head between the two admins. (from my school and the charter school coming in). I could go into details of the conflicts, and confusions over the moves, but I think I should keep those aspects out of my blog. This blog is supposed to be about my boring adventures, so I will stick to that. Quick summary of my day.

Orientation of faculty members in the auditorium at about 9:10am. During the orientation, I am notified that the movers have arrived. They were planning to move my things out of my old room on the 3rd floor right wing of the building, so they (the charter school can set up). However, there was a conflict...long story short nothing was moved. Up until today, I was reluctant to touch anything out of fear of being stuck with having to move everything. I also did not start putting up bulletin boards in the new room out of fear that I would have to stay in the old room. The conflict may have been settled, so I started setting up the bulletin boards in the new new. I was told this evening that "movers" would arrived 8:30am to move my things from the old room. What movers (Charter school or BOE)? Sorry, I don't know. Tomorrow is Friday, the last day of the week. School starts on Tuesday of next week(Monday is a holiday - Labor Day [No school]). While other teachers are putting the final touches on their classrooms, I will be starting to unpack tomorrow...if I am lucky. I will also be lucky to get to spend the Saturday of the three day weekend in school continuing to set up my classroom. Lucky me! :(

Oh, I almost forgot, during the welcome back orientation, the principal announced that the new reading program that we had two days of training on, might not be able to be done in our school (funding would only be provided if our school was a lower performing school). BOE will make a decision September 6th. Another thing, apparently someone (it wasn't me), sent a letter to the heads of the BOE complaining about being coersed into coming to school two days early. After giving a speech basically about keeping business in the house (and how any problems can be solved inside, she distributed photocopies of the letter to everyone attending the faculty meeting. I am not sure what the purpose was of giving each person a copy of the letter for, however, it did put to rest any lingering doubts about pursuing a grievance against the principal for the "D" rating I received.

What is the plan for tomorrow? If I get a good night's sleep. Hopefully, I will have a lot of energy tomorrow. My plan (assuming the movers arrive at 8:30am), as they are bringing the items into the room, I will be putting things away and in the place I most expect the items to stay. Having spent 3 days after school was over, carefully labeling (most of) the boxes, I should have everything mostly in place by 4 or 5pm. Saturday, I will come in to do the finishing touches, or finish the loose ends.


Post Date - Thursday, August 30, 2007 8:04pm

Today was the unofficial/official first day back. Officially NYC school teachers are required to return on Thursday. Today was the day teachers at my school were strongly, strongly encouraged to attend. We were told that today would be an all day training. However, we (the lowly teachers) found out that training would be two-full days instead of one. I arrived to school at 8:45am. I decided that I would start moving only those things that I would need to get me classroom organized. About 8:30, the principal calls me to her office she asks me to help the guest trainers doing on site training moving tables and chairs. At that time, she still maintains that I would not have to move anything. She said that the other (charter) school coming leaving the building and the new charter school coming into the building, both should have had their rooms changing cleared and ready for us. But since they didn't, then it is not our fault. Then she said that if they don't move by a certain date (I think she said Thursday), then I would just stay in my room. So, basically, I am in limbo. On Monday, I should have been setting up, but instead I was packing up. I think I was one of only two teachers that came to school on Monday. The other teacher to come on Monday was the 4th grade teacher who also has to move. Since she didn't pack up her closet things in June, I think she wanted to get a headstart. As for me, I am in limbo while other teachers came back today, and they are already putting their classroom together. What am I doing? I am participating in an all day training session for today and tomorrow. Lucky me?

So, my morning was basically moving other peoples' furniture (the teacher whose room was being used was supposed to be setting up her room for the training, but she was setting up her room, and seemed to be ignoring the visitor. I thought I was moving desks and chairs for the training set up, but the classroom teacher was basically setting up her room around the visiting trainer. When I realized I was helping her move her furniture -- as if I didn't have my own room to get in order. I left. Next, because I asked AP2 about items the other school had left in the room I was moving into, I sort of ended up volunteering to help move the bookcases out of the room.

While I was helping to move the bookcases, announcements were made, which I couldn't hear as usual. I ended up arriving to training about 6 or 7 minutes late. Training lasted until 12:00, then we had lunch. The principal (as a way to say thank you to the staff for coming on an unpaid day), she bought a lunch spread for the staff. Last year, I avoided the cattle call food line. Each time, she chooses the main office to put the food spread on the counter top. A space that is about 4ft x 10ft for the entire staff. The meal consisted of soda, three 6ft long sandwiches, potato salad, cole slaw, and macaroni salad. By the time, I got to the counter -- I tried to avoid the yap yap and the arm wrap hugs. Sorry, I am one of those people that don't really like the hugging and kisses...especially when I am covered in sweat. Anyway, when I got to the counter, the mac was gone, the plates were gone also. Only cocktail plates about 4in in diameter were left. I had two of the mini plates. I had what was leftover. The people who got on line first came out with plates piled a mile high, I guess they forgot there were other people on the line.

The afternoon training finished about 2:50. The visiting trainer wanted to keep us until 3pm exactly -- she was worried that she might get into trouble if she ended early, but after a couple of minutes teachers were getting up and leaving, not really listening to her as she was speaking.

Somethings kids are the way they are because parents (and teachers) are the way they are.

I was out of the building about 3:05pm. I stopped by Teacher's College Bookstore to buy some bulletin board paper. Then I decided to risk returning to the BOE to get my ID changed. I thought I would make it about 4:30, but I didn't. I went to Barnes & Nobles instead. I finished reading Dragon Avenger by E.E. Knight on my way down to BOE. Dragon Avenger was okay. I liked Dragon Champion better. I wanted something different to read this time, but I could not make up my mine. I was in B & N for about an hour. Finally, I settled on Spearwielder's Tale by R.A. Salvatore. The book is a one volume reprinting of The Spearwielder's Trilogy(662 pages).

After B&N, I was very hungry. That Principal's lunch left me hungry (the food was gone when I went for seconds). I went to McDonald's for the Big Mac value meal. Yes, I need to start exercising again.


Post Date - Tuesday, August 28, 2007 11:23pm