The First Two Weeks

When I was an administrator, I would continually push for a workshop during Pre-Planning for the team to hash out the procedures for their first two-weeks of school. It was usually met with some resistance but I never understood why.

Yesterday wrapped up the second week of school. In the first week of school, my students and I collaborated on the expectations our classroom. I really wanted to focus on the fact that it’s “our” room – they need to have ownership as well. (Side Effect – the room is clean when they leave because they want it to look nice for the next group, not because I asked or told them to do this, but because it’s “their” space, too!)

In the first week, my students also took a boring pre-assessment, but then were made to dig into their data. One of our class rules is that we will “own” our data – and that’s exactly what they’re doing! They have identified their areas of strength and weakness and provided themselves with a place to house all of this information. I commit to them that after we get through the 1st reading as a class (to reinforce expectations) then I will begin to start pulling small groups to help them in their specific areas of need. The next thing I knew – the week was over!

The second week started chaotic. We were supposed to try and go get our IDs in the media center the last 2 minutes of class, but 2 classes in and no one had an ID – so we were rescheduled. We did get through our first unit organizer on Monday – the students knew the expectations, what we would be covering, and the road map to getting that done.

Tuesday my students struggled to write RUBRICS – and the struggle was real! I divided them into groups of 3 to 5 students (sometimes 2 groups of 3), gave them each a copy of one of the 5 FSA standards we are focusing on this unit, and told them that the standard was their directions – so they had to figure out what they were supposed to do. It was a crash and burn kind of day. I asked the students throughout the day if there was something I could do to make it go better for them – and they said “Nah, miss – this is just hard. These things make no sense!” It’s all good – we got some nuggets of brilliance in there so now the RUBRICS have been written and uploaded to our online class component. No more “question” about what needs to be done.

Wednesday, early day, was ID day take 2. After we all arrived in our room we headed to the media center halfway across campus. We got to the door to the main building and it’s locked – they’re on timers and I don’t have a way in (yet – they ran out of badges) so we wait in the heat for someone to walk by and open the door. We get to the media center, get lined up and are ready for the first ID picture, only to have an unannounced fire drill. A quick chat with the media specialist so we know where the evacuation location is and we’re back out in the heat. At this point my students are thinking they will never be able to get their IDs and I reassured them that we would, and we did – with 2 minutes left to spare in our shortened class period. We were successful for all classes to get their IDs that day. I had given them a bit if busy work with someone else’s Nearpod – and will never do that again. 1) I’ve neve used Nearpod and 2) I have a style that forces me make sure I reach all of my learners – auditory, visual, tactile, ELL, SWD, gifted, etc., and someone else’s stuff always leaves me wanting for more. Yes, I will Nearpod sometime in the future, but it will be my own.

Thursday morning I received an email from my principal informing me that he and a group of administrators would be in to observe – not an official observation but that I would receive feedback. Cool beans! I like it when people come in my room – it gives me an opportunity to learn about myself and grow. (And honestly, I know they’re just trying to calibrate their thinking and observations before they start working on the real ones, and I’m honored they chose to include me in their baseline data.) They came in during my first class (second period) which is ok – except these students are hard to get engaged. They’re always so tired, but they really performed! I was so proud. I was modeling an annotation style with them – something they have never seen before – and they were trying! (By the way – Classroom Rule #3 is we make an effort not an excuse.) I would read out loud, but not without my speaker thingy because of course I forgot to charge it overnight – so that’s a challenge with a mask on. I would pause, they would write their impressions of the paragraph or paragraphs I read, and then we would discuss. As they were writing, I would walk around and discuss the thought process (textual evidence) one on one with my students providing feedback as I circulated. (Admin walked around too but never said anything to the students.) It was a great lesson and a great day! I just wish I had the speaker for sound and had incorporated a time for them to discuss with their partner before sharing out. (Sadly, I’m still waiting on my feedback.)

Friday we continued our passage and had rich conversation. It was a great week. The foundation has been laid, the expectations are high, and my students and I are learning a lot about each other.

I also got a partial paycheck this week. Interesting fact: even though my check isn’t up to the level it’s supposed to (they’re only paying me for a first time teacher flat rate as they collect my experience, transcripts, etc.) my check was MORE than it was when I was an AP at a charter school. A lot of benefits are “employee paid” in the charter school – and compared to the base salary of a similar position in the district, I lagged at least $15k per year behind a district school AP. Charter schools don’t get the same amount of money per student – they get less – and it comes at a cost to the employee – especially after the management company takes their fees – with less going to the school and classrooms.

I’m not sure how I intended to wrap this up and I seem to have opened another can of worms here, but I think I will let you re-read the previous paragraph and draw your own conclusions.