It may be day 4, but today is the 1st day of the new school year, Monday, August 15th. A new school year should never begin on a Monday! It just seems like bad luck and sets a general tone of grumpiness and sorrow for the entire week.

My brain hurts from today. Not a headache type of hurt, but rather a numbing, aching, ‘wanna beat my head against a wall’ kind of hurt.

I sent a handful of emails to my parents, both of my returning students and my new students, over the summer to keep in touch, share needed information and to invite them to share anything they deemed important with me through email. Only one parent was considerate enough to engage in an email exchange with me to ask questions and share pertinent information. Every other returning parent, even those parents of students who typically arrive on the bus in the morning, decided to save their news/questions/comments until the bell rang for school to start this morning. One even demanded a face-to-face meeting during recess time today for something “that just can’t wait!”

I meet my students, those who ride the bus and those who get dropped off by parents, at the same bus stop location outside the school. Imagine, student drop off time, bell has rang, every elementary student complete with picture snapping parents are buzzing all over campus trying to capture the perfect 1st day of school moment. My students are overstimulated, desperate to either go home or just get to class and several of their parents are lined up wanting a private moment to discuss “just a few quick things”. UGH! This is what email is for, not drop off time, and especially not drop of time on the first day of school! And this just set the tone for the entire day…

I don’t have sit at desks, work independently, while I lecture at the front of the classroom students. Which is great, because I don’t have that kind of teaching style either. I am more hands one, and the nature of the exceptional needs my students have, means instruction needs to be individual or in very small groups. Today, I don’t even know why I prepared a lesson plan. Using it as a fire starter would make it more useful. It seems every quiet moment of almost productivity, almost gaining the engagement of my students lead to the interruption by an adult (paraprofessionals, specialists, fellow teachers, admin) either just walking into my room already in mid-question, or calling repeatedly on the phone until its answered.

I think I might change the locks on my classroom door and give no one the key, and after that change my phone number!

10 hours on my time card today, and I still have a mountain of work to be prepared for tomorrow.

Today is Friday, August 12th, 2016, and a mandatory teacher work day. This is the only day we get paid to prepare our classrooms for the upcoming school year. The gen ed teachers had 7 hours free and clear to do what it is gen ed teachers need to do. I am a special ed teacher, which means that I am also a team leader. On my team I have the paraprofessionals that work with me daily, as well as the individual specialist (such as a speech and language pathologist, occupational therapist, physical therapist, and so on). I should include the parents of my students, my program specialist and my administrators since they are all part of the IEP team, but that is not really relevant to today’s post, and I would never really feel comfortable saying I “lead” over them.

As part of my role as ‘team leader’, it is my responsibility on this one day a year to train my staff. This training includes reviewing pertinent policies (what to do in the event your injured at work, what to do if a student has a medical emergency, and such), classroom policies, daily schedule changes, and the individual needs of EACH of the students in my class. Since I am responsible for filling an entire work day for them, and truly I also have a classroom to set up for school starting Monday, I also use them to help me prep.

Like I said in yesterday’s post, I had a To-Do list that fit on only one sheet of college rule binder paper (both sides). Last night I wrote an agenda of all things I needed to review with my paraprofessionals as the ‘staff meeting’ portion of my day, but I also selected some of the many things that needed to be done and assigned them to my individual staff members based on their individual strengths, or so I thought!

I could drone on and on about how my best laid plans went ridiculously off track today, but I am really not into this blog to bore you, so I will summarize it to say that the bulletin board I thought one person could handle took 3; the labels I needed made took reiterating the directions 3+ times (and 2 people, not 1); and,  the one project I thought to be so simple went so far off course I need to completely redo it and I am not sure how to without hurting this person’s feelings, but really?! with demonstrating an example of how I want it, and offering assistance countless times during the process, I am at a loss at the finished product.

I don’t know if I am more physically tired from today, or mentally, but days like today remind me that working with children (even children with severe special needs) is easier than working with adults sometimes.

OH, and not counting my time spent blogging (I never will), I put in a 10 hour work day! Almost ready for the 1st day of school!

I noticed, that for reasons not understood by this author, the date of my posts is incorrect. Until I figure out how to fix that issue, I will also date my days…

Today is Day 2 of mandatory teacher training, and Thursday, August 11th, 2016.

The day started with an all district pep rally. There really is no other, accurate way to describe it. We all met at way to early:30, stood around drinking luke warm coffee and pasteries sharing the various stages of preparedness we were for the upcoming school year. Then followed the shuffling into the large gym for the festivities. This was a mandotory event, as drilled into our heads by the numerous emails and even followed up with a snail mail “invitation” to our personal addresses. With as much emphasis placed on our mandatory attendance, you would think that the “powers that be” would plan to have enough chairs set up for all of us being forced into attendance….nope! Many of us were sitting on the floor, unable to view the PowerPoint presentations over the lucky chair people, now the live entertainment. But let’s fast forward through the speeches and such…I am sure you are able to fill in the blanks.

Later, back on campus for the day two STAFF MEETING, my special ed cohorts and I “acquired” our own table. We anxiously waited for someone to notice and inquire where our table came from, but we left the day disappointed.

Today was a bit longer of a day. It started again at 7 am, but this time the STAFF MEETING ended with 90 minutes for us to work in our classrooms, so I spent almost 3 hours, followed by a trip to the Dollar Store for essentials, followed by planning for my staff training day tomorrow and list making for all the things I still need to accomplish before school starts Monday. My list fits on 1 piece of college ruled binder paper now (both sides) so I am feeling pretty good. I will let you know tomorrow if that is still the case.

Today was my first, mandatory teacher work day of the 2016-2017 school year. WOW! was it exciting! I am just really not sure how to contain my excitement in sharing my day with you.

Day 1 consisted of an ALL DAY STAFF MEETING! I think my favorite part of staff meetings is how everyone sits in the their grade level cliques. Kindergarten teachers sit with kindergarten teachers, 1st grade with 1st grade, all the way through the 5th grade teachers. There are even 6 tables set up with corresponding chairs for the grade level teams. So where does the Special Ed team sit? Well, sometimes there are chairs on the outskirts of the room, sometimes we sit on the floor. We are so conditioned to this that we all show up with makeshift lap-desks to hold our devices in order to work and follow along during the meeting. Today was a good day; there were enough chairs for all of us and no one had to sit of the floor! Great start to the new year.

Today was also a good day because it was a shorter one for me. I started my day at 7 am, giving me time to quickly print off some materials and throw them through the laminator just before the ALL DAY STAFF MEETING started. Yes! I am one of those teachers. I bring things to work on during the staff meeting. I did get up and participate during the group, team building exercises, but so much of the agenda is solely focused on the needs of the general ed teachers that I bring something productive to do. It’s more polite then yawning or falling asleep. I clocked out at 4 pm today today too. I may regret it coming this weekend when I am cramming prep things at the last minute for Monday, but I was really ready to be home after my short 9 hour day.

Not a teacher alive has successfully declared their plans to become a teacher, or completed their teacher prep program, without a friend, loved one, or stranger making the joke that “teachers only work 9 months out of the year”. As I mourn the last day of my summer, I look back on how I spent the last 41 days.

Yes, my summer was only 41 days long. No, I don’t teach in a year-round school, and I did not teach summer school. Summers that lasted 3 months long predates my lifetime. No longer do students get out before Memorial Day and return to school after Labor day. Hence, summer (not including weekends, because we don’t count weekends during the school year) is only 41 days long.

During my summer I spent no less than 16 days inside my physical classroom, cleaning out, reorganizing and planning for the next year. These days do not include the time spent at home planning, printing, laminating, then cutting again. Oh, and let’s not forget answering emails. I teach special education, so I am lucky enough to get most of my students for many years, and with that colleagues and parents alike assume I am available to answer emails year round.

Through the next 185 days, the length of my teaching contract year, I hope to illustrate an accurate account of each teaching day. It neither starts when the morning bell rings, nor ends with the dismissal bell rings. Teaching requires long hours, many spent long after the final bell rings, weekends and vacations. Dealing with students is the easy part; the parents, and administrators is where most of the stress lies.

Tomorrow marks day one….let the fun begin!