Tuesday, September 2
What a waste of a day!! All I have to say is, thank goodness I went in last week and got my room set up. I decided to go to work on time today rather than my usual 45 minutes early. Big mistake!
When I arrived at Adams Elementary this morning, Mrs. Staltz's door was closed and the lights were off. I thought this was odd so I asked the custodian, Mr. Jim, where she was. Apparently, all of the Kindergarten teachers in the district had a professional development today at another school and I wasn't informed. How did Mr. Jim know about this Kindergarten training and I didn't? I felt like a fool. I double and triple checked my school district email for the notification. I never received it. I could feel my blood pressure starting to rise. My first formal Kindergarten training and I was going to be late for it. And not just a little late, over an hour late. I hate being late for important meetings. I hate looking incompetent. This wouldn't be happening if I hadn't been forced out of Pre-K Head Start!!!!!!
I went to the office to inform Mrs. Bernard that I hadn't received the email regarding the training. If I don't show up at my designated school for the day I could be marked absent. She wasn't in the office. I asked Ms. Monroe, the secretary, if she knew where the training was being held and what it was for. She didn't but was kind enough to contact Mrs. Staltz, who said it was downtown at Carver Elementary, which was about 30 minutes away from Adams. The training was for a new phonics program and a coinciding assessment that Kindergarten will be using this school year. Great, just great!! Not only was I being thrown into a brand new grade without any idea of the curriculum, now I was going to be late for a relevant training. My blood pressure rose even more.
I drove to Carver Elementary as fast as I could. When I pulled onto the small street where Carver was located there was absolutely no parking anywhere. The tiny school parking lot was crammed full with cars, and all along the street more cars were wedged into spots so tightly I honestly don't know how their drivers got them out. I drove through the surrounding streets for a half hour to see if I could find an open spot somewhere. Of course I couldn't. GRRR!
Frustrated, I called Adams and explained the situation to Ms. Monroe, who in turn relayed the information to Mrs. Bernard, who had arrived to work shortly after I'd left. They told me to return to Adams.
Upon my return to Adams at 11:30, I hoped to receive my class list so that I could at least start scheduling parent conferences, but the list was still unavailable. Mrs. Bernard seemed displeased that I hadn't received the email about the phonics training, stating that was most unusual for something like that to happen. As far as she knew, every Kindergarten teacher was on the mass email sent out by the district. She also informed me that it was my responsibility to make up for the missed training. When I asked her how I was supposed to do that she told me to call the district's main office.
By this time I was dizzy with anger. I had run around all morning like a chicken without a head only to be made to feel like I was somehow at fault for the mishap. I retreated to my room and spent the next two hours trying to contact someone at the main office about a make-up training, but no one answered the phone.
I'm trying to stay positive about teaching a grade I've never taught before, but I'm beginning to feel overwhelmed. In Pre-K new teachers were given an orientation to the program so they would at least know the basics of what was expected of them. Kindergarten doesn't do that.
I stayed until 6:00 trying to make up for the time I lost driving and making pointless phone calls. I was able to finish decorating my boards, sharpen the pencils I bought and get my Large Group area set up with the supplies I'll need on a daily basis, pointers, markers, CDs and stuff like that.
Let's hope tomorrow is better than today.
