This is a fiction story.

Wednesday, September 3

            I was exhausted the entire day. After all the nonsense yesterday, I had trouble settling down enough to sleep last night. When I finally did doze off, it was time to get up. Typical.

            I spent part of the morning in my classroom scheduling parent conferences and the afternoon in meetings with the staff at Adams Elementary. Yes, I finally got my class list, but as per usual, there's a slight snag. Only 18 out of 30 students were listed, which delays scheduling parents and labeling cubbies, journals, folders, etc. I hope that I'll have a full list by the end of the week. Mrs. Staltz said that's highly unlikely. We may have most of our students registered by then, but it may take a few weeks to get a full class.

            After thinking about it I realized beginning with a partial class might actually be a good thing. A small class size is always best, especially with the little ones. I'll be able to teach this smaller group of students the class rules without an abundance of distractions, and they in turn can help me teach the new arrivals.

            I also met one of my classroom aides this morning. Her name is Miss Mary, and she and another woman named Miss Betty, will alternate their time in my classroom on a bi-weekly basis, for an hour-and-a-half each day. 45 minutes in the morning during the phonics block and another 45 minutes in the afternoon. I hope to do the Learning Centers during their afternoon slot. It's much easier to monitor centers with two adults in the room.

            Miss Mary is kind and open to new things. She has been a Kindergarten aide for fifteen years. That is awesome. She thinks the Learning Centers are a great idea and never understood why they took play out of Kindergarten in the first place. She seems very knowledgeable about how a Kindergarten class should run. I will definitely utilize her knowledge, especially since I don't think I'll be receiving much support from my grade partner. Mrs. Staltz told me to ask her for help whenever I needed it, but I get the feeling she doesn't want to be bothered.

            When I asked her for a copy of the information I missed yesterday at the phonics training, she made me one without complaint, but I it seemed that she just wanted to be left alone. She kept saying she had a thousand things to do before our meetings started. In spite of her protestations, I also asked her for the email address for the woman in charge of sending out emails to the Kindergarten teachers. She was nice enough to give me that, too.  

            I spent the remainder of the day in meetings. During the first session, Mrs. Bernard welcomed us to a new school year and spoke about the promise of a fresh start for our students. She explained her arrival and dismissal expectations for the year, as well as deadlines for lesson plans, lunch schedules and routines, and other general housekeeping information. The second session was about the needs of Second Language Learners and students with IEPs. We also spent time signing up for committees and had our lunch break.

            At the end of the day, I was given a few reams of copy paper with the promise of more to come. Apparently, the Phonics program requires a lot of worksheets to be completed by the students. I think that's ridiculous. Where's the fun in doing gobs of worksheets in Kindergarten? Quality over quantity, I say. Mrs. Staltz got a larger amount of copy paper than I. I learned shortly after why this was so. As the grade group leader, she is in charge of deciding what homework the Kindergartners receive each week as well as making the appropriate copies. I was also informed that we will alternate doing a math and literacy lesson plan each week, according to a format designed by her, and approved of by Mrs. Bernard; that I am responsible for purchasing sand and containers for the Phonics program; and that I must focus on student journals for my Teacher Improvement Plan (TIP) this year.

            I told Mrs. Staltz I thought that I could choose what I wanted to work on for my TIP. I was hoping to work on a behavior program I had learned about while I was in Head Start. It's supposed to be very beneficial in helping students make good decisions. Mrs. Staltz said I could do whatever I wanted but Mrs. Bernard preferred that Kindergarten and First Grade focus on student journals. Since everyone else has agreed to do student journals, I consented to do it also. I don't want to draw negative attention to myself my first year here.