Appreciation

This last week has been a struggle, I can't lie. The school year is only 4 weeks in and I don't think that anymore can physically be placed on my plate. I should be quiet. I'm sure that there is a minuscule tiny place somewhere on my plate that is still unoccupied.

Last week Thursday by far was my low point. I got into school at 7:45 am. At 8am I had a team meeting which consisted of a member of administration come for a "quick 2 minute" explaination. During this "2 minute" explaination a member of our team wasn't completely paying attention. This particular member is rather vocal when things aren't going her way, so when she realized that she wasn't understanding, fireworks ensued. Neither the member of administration or my team member took the time to stop and listen to each other. This led to a 10 minute "discussion" between the two. Ugh. We finally got the issue resolved.

I then moved to yet another meeting discussing the "pendulum shift" that is happening with our grading systems this year. Of course this information was on classified lockdown. The federal government has nothing on my school district. Our new report card system (which is COMPLETELY different) is totally web-based. I'd like to voice a concern, or few about this.
1. The system is extremely unstable right now. It has been unreliable since the beginning of the school year.
2. There majority of our teachers are extremely tech-unsavvy. Techno-petrified is more like it. I have two teachers that have completely refused their laptop computers because they didn't like them.
3. During report card time, all teachers will be attempting to place their grades into the system. On the same unreliable server...at the same time.
4. Our ever intelligent district has decided that the middle school platform for the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades was.....too expensive. Right. So let's just not take care of those students, who are part of your district, not give them the evaluation tools they need.

This meeting lasted until 9:26. I know this because that's what time 2nd period started, and the administrator leading the meeting had gone over....way over. I do not have a 2nd period class so I stayed to voice these concerned. Should not have done that. It just made me even more irritated. I left that room at 9:45am.

I had now been on campus for 2 hours and been in meetings for just that long. I only had 18 minutes to prep for my day's classes. Super. The classes went well that day, until 7th period. 7th period is always a struggle.

Then, at 2:30pm I had to attend another meeting until 3:40. So of my school day, I spent exactly 3 hours and 10 minutes in meetings. INSANE! There's got to be something wrong with this picture.

My real reason for posting tonight, not to gripe about how bad last week was. Even when the week is terrible, there is always a silver lining.

I have to preface this story a tiny bit. My AP came to me at the end of last year asking if he could strike a deal with me. He wanted to trade me a class period for a lunch duty. Which means, I lose my lunch period, but gain an extra period off. Sure, I was game. Unfortunately, once school started, the rules changed. Orignially I was going to eat lunch during the 5th period intervention, where I did not have a class. Now, I am currently teaching an enrichment intervention. So, I lose my period to actually eat lunch. No biggie, I grab my sandwich between classes. But it makes for an extremely long long long day.

So last week, I forget the day, I'm headed out for lunch duty. I have my polka dot umbrella, a must in the oven baking heat of Phoenix, my sunglasses, watch, whistle, and had just picked up my radio from the attendance lady. I was tired and irritated that I had to go outside. As I was walking through the office on my way outside my AP said to our principal: "Have you told Teacher Teacher! lately that you really appreciate how she goes outside everyday on time with a radio?" My principal was slightly taken aback, but did immediately say that I appreciated what I was doing. Even though it was just parroting back what my AP said, I still appreciated it.

It's amazing what a little appreciation can do for a person. It didn't erase any of the frustrated feelings I was feeling from the massive amounts of meetings I had spent in that day. I didn't take away the fact that our district is so technologically backwards I was to cry. It didn't fix the fact that our teachers work so hard, but yet struggle to get our kids to read. It doesn't change the fact that we have 7th graders reading at below a 1st grade level that do not have special education issues.

It does change the fact that I am appreciated, if even on the smallest level, during the school day.