Coming back to school after a break, teachers and students
alike feel refreshed. A long weekend is not enough, but even a week at spring
or two over winter will suffice to recharge the emotional batteries. After an
entire summer break, then, teachers are often as excited as the kids. We are
looking forward to seeing our friends again. There have been two-and-a-half
months to forget the petty arguments that may have complicated our work life.
And we wonder what our classes will look like, who new we will meet. Who will
have grown up over the summer.
For
some reason, even during work days we teachers are expected to be present
during school hours. We feel the boon at 3:30 when we get to walk out the door,
but the advantage is less evident at 7:30 AM.
I arrived
early so I could check out my keys from Mrs. P.A., the curriculum
specialist and key master.
"I
don't have time to check out your keys right now," she proclaimed as she
pasted scanning stickers to a stack of books.
I
watched her paste the stickers, wondering where the books were going to fly
away to that she didn't have time to reach in a drawer and extract the packet
with my keys. In as polite a voice as possible, I stated, "I need to be
able to get into my room – it's a work day, and I need to get prepared for the
kids."
She
sighed. "I'll unlock your door." She rummaged in a drawer – the very
same drawer in which my own teacher keys were located – and pulled out a master
key. She trudged around the library counter.
How is this taking less time than just
signing out the keys to me? And you knew teachers would be arriving this
morning needing their keys – why didn't you set time aside to check the keys
out? Never mind, I inferred Mrs. P.A.'s job was tedious, so she needed to
get her joy somewhere.
Admin
always schedules those first days back to completely minimize teacher work
time. We'll have fifteen minutes here, half an hour there, whatever minutes can
be grabbed in between meetings and trainings. One year we had to go around
finding out which office personnel were responsible for various procedures,
receiving a sticker every time we completed a "training." At the end
of the day we turned in our sticker-filled papers for a promised drawing: an
over-large packet of white board markers of various colors, not just blue and
black, served as the prize. We coveted that packet. To have more colors than
just blue or black, to be able to use color to highlight a point or
differentiate a concept – and to not have to buy the markers ourselves! – this
was a reward worth the slightly demeaning task of collecting stickers. (Though
I admit I eye-balled the stickers and considered asking they give those to me
with backing still attached; I could use them for my students.)
Today,
according to my welcome-back letter, we would start with half an hour of
pot-luck breakfast, two hours of P.D. (professional development) called
"Stories with Holes," a word from our sponsor, er, new Executive
Director, then lunch. After Mrs. P.A. shuffled away, that left me with 15
minutes to straighten my room. After a year of scuff marks and gaping holes
that the students queried about weekly (as if the story would have changed), my
room had been painted. This was an advantage. This was also a big pain in the guzica (Croatian for "ass" –
but my students don't know that for sure). In order to facilitate the painting, I had
had to remove all items to the center of my room. There it all still stood, a
4th-grader high pile of papers, books, binders, markers (black and blue, of
course) surrounded by a jumble of chairs and desks. It looked like a reverse
bonfire. With a sigh, I located my tiny computer speakers, jerry-rigged a
set-up with my MP3 player, and started circling the pile like a slightly
bemused shark.
Fifteen
minutes later, Dr. Principal came over the announcements. "Excuse me for
the interruption. I know you are all working hard to get ready for the kids,
who will be arriving T-minus-ten days from now. Let me welcome you back; I hope
you've had a relaxing summer. The meeting
starts in two minutes in the elementary gym." I smiled. I might
have a new principal (and everyone had the new executive director, assistant
principal, and dean of students), but the high school's Dr. Principal's
long-winded announcements were a sign that not everything had changed. I
grabbed my box of Krispy Kreme donuts and headed for the elementary gym.
Stories
with Holes – frankly, the presenter seemed to have holes in his theories. Did
he really think anyone could hold this generation's attention with a
non-graphic story for several weeks?
And even if a Siamese twin were not guilty of the murder itself, would he not
be an accessory to the crime… never mind, this P.D. was no better or worse than
usual P.D. and, while it was true I needed to spend the time developing the
brand new curriculum for the speech class I would be teaching, re-connecting
with my work friends was also valuable.
My math
teacher friend, Math Guru, rolled her eyes when the high school Algebra teacher
came up with the answer. "Great. Now he's going to walk around like he's
been christened."
I think
she meant coroneted, but, never mind – her super power was with numbers.
And
then it was time for a word from our sponsor, the Executive Director, Flomaster
(which means "marker" in Croatian.) In a booming Martin Luther King
Jr. voice, "My fellow animals…" Ok, I only thought he started out
that way in retrospect. In truth, when Flomaster started talking I was busy
checking my email; Webmaster would be blocking all non-school devices soon, and
I would have to wait until the kids arrived to find out from them how to crack
the code.
Flomaster
droned on and on about the state of finances in our school – dismal. Yea, yea,
yea, we hadn't gotten our cost-of-living raises in a triumvirate of years, so
we knew there was no money. What's new?
What
was new was that Flomaster was painting an even more dismal picture than usual.
Those surprise firings – oh, excuse me, "non-renewed contracts" –
that happened late last year? Did none of us notice those teachers had been replaced
with rookies – cheap labor as rookies
always were? I looked at Math Guru and our friend Science Goddess. Who says
that on the first day back? Where were our words of encouragement? Where was
our shining standard to carry into the new year? Where was the palliative that
said, "Yes, I know you're making less than you did three years ago because
of cost-of-living increases, but here's why we appreciate you." Rather we
were being told how many extra duties teachers would have to take on: increased
lunch duties, ancillary duties, "voluntary" sign-up for committees
and programs for which we would not be compensated.
Flomaster
reminded us we were an "at will" school – if at any time we did not
feel The Charter School was a good fit with our personal ideologies, we were
free to lerave. "At will," he whispered at odd times during his
address, like subliminal advertising. "At will," because, of course,
the knife cut both ways. "At will."
I
walked back to my classroom thinking the same as all the other teachers: Since when are we a turnaround school? Why
are teachers having to fight for their jobs in a school in which CSAP scores,
that all-important assessment, have consistently improved? We all wondered
the same wonders.
Except
I also wondered who won those dang flomasters,
whiteboard markers, last year. They never announced.
