First Day Back

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.