19 days and counting...

The first day of school is 19 days away. I am sitting in my new classroom, which is in my new school, which is so new that the driveway out front isn't even finished! The construction signs are still out front, and the Social Studies workroom is still a pile of boxes - no furniture at all. My chair still has the plastic wrapping on it - yes, I haven't taken that off yet. I feel that I should leave it on, if nothing else because it's still very dusty in here! I shouldn't even be using my (new) laptop in here, now that I think about it. But, e-mail had to be checked, letters had to be written to the new department chair and other members of the team. Between Monday and today (Wednesday) I had 25 e-mails. And we're still four days away from the day teachers go back. Usually teachers in this school district go back a week before the students do, so we can have a ton of meetings, set up our classrooms, get together with friends we haven't seen since June (I'm absolutely positive that our superintendent wants us to have time to socialize!), etc. At our new school we have an extra week to do all that - and I have a feeling that it will be mostly taken up with meetings. In fact, I've been warned by everyone who knows my new principal that that will indeed be the case. He is also well aware of his reputation - he made a comment at our first meeting (the day after the last day of school, which was in, like, July...Well, June 28th, but that's practically July, isn't it?) about how everyone had probably told us that he liked meetings. Well, he didn't deny it, so I guess I'm in for a lot of meetings. Must remember to use the loo before the meeting starts.

When I drove up to the building (after having to make a u-turn, because the entrance I was expecting to make was closed, and I had already passed the entrance), there in front of the main entrance (right outside the principal's office), were several groups of students - already! Some of them were in the color guard, practicing with their flags, and the others were the drumline from the marching band (who placed them right by the principal's office? What great placement! ha ha ha!). I actually found it very comforting - knowing that students were going about life as usual for a school meant that we were actually getting off the ground. Drumline and marching band means the beginning of the school year to me. I think mostly because my parking spot has been in the same general area where the marching band has rehearsed.

Things we've been working on so far:

1. building camaraderie. We've had several bbqs and department meetings, we went bowling last night (I did surprisingly well - one strike and two spares, thank you. Not bad for someone who usually gets a gutter ball).
2. determining a common syllabus for the different subject teams. Our idea is that students (and parents) should be getting the same education and the same policies from one teacher to the next. We've also got plans to work on common assessments for each era of history that we're teaching. No more teacher shopping!

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of for now.