Oh, Tuesday...

So today was a loooooooooong day. For some reason, the kids were little gremlins. They were loud, off-task, and annoying. In fact, I was getting my mail in the teachers' lounge this morning, when I heard another teacher screaming, "Someone help!!!" I ran over to where she was, and a boy sprinted into the boys' bathroom. The teacher and I ran after him, and he ran to hit the other teacher. She deflected him, so the kid tried to pull a sink from the wall. Fortunately, he was too weak to budge it. He ran into a stall and screamed at the top of his lungs for a while. In the end, the police were called, and I was 10 minutes late picking my class up for the beginning of school. Sadly, we've had the police at our school nearly every week for something or another. Go figure.

In the afternoon, we had no art (groan; there goes my planning time!), AND we had a fire drill. Later, the class cleaned their desks out. I almost took a picture, the mess was so unbelievable! The floor was literally covered in papers, books, and junk. At one point, I informed the class that they had 5 minutes to get everything picked up and put away. I warned them that for every piece of trash I found on the floor, I'd take one minute of their earned free time. In the end, they lost 6 minutes. The room looked good when we were done, though!

Last night, I made the first phone call to a parent where I felt like a competent professional! The 6th grade teacher and I decided to move one boy up to 6th grade math (he's in 5th grade, but already has a thorough understanding of the concepts). I informed the parents last night, who were happy with the decision, and asked how we could all support the student's reading progress. I talked about some classroom supports that are in place, as well as what the parents can do. It went very well.

Parent-teacher-student conferences start tomorrow afternoon. I'm actually not that nervous... yet. Having never conducted such conferences, I don't really know what to expect. As of right now, 13 of my 25 students' parents have said they'll be at the conference. This is a good turnout, I suppose. We'll see how many of them actually show.

Finally, I am happy to say that we have a pretty dang good staff at school. I've talked to many of our staff members, and am coming to talk to several on a regular basis. We have some really extraordinary people (including my favorite custodian!!) who help the day progress so much better. I'm actually surprised at the caliber of the staff in such a small district. We are all very fortunate, even if the administration leaves something to be desired. That's all for now... time to relax, go to bed, and start all over again tomorrow!