Summer’s Over – Life of the Rookie Teacher

We are officially in full school mode again! School technically began for me on Tuesday but tomorrow is the first full day with the whole class together.

When I was growing up, we would have an open house the week before the first day to meet our new teacher. We could go in anytime we wanted within a 2 1/2 hour period of time. Being a teachers kid, when I got older I would help her during those couple hours. It was quick and easy and then school started one week later. My district now (and most districts in my area) have something called assessment days or welcome back days in place of open house.

Basically what we do is the week school starts (the Tuesday after labor day) those first two days are filled with one-on-one conferences with each kiddo and their family. Families book a conference slot for a 30 minute period of time where I get to connect with them, fill them in on the basics, and then sit with the student and go through all of our back to school assessments. The main assessment we have focused on is just finding their reading level and their words read per minute.

I enjoy the post assessment part when I get to sit and get to know my new kids. I try my best to build a relationship with them from the start trying to know what they like and what they may be nervous about. Most kids come in SUPER nervous and shy! (Of course not all of them, you know what students I’m talking about. The ones who have no idea who you are but are immediately comfortable with you the second they see you.) I don’t blame them in the slightest. If I had to go sit with my new teacher and read to them in an empty classroom right after I met them, I would be terrified. By the end of our 30 minutes, I’m usually able to get most of them out of their shells a little bit.

I have mixed feelings about these days. Like I said, I love getting to know my new kids and getting leveling and testing done outside class time is super nice, but I don’t like meeting all the new families one-on-one because you never know what you’re going to get. I could not sleep Monday night because I was so nervous to see what kind of families I would have. I lucked out this year with some awesome families, but I’m still not a fan. I liked how open house was only a couple hours and then you still had a whole week to prepare for your class. I finished my conferences and had to spend another 2 hours organizing all of my data and getting my room set for the kids tomorrow. But, I got it all done and it’s done for another whole year. Now I get to worry about what’s really important!

Here we go! I am ready and excited to start the year with the new kiddos! 4th grade, let’s do this!!

It is the Friday before our workshop weeks begins and things are insane already….

Last spring we were told (the beginning of May) that our principal would be resigning for a new job, a few weeks later we found out our vice principal was going to retire a year early. On top of that, the district had just hired a new superintendent for the next year because ours would be retiring at the end of June. This rocked our boats. The school that I work at is a VERY tradition orientated school and a place where family is everything. Our principal and vice principal were clear to me when I was hired that family comes first and building relationships with kiddos is more important than test scores. (Their philosophy was that if you give the kids a positive fun environment where they feel loved, their test scores will reflect that and it did.) Hearing that they were leaving, the same year as the superintendent, was a shock that sparked anxiety for the changes to come.

Fast forward to yesterday and a week before workshop begins. My team and I are sitting in a planning meeting getting logistics planned for the new year. We are doing something totally new this year (that was approved by our principal last year.) There are 4 of us on my team (9 total 3rd grade teachers) so we are going to do a 4-way switch between our 4 classes. 3 teachers did this last year but one left to go to 4th grade so myself and another teacher are going to join in on the fun. The way we proposed our switch to our last principal was that we would do 4 45 minute switches during the day. We would split all of the kiddos into 4 math leveled groups so we would have the high of the high together and group down from there. This would allow us to have super differentiated instruction for every kid. I would be teaching reading while the other 3 would teach math, science/social, and writing/math review. During our meeting, which lasted 3 hours, our new principal walked in to talk with us. I hadn’t met him yet so it was very scary to see him in person. He knew what we were doing and told us it was good to see us planning together.

We left the meeting having everything planned out. We had our 4 groups made based on their 2nd grade spring test scores, we had our first 2 days all planned out on how we would get our kids ready to start the switches, and we had a good idea on what the first few months of school would look like in each switch. What I learned is that, in order for this to work, we all have to be on the same page. I left feeling super overwhelmed but also extremely excited! I love teaching reading because I want to instill the love for reading in my students. What I didn’t know is that my anxieties would only increase within 24 hours.

This year I’m in a brand new room so I went in early this morning to get all of my busy work done. I left feeling confident I was ready for Monday’s meetings and for the craziness to begin. Then the bombshell. At 1:50 this afternoon we got an email from our new principal…..the numbers of our upcoming 3rd grade class is low (which they knew last year) and a 4th grade teacher has just resigned. That being said, they will be dropping a section of 3rd grade in order to have that teacher replace the 4th grade teacher who resigned. The email said that if no teacher requests to be the one to move, a teacher will be reassigned by the administration. Surprise!

My team (and myself) LOST it. Within seconds of the email, my phone was blowing up with different messages from everyone. We were all freaking out. Honestly, the week before workshop begins you drop this on us. Are you serious? What a way for the new admin to introduce themselves. Oh and like I mentioned before, our principal saw us planning everything yesterday. Why was nothing said?

At this point no one on my team has said anything about taking the spot. The scariest most anxious part of this whole thing is that I’m the newbie. This is only my second year at the school so if no one says they’ll move, the odds are saying it’s me. I’m freaking out. I’ve spent my summer preparing for focusing on reading and finding new things to do. I was so excited to have a year where nothing is new for a change. Granted, it’s only my 3rd year teaching but my first 2 years were in 2 different schools which meant that everything was new both years. I wanted a year where the curriculum was the same so I knew what I was getting myself into. Now….who knows. Honestly, I’m freaking out.

We were told we will find out what will happen Monday afternoon. I’m praying it won’t be me. That sounds selfish but I just want a year that will make me feel like a competent teacher. My only hope is that since the 4 on my team put so much effort into our switches plan (and since the school put together a special schedule just for us) it might not be me. Who knows. All I know is that this weekend will be filled with anxiety instead of relaxation. Not exactly the way I wanted my final weekend of freedom to be.