Back to Work

Wow. Summer went by way too fast. For most of you, it will still be summer for  another month or two. My summer ended yesterday. I'm a teacher, so summer equals no school. When school starts, summer is over.

My students don't come back until August 16th, but I am going back to work today. I applied for a position as a mentor teacher, so today I will attend the All Mentor Training. As a mentor teacher, I'll still be teaching during the day, but after my students go home, I will be supporting up to two teachers as they work to become fully certificated.

Just some of what I'll be doing.

One Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I will be attending my school district's annual Educator Learning Summit. It's a three-day event where the district presents all teachers with the year's foundational plan which is referred to as the Daily Keynote Session. In the afternoons, we are usually presented with a few Choice Options. Since I have been teaching so long, much of the day is spent listening to stuff I've heard many times before. I get it though - teachers that are at the beginning of their careers haven't heard the information yet, so it's important that we all hear the same message. As a mentor, part of my job will be to support my mentee as she tries to implement the district's goals.

Here we go ...

Next week is just as busy. On Tuesday and Wednesday I will be working at my school site with my principal and staff. We'll engage in some professional development - similar to what we'll go over this week, and then have time to plan as a grade level. My principal will take what we learn at the Educator Learning Summit and fit it into our school's plan.

My class logo.

Besides spending two days working with my staff, I am scheduled to attend two days of new teacher meetings on Thursday and Friday. On those two days, the new teachers will be discussing Classroom Management and Instructional Design &Lesson Planning. Mentors are urged to attend in order to support the new teachers. I have heard that space is limited, so I won't know until later today if I will be attending those two educational days or not.

It's going to be a busy year!

On Monday the 14th of August, I'll spend another day in meetings. The next day will probably be a day where teachers can get their rooms unpacked and set up to receive students. The kids start on Wednesday which doesn't give teachers much time to actually do classroom preparation. Books and supplies need to be handed out. Lesson plans need to be written. Copies need to be run, or in my case, online lessons need to be built. There's a lot to do to get ready for this year's crop of students. A lot to do and not much time in which to do it. This is my 30th year doing it, so I am pretty sure I can handle it.

August is typically hot as hell, so I don't usually get much riding done, but it works out because I am so busy getting my classroom up and running. And with Izzy's pastern still healing - I promise that post is coming, it's probably a good thing that I am too busy to get much riding done anyway.

How many days until summer vacation? A lot!