The final countdown...

Tomorrow is the official start of the school year for me... professional days tomorrow and Friday, kids come next week.  Wow... summer is over... almost...

The last couple of days have been busy... yesterday we had an all day meeting at school, for the people who were on the leadershio team last year... I was a part of that team, as an intern... principalship intern... the meeting was to discuss many things about last year and begin planning for this year, including the configuration of the leadership team.  I would like to be a part of it again this year... but want to be paid for it... and made that clear.  I feel like I am getting more and more selfish with my time, but I know the work I do is quality... and as the meeting progressed there were several things that needed to be done that I had to do... because the forms were on my computer because I created them last year.  I could have emailed them to the principal and asst. principal, but the bottom line is that they would have come back to me asking for help because of the formatting... neither are great at manipulating things in the way I create them... maybe the lesson there is that when I am a principal or asst. principal, I need to teach other people how to do what I do... so that I don't have to do as much...

Today I had hoped to get things done on my to-do list to prepare for school.. but as it worked out I spent half the day working with one of my colleagues on developing our advisory program.  Her schedule did not allow for other times to work so today was the day... while we were working the school secretary called and asked me about the teacher duty schedule.  She was going to try to do it at the principal's request... but I know she had amillion other things to do to gear up for these first two teacher days and also knew that her system of putting people in the schedule would be random and I can't let something be done randomly... I think each role has a purpose and needs to be scheduled right...and told her I would do it before the end of the day... so in the afternoon, I went to school.  I had intended to do things for my students.. but... instead spent the afternoon doing the duty schedule as well as preparing a presentation about advisory that I was asked to do today too...so I ended up staying at school until 5:00... then came home, had dinner, and got out my computer.  Checked in with some folks online, then got to work... typing letters to each of the kids in my homeroom. 

It's now time for bed... and I guess I am feeling a little better about some things... I guess that the fact that I worked on so much today, so late, is a good sign that I am as passionate as ever when starting the year... even though some of it wasn't directly for my kids, it was for the benefit of ths school which will help all the kids... and all the teachers... so that's good...

I think...