First day of school

JCbride2015

Happy first day of school @smichek! Show those kiddos who's boss! I hope you have fun and the day goes smoothly.

WinstonsGirl

Have a great first day back, and don't forget to get those kids in line right from the start!!  

Inkdancer

You're gonna kill it today!

wandajune6

Have a wonderful first day- you'll be wonderful!

cupcait927

Have an awesome first day! The kinks will get worked out and you'll do great!

tigersgirlgv

Good luck!!!!

pinkcow13

Have a great first day!

falsara

Have an Amazing first day!!!!  I'm sure the students and parents will understand about any kinks today!

mysticl

The cool thing is that since it's a new school everyone will be experiencing a lot of those first day kinks.  So hopefully there will be more of a 'we're all in this fiasco together" vibe as opposed to feeling like the new girl who can't figure stuff out.  

WinstonsGirl

I helped open a school.  We had cardboard boxes everywhere, no garbage cans until October.  It was pretty awesome though.  The really cool thing was that the kids got to set the tone for the school.  They picked the mascot, our motto, the sports teams created the school cheer that all teams now use.  It was a pretty neat experience for all of them.  Hope you got to eat lunch!!

AddieCake

Happy First Day! (and I'm so glad we don't go back until after Labor Day.)

JCbride2015

The schedule thing happened to us my second year teaching.  They got temporary schedules within a week, but then everything restarted in October because they realized they had messed up the kids' credits.

Just roll with it and act like you know what's going on.

AprilH81

Wow...  That sounds like a hot mess...

mysticl

That is just crazy.  But you'll be telling this story of your first day as a teacher for decades.  

JCbride2015

Oh, PowerSchool.  PowerSchool is what caused our schedules to get totally fucked.  Sorry Smichek.  It's great when it works but our administration wasn't properly trained on it and they made the schedules totally wrong.

WinstonsGirl

PowerSchool is the shittiest program ever created and it is a spawn of Satan.  I hate PowerSchool, if you can't tell.  

jenajjthr

At least they had schedules and it was only that PowerSchool crashed. The counselor at my first school didn't want to put schedules together until we started back to work, 1 week before school. Then it was just throw kids into classes, not caring what those classes were. The kids could just then figure out if they were in the right class and change as needed. He was so freaking lazy! Literally the first 2 weeks I couldn't do anything because everyday was new kids being added or dropped. Just pretend you know what you are doing, help where and when you can. Smile and fake it till you make it!

AddieCake

You just got a very important lesson that will serve you the rest of your career: be flexible. This kind of shit is going to happen all the time and your plans will be completely thrown off.

KeptInStitches

Hot mess, indeed. I hope tomorrow goes better, and I'm glad you still had a good day!

AddieCake

Do you have a special ed teacher in the inclusion class with you?

AddieCake

That's pretty strange to have an inclusion class and no trained SpEd teacher with you. If they are all inclusion kids in the class, that's not really an inclusion class; it's a SpEd class.

jenajjthr

If you give them the "If its an emergency you can ask" then it will always be an emergency. How will you be able to gauge if its not? The kids learn to use this excuse really really early. 

What I do now, feel free to take this, modify it, leave it at the door. I designed and printed out on a piece of paper 6 "Tiger Passes" (my favorite animal). I print them up on colored sheets of paper (students then can't print up lots of copies) and hand out 1 per student. Each student gets 6 passes out of class per semester. They get to decide when and how to use these. 

They fill out the pass to where they want to go and hand it in to me, I sign their planner (supplied by our school) which is their official pass out of class. If the pass is to the office, nurse, or library AND when they return the planner is signed by that place, they get their pass back to be used again. Basically an "legit" hall pass doesn't count. If they want to go to the bathroom or their locker then they don't get the tiger pass back. Once all 6 passes are gone, I won't sign the planner. 

If all 6 are gone and if its and "emergency!" then I will call a hall monitor and they can wait for one to come and escort them. I've been burned by the emergency excuse so many times, so beware of it as well, especially the girls and their period. I don't remember my period being an emergency and a surprise except for the first time I started and then maybe one time after that. Other than that my mom taught me to take care of myself. But now, the girls are always asking for passes during class because of this and the emergency excuse. 

ETA ~ clarification

HobokensFury

I hope your second day is better. We still have a month until school starts but the first 2 weeks are always a mess.

mysticl

smichek said:

AddieCake said:

Do you have a special ed teacher in the inclusion class with you?

No, but the two SPED teachers are somewhere in my hall. I want to meet with them and go over IEPs and learn as much as I can about the students. I talked to the science teacher who had two of my students before my class and she shared what she learned, so that helped.

The good news is that they are ALL inclusion kids in 6th period and they all know it. It's not an issue I have to be super discreet about. When I student taught at another school you'd have 2-3 inclusions kids sprinkled in each class and it was difficult to give them the extra help and attention they needed without A) bringing a lot of attention to them, making it very obvious to everyone else that they were inclusions/SPED and therefore leaving them more open to ridicule and C) pretty much stopping what you were doing with the rest of the class.

So having the inclusion-only class is great! It is difficult because I have them last and they are pretty checked out and ready to go home by the time they get to me at 2:45. I just gauged them today mostly and I know I will be in for some uphill battle days. I think half the class asked to go to the bathroom today. Tomorrow I'm going to lay down the law and say "Look, yall are young adults. This is a 60 minute class. You have a five minute passing period and most of you are coming from next door. You have more than enough time to go to the bathroom and get to my class on time. Since yesterday so many people took advantage of the fact that I allow bathroom breaks during my class, as of today you can only go if it is an emergency. If it's not an emergency, don't even bother asking me."

Having worked with kids I can tell you that it does not always go over well when you tell them they cannot use the restroom.  It is often viewed as a basic human right.  When I worked in the after school program I was absolutely not allowed to deny a child a bathroom visit. Even if we had just done an official bathroom break and they declined I had to let them go when they asked.  

HobokensFury

Just be careful with the bathroom thing. We've been told you can not legally tell a student they can't use the bathroom. We've had many problems with this. We're told to keep a log and report it to the VP or counselor if we feel a child is abusing it. (There may be a medical issue that you are unaware of)

mysticl

HobokensFury said:

Just be careful with the bathroom thing. We've been told you can not legally tell a student they can't use the bathroom. We've had many problems with this. We're told to keep a log and report it to the VP or counselor if we feel a child is abusing it. (There may be a medical issue that you are unaware of)

Since I was a supervisor I could ask the parents if there were any issues I needed to be aware of in the after school program.  I had a couple of kids who I went to the parents and would start with "If they need to use the restroom I will gladly take them" (program policy required they be escorted) and then I would move into asking if there was anything I needed to know about and explaining what was going on. In both cases the parents basically told their kids to stop screwing around.  

tigersgirlgv

Phew. That's a crazy day. Here's the good news, you have a great first day story to tell! Plus, it sounds like things will be a little better tomorrow!

HobokensFury

mysticl said:

HobokensFury said:

Just be careful with the bathroom thing. We've been told you can not legally tell a student they can't use the bathroom. We've had many problems with this. We're told to keep a log and report it to the VP or counselor if we feel a child is abusing it. (There may be a medical issue that you are unaware of)

Since I was a supervisor I could ask the parents if there were any issues I needed to be aware of in the after school program.  I had a couple of kids who I went to the parents and would start with "If they need to use the restroom I will gladly take them" (program policy required they be escorted) and then I would move into asking if there was anything I needed to know about and explaining what was going on. In both cases the parents basically told their kids to stop screwing around.  

Some parents and even kids woun't disclose medical issues to teachers because they are not required to unless it's life threatening. Most will but some woun't. I once had a kid that I didn't know was colorblind until January. I had a green blackboard and he couldn't see anything I was writing. After he failed miserably the first 2 marking periods the kid finally told me. The nurse knew but the parents didn't want their kid " treated any differently" and even declined a 504.

mysticl

HobokensFury said:

mysticl said:

HobokensFury said:

Just be careful with the bathroom thing. We've been told you can not legally tell a student they can't use the bathroom. We've had many problems with this. We're told to keep a log and report it to the VP or counselor if we feel a child is abusing it. (There may be a medical issue that you are unaware of)

Since I was a supervisor I could ask the parents if there were any issues I needed to be aware of in the after school program.  I had a couple of kids who I went to the parents and would start with "If they need to use the restroom I will gladly take them" (program policy required they be escorted) and then I would move into asking if there was anything I needed to know about and explaining what was going on. In both cases the parents basically told their kids to stop screwing around.  

Some parents and even kids woun't disclose medical issues to teachers because they are not required to unless it's life threatening. Most will but some woun't. I once had a kid that I didn't know was colorblind until January. I had a green blackboard and he couldn't see anything I was writing. After he failed miserably the first 2 marking periods the kid finally told me. The nurse knew but the parents didn't want their kid " treated any differently" and even declined a 504.

And then you have the kids who will lie and make up a condition just to get out of class.  I once had a client who never met an issue she didn't also have.  It made group therapy interesting.  

pinkshorts27

I had bladder infections and UTIs as a kid and I hated telling my teachers. It was embarrassing.  I was also in elementry school.

mysticl

smichek said:

mysticl said:

HobokensFury said:

mysticl said:

HobokensFury said:

Just be careful with the bathroom thing. We've been told you can not legally tell a student they can't use the bathroom. We've had many problems with this. We're told to keep a log and report it to the VP or counselor if we feel a child is abusing it. (There may be a medical issue that you are unaware of)

Since I was a supervisor I could ask the parents if there were any issues I needed to be aware of in the after school program.  I had a couple of kids who I went to the parents and would start with "If they need to use the restroom I will gladly take them" (program policy required they be escorted) and then I would move into asking if there was anything I needed to know about and explaining what was going on. In both cases the parents basically told their kids to stop screwing around.  

Some parents and even kids woun't disclose medical issues to teachers because they are not required to unless it's life threatening. Most will but some woun't. I once had a kid that I didn't know was colorblind until January. I had a green blackboard and he couldn't see anything I was writing. After he failed miserably the first 2 marking periods the kid finally told me. The nurse knew but the parents didn't want their kid " treated any differently" and even declined a 504.

And then you have the kids who will lie and make up a condition just to get out of class.  I once had a client who never met an issue she didn't also have.  It made group therapy interesting.  

sounds like she had "I like attention and the sound of my own voice" syndrome. Was she a hypochondriac too?

ETA: I know you can't actually answer that question. I'm being snarky.

Let's just say you don't land where I used to work without having a few things going on.