Going Back to School Early

Ms. Whatsit has been thinking about what our professional responsibility is before the school year starts--before we are actually on contract. Apparently she bended a little to save herself some stress, but mostly she is enjoying her last days of vacation while she questions why we teachers are given so little paid time to prepare.

In the last few years I've thought a lot about what I really need to do, and how much time I should put in outside of my contracted time. I've had great intentions of doing some planning this summer, but I haven't done as much as I had hoped. Why was I going to do it this summer? I had more time to think and plan. So, that's my choice. Well, actually, my true choice was to blow off doing any work for most of the summer like I thought I would.
So, there's a moot point.

When it comes to the amount of time I take to put my classroom and curriculum together at the beginning of the year, that topic does irritate me a bit. It seems impossible to prepare for the beginning if school with the amount of time we are given. The irritation for me stems back to the closing of school, when we have to remove everything from our walls and pack up our materials. Putting up bulletin boards doesn't take too long, but unpacking seems to take forever.

I did go back to school last week. I planned on meeting up with a colleague so we could work on some changes for our team, plus I thought it might be nice to get my room put together early because during our contracted time, I lose out on most of the free time because of my yearbook responsibilities. I wanted to go to my room not because I'm excited to be back but because I know I have too many irons in the fire and I can't do everything I need to in time if I don't. I'm slow moving when I start back to work. The earlier I start, the less stressful it is as I do a little bit here and there.

Well, guess what? The administration is refusing to give out keys earlier than the first official day for new teachers. It's true. They don't want us back yet. I'm hardly offended.

Guess what else? There A/C will not be turned on in our classrooms until the first day back for returning teachers. (Sucks to be a new teacher--three days with no A/C in their classrooms.)

I don't know, but it seems like my school is discouraging us from coming back early to work. I'm down with that.