First Day Down

With the first day behind me, class size was smaller than promised for the moment! But, there is suspision that it will change next week. We'll see!

For me, things went without a hitch, sort of. After a week of changing classrooms and grade levels (again) and with the help of two to three high school students, my classroom was ready when twenty of my twenty-two students showed up on Friday.

My questions are: "How can any parent send a student to school without a pencil and paper?" and "Why did we start on a Friday?".

I had a number of students show up to school without anything. I know the economy is bad, but do parents not know or realize that schools do not have supplies for their kids? It is also not my job to supply their child with supplies either! With pay cuts for teachers and cuts in supply budgets, parents are going to have to step up and take part in their child's education! This means getting the supplies that are needed. The supply list that I sent home this time was longer than usual for several reasons. One being, I'm not buying alot of things, since I have to buy even my own trash bags for my classroom. The second reason is that they sent us to two two-week workshops this summer and according to those workshops the list of supplies are needed. You see, when the principal comes to evaluate us, we have to be emplementing the procedures described in the workshops.

I also had a hard time starting on a Friday, just to turn around and be gone for two days. Someone at the top has never had to teach or this would not happen! It is proven that when implementing anything new children need to have consistency! Comming one day and taking two off makes it hard to get them to understand and remember anything(for any age group)!

Fellow teachers, How was your first day? Please share your comments! See you at professional development!

Angie