I am now officially a Harlandale MS Brave. I was well aware that schools in Texas approach the new school year differently than schools in New York, but I guess I forgot how differently.
Day 1
Arrived at the district activity center along with all the other teachers that were new to the district this year. I was greeted at the door by someone from human resources who had me sign in and then walked me to my assigned seat. At my seat was a really cute place mat with my name on it and a personalized roll of tape. After seeing me to my seat she informed me that there was breakfast being served at the back of the room and vendors passing out freebies in the room next door. I decided to check out the freebies. On my way to the room I passed the assistant director of human resources who greeted my with, "Hey Bronx, how do you like being back in Texas." "It feels good," I lied. I really wanted to say, "It feels hot and it is way too early for school to be starting." After gathering as many things as I could carry, I returned to my seat to find and really nice soft-sided briefcase filled with goodies from the district. As I waited for the event to begin I got to know the other new teachers from my school. I have to admit that I really liked all of them which makes it hard to dislike being back. After the usual introductions we were told to stand. As soon as we heard the opening notes to the song YMCA we knew that this was not going to be the usual boring orientation. The rest of the morning was filled with speakers telling us about benefits, board policy, etc. At 11:30 we were asked to direct our attention to the back of the room. Then the doors were opened and in walked every administrator in the district loaded with gifts for the new teachers on their campuses. (I have to admit, my school got the best stuff) We were then directed to the lunch line where they were serving great B-B-Q. The assistant director of HR was directing the line and as I approached he said, "Ready for some good ol' Texas B-B-Q Bronx?" (I sense a pattern here) After lunch listened to a couple more speakers and were released for the day.
Day 2
The day began at one of the high schools. We were served breakfast tacos and given yet again a big bag of goodies. There were three workshops scheduled for the day which we rotated through. My first one was technology. The showed us how the online gradebooks and attendance reporting worked, followed by a look around the district web site. My second rotation was library services of which my sister Gaye was part of the presentation team. After our second rotation we were told to report to the cafeteria. When we arrived the doors were locked but we were told to wait. After all the new teachers arrived, the doors were flung open and we paraded in to a standing ovation. Each teacher had a teacher from their new campus there to join them for lunch. When lunch ended I went to my third rotation on brain activity and movement. It was an amazing presentation, probably one of the best I have ever attended. After the third rotation we were released for the day.
Day 3
This was the first day with all teachers, not just the new ones. It began with a continental breakfast on our home campuses. Every teacher was given a school T-shirt to wear.(the red one, becasue we got the black one in our goody bag on day one) We then boarded buses to the activity center. There was a motivational speaker, introductions and roll call of schools. Roll call involved the emcee calling the name of the school and all the faculty from that school trying to out cheer the previous school. We viewed several videos about the district including a video of our day 1 dance to YMCA. Now this wouldn't have been a bad thing had there not been someone front and center on the video that apparently looked like me and was really getting into the music. I guess I am going to have to request a copy of the video and look at a few freeze frames in order to convince my campus that I am NOT that crazy woman. We left the activity center to eat lunch on our own and return to our campuses where we did some team building activities which included dancing to Boom Boom Pow.
As back to school goes, it hasn't been too bad. Of course I haven't really done any work yet or had to deal with students.
Slacker?
15 years ago
