Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Payback, The Unexpected, and Under Appreciation
Payback
Last year on one of our teachers birthday’s I decided to play a little practical joke on him. Over the school-wide announcements, I told student’s it was his birthday and that he loved hugs. Not just bro hugs or side hugs, but full on two arm Care Bear hugs. I told the student body that more than well-behaved kids he wanted hugs… hugs in the hallway, and at lunch, and even asked his former students to come back and give him hugs.
In reality, hugs typically end in elementary school, and as a general rule male middle school teachers don’t hand out hugs. For obvious reasons. The office staff was laughing, but in the back of my mind, I knew that this teacher would eventually get even.
Today he got even.
This teacher was in charge of a presentation today and had the full attention of the faculty and staff. Instead of a traditional, Google slides presentations or NearPod activity he had the teachers play a game of Jeopardy. Here is a list of the Jeopardy categories he used.
- Dear FAQs
- CarFax
- Spencer’s Haircuts
- Work Out Plans by Spencer
- Spencer’s Big Watch ( I have two big Nixon 50/50s)
Cleary the presentation was on DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) and what that looks like at our school, and CarFax was not a real topic; The other three categories were obviously about me.
He pulled some pictures from my twitter feed and photoshopped them onto a bunch of pictures of people with horrible haircuts. Including mine from last year’s Angel Tree project, which I won’t share here. I suppose I deserve it. I think this will keep going in a friendly, professional way.
The Unexpected
These thoughts are little about the inner workings of enrollment and the surprises it can bring. Each year the state of Utah has an open enrollment period where students can enroll anywhere, assuming the school is not exceded building capacity or on a permit moratorium, which is usually decided by the district.
One of my duties is to make sure that we check, double check and follow up with our permits each spring. In addition to our permits, we have a waiting list that we collect after open enrollment closes. By law, we have to accept students who live in our geographical area or school boundaries.
Each year the district gives us an estimation of new students to expect to enroll as the new school year begins. This number comes from students coming over from a charter or private school, as well as new constructions or move-ins. This calculation also includes students who may be leaving our school to attend a private, charter, or another public school because of sports, music or other activities. It’s a complicated formula that is accurate in projecting student enrollment year after year.
To our surprise, this year we have had a massive influx of new enrollments. Almost triple our usual amount.
Our team is superb, they recognized the potential problems and got to work. The counselors met with almost 80 students in the past ten days to get them registered and scheduled. The attendance office worked diligently to make sure they issued bus passes and that health and personal information is correct. Our finance secretaries added fees and walked a lot of the families through the registration process. ERMS support staff rocks.
The teachers saw their class sizes creeping up and began to volunteer to take 7th periods. They asked if the could give up their prep/conference period to help alleviate the classroom sizes. We aren’t as full as other schools. And have a great community, but in a situation when our team could have complained, everyone stepped up and moved forward. I am proud to be to be a part of a place like this.
Under-Appreciated
Today, I had a conversation with a teacher who has spent much of the past three days helping new teachers get ready. She did this instead of setting up her classroom. It’s something that I’m sure other people have seen, but may go unnoticed and unrewarded, but will not go under appreciated.
For the new teacher that she is helping, it the difference between keeping a teacher in the profession and losing a teacher in their first three years. Our new teacher doesn’t know this yet, but surely knows she has a caring team of educators around her to support her and help through the beginning stages of her career. It is the difference between being alone on an island and knowing that you have other teachers as part of your team. It makes all the difference.
If you work with a new teacher, know a new teacher, or your kids have a new teacher this year. Let them know how much appreciate them. Also, and maybe just as important, let the teachers who are working with and helping that new teacher know how much you appreciate them and their efforts. Appreciate the helper.