Day -5

So of course they made us sit through hours of pointless meetings today, going over the employee handbook and the poor scores on standardized tests from last year, scores which got the big cheese shit-canned. After blaming the teachers for this failure during a full-bore rant the "acting" principal said "I'm not pointing fingers," and then spent a further half hour threatening our jobs.

The "acting" principal is an assistant principal who is retiring in June after 37 years in the biz. She is much more competent then her predecessor, but is less physically active and I'm sure she cares not a whit for anything except making it through the year. The only other administrator in the building is retiring in December. We're supposed to have a principal and three APs, but we're starting the year with two APs and no principal, and both are retiring.

Let's just say I'm not particularly optimistic about how the school will run.

I got my schedule and I have only sixth graders, so I'm pleased. Hopefully I can keep the inevitable hallway chaos out of my room. Not likely given the fact my door not only doesn't lock, it doesn't even latch! Class sizes will be bigger because we're short-staffed, but what else is new?

My third year in the system and I'm treated like a veteran. Last period a 30-year language arts teacher is coming into my classroom to 'assist' me. One would think this should happen the other way around, but according to my department chair "she needs some mentoring." Oh boy.