Pre-Planning Week

Teacher pre-planning starts next week, and just like that, my summer is over. It's an exciting time, yes, but still rather sad when I think that it's over.

Pre-planning is really a strange time, at least in my experience.

My first year as a teacher, I was supposed to start the glorious fun of pre-planning just like all the other teachers at my school. I had attended the new teacher training (2 days long, mostly telling us of things that weren't helpful and more confusing than anything else, but I did get some free stuff, so that was good) and the pre-employment fingerprinting, background check, and drug-testing (I passed, if you were wondering :o). Now I was going to start at my school and learn all about how it works. Like the rules! How we felt about dress code! Even the school lunch menu!

I was supposed to.

But didn't.

I wasn't "cleared to be on campus yet." My background check wasn't complete yet. I was not allowed to be around the children. But there aren't any children there during pre-planning! But this bit of wisdom was apparently ignored by the school system. Yes, I did pass it; everything was fine.

But the paperwork wasn't filed on time or with the right people, so I wasn't allowed to be there on the day when they have the dumb-but-ever-so-helpful getting to know one another games and information.

Now, I could understand if it was because I was a new hire, one of the people hired right as the kids arrive.

But I had been hired June 24th. Plenty of time.

So I missed that first day, and missed out on lots of important things AND free stuff (like a mug with the school logo and a desk calendar. AND LUNCH).

I was sad.

Last year, I opened at a new school, so our pre-planning lasted 2 weeks. It was a nice, but crazy, time.

We have a good, wonderful, supportive principal.... who just so happens to also be "cutesy." She likes having themes at our meetings and for the entire week of pre-planning.

Last year, we had a lot of games where we had to walk as a team (feet tied to a bit of canvas), untie each of our team members (as we were all tangled), design a perfect school, etc, etc, etc.

It's fun, but silly. It's nice to see everyone again, and it's a WONDERFUL chance to hear what's going on, what new paperwork we have to complete, what new laws affect us, and so on.

I am looking forward to it... but I have to go and think about what to wear. We have to dress within our theme, and it was rumored that we'd be rewarded for our efforts, so I want to win.

I have as much chance as the next person, right?

Wrong. I will likely completely forget and just wear my school shirt. Oh, well. I probably wouldn't like the prize anyway.

Or so I'll keep on telling myself.