And before I knew it, the summer was over.
Next week I start work, for real. Well, for semi-real. It’s all professional development, but I’m also presenting two of the sessions (one on Thursday and one on Friday), so it’s more real than it would be otherwise.
It’s earlier than normal. My district received some federal aid and they are using it to offer us professional development and PAY US to take it. They are also tapping the knowledge of their own staff, instead of paying $$$ to have an outside entity come in with a ton of bells and whistles and not much actual substance. I am quite pleased by all of these developments.
{They are paying us presenters for our services, but it’s a much better use of money to pay us than to pay an company or key-note speaker.}
So yeah, it all starts on Tuesday – except for me it’s really Monday because I’m taking a free training on Google Suite for educators. We use google classroom and while I feel very confident in my knowledge of their apps, and how to best utilize them in my classes, I also know that just one little tip, or one new way to implement something familiar can deliver massive gains. Or just make things a little less boring.
I am eager to get started for real; I’ve been spinning my wheels on a lot of planning aspects of next year because I just have no idea what it will look like. I don’t know how much I will be expected (or allowed) to push out synchronously, or how many students I’ll have from either middle school in my two levels, or if I’m teaching the 6th grade and if so how much, or if they’ll be asking me to teach anything else. The last time I spoke with my principal she said I would probably only be teaching Spanish but that was weeks ago, and as we all know, a lot can change in three weeks, especially during this pandemic.
2020-21 school year, here I come…
HUGE congratulations on the implicit kudo of being asked to be a presenter ! And, twice. REALLY glad they are keeping the money in-house and not sending it to outside consultants.
I also wanted to say thank you because, without you, I tend to look at the school pandemic issues as a grandmother and you see them as both a teacher and as parent of school age students. This widens my perspective and better informs me about all the compromises involved. You have also addressed the equity and inequality problems many people chose to ignore.
Hope your starting back allows your family some adjustment time to the new reality that school/fall will bring. It is so difficult to plan as a family when across the nation school districts do not know if schools can open, or remain open for even a week ……or what the cost in long term health or lives will be based on the choices made.
THANK YOU!!!!!!
Good grief, you hardly seem to have finished school and now it is starting again. Of course, I do know it is August and it still really just feels like April! Glad you have something to feel enthusiastic about to kick off the year.