#mentor program

The school year doesn’t officially start until Monday, but I went up to the high school this morning for a meeting with The Principal. My state has a few new laws related to education, and I had some questions about them, so I asked if we could have a chat. The Vice Principal crashed the meeting because she wanted to discuss some of the same things I did, and also pick my brain about how to present info to veteran teachers during in-service (note: I know I am, in fact, a veteran teacher, but part of me also still thinks that’s absurd). 

Because I am basically the dog in Up, we ended up chatting about a lot of other things, too: the anti-mask protestors who’ve been showing up to school board meetings (the district will be starting the year with a mask mandate in place), the recent uptick in drug overdoses in the area, the myriad reasons why sophomores are the most difficult grade level to teach, the school’s new hires...

After that, I actually met quite a few of the new hires because today was the last day of new teacher orientation, and The Assistant Superintendent asked all the mentor teachers to be present to meet their “mentees.” Fun fact: the teacher I’ll be working with, Ms. H, is engaged to another rookie teacher, Mr. Z, and he’s one of my former students. I think it’s awesome, and I also feel super old. Heh.

John Murphy, a mentor with the Bike Buddy Program.

What made you want to be a part of the Bike Buddy program?

“I really enjoy commuting to work by bike during the day. It’s a nice break in the day, and I like to help people feel more comfortable biking around town, using it as transportation.”

What are some good tips for people wanting to bike more around town?

Today was fast. My GOV students had a Zoom call with one of the local state reps, which took up most of the block. I made a few quick announcements and reminded them to revise the essays they drafted last week, but otherwise we were on the call, and I think it went pretty well.

My World students started their final unit, which is all about current events, with another multi-step, multi-day assignment similar to the one they just did on some of the resource wars in central Africa. On this assignment, they had options; they each had to choose one current situation (from a list of ten) to learn more about, then read/view some materials explaining it. It’s meant to take until Wednesday (though I am ready if anyone finishes early). One student complained, "You make us do work that's so in-depth,” which is the best critique I’ve ever gotten.

And, hey, in-depth is really engaging. Students are interested in what’s going on in the world. Even in my Block 2 class, it was going really, really well. And then I went to lunch and some of the boys started making monkey noises out the window at some girls on the tennis courts.

Sigh. 

While I was at lunch, though, I popped down to Mr. N’s room to observe him teaching. He and his Brit Lit students are doing Macbeth right now, which is so fun, and he was doing such a great job with his lesson. So that was cool.

What else? Track practice was short because we have a meet tomorrow, and I was a bit late because I had a meeting with Mr. B first, but I arrived in plenty of time to watch my sprinters take block starts and discuss the pop music Coach L was playing over the stadium speakers. 

Today was the scheduled remote learning day for the month: short classes for students, time to do non-instructional duties for teachers. One of those was writing a professional reflection, but it was nice out, so, first, Mrs. R, Mrs. S and I decided to have a “walking meeting” on the track to talk about what we planned to write. I decided I was going to be an overachiever, so mine’s a two-page essay complete with cited information (Mrs. Z actually replied “#overachiever” to the email I sent to share it with her, but it makes our department look good when I show off, so she approves). 

During “class time” my World students finished up the assignment on modern conflicts in Africa that they’d been working on in previous classes, my GOV students submitted essay rough drafts, and I dashed off emails to the parents of any students who are currently failing. 

Aaaaand then there was An Incident. Obviously, it happened off campus, but it’s going to impact life on campus. That’s about all I can say about it. Oof. 

I did my best to shake it off because I’d made lunch plans with Mr. N. Track season eats my life in the spring, so I’d been neglecting my role as a mentor. We got sandwiches from the local deli and sat outside in the sunshine to eat and chat about how things have been going lately, which turned into a chat about how we’re old and don’t understand the kids’ slang anymore. I had to explain “simping” and “white knighting” to him, he’s young enough to understand what “stanning” is but too young to know it’s an Eminem reference, we both had too look up “cheugy,” and we both think it’s funny that outfits are called “fits” like the full word is just too long.

One of the track kids I coached a few years back is now a social studies teacher at our middle school, but I hadn’t seen him because there is no mingling between schools this year. Today, though, there was a Zoom meeting for all new teachers and their mentors, and the first thing I did when I logged on was yell, “Hey, buddy, way to make me feel old!”

There was applause when he managed to call me and his other former teachers by our first names. 

The meeting was run by The Assistant Superintendent, who delivered candy to our school mailboxes this morning (she always provides it when these meetings are in person, and felt that she had to find a way to keep that up). First, she just asked how things are going. 

Cue me with a dry, “I’m the only GOV teacher in the county, how do y’all think it’s going for me this week?” 

But that sparked an actual discussion about how the election is impacting students, and not just in social studies classes. One of the kindergarten teachers even talked about how kids at that age are processing what they’re hearing at home, and what they’re seeing, and that was fascinating to all of us who teach higher levels. So, y’know, I’m a brat in meetings and also sort of helpful?

The Assistant Superintendent also went over the district’s evaluation process because that’s coming up for new teachers. I made plans with Mr. N to go over it in more depth sometime next week. We had to cut the meeting short because there’s work being done on the high school’s WiFi system. 

I went back to school today. 

And by that I mean I actually went back into the building where my classroom is located and started my sixteenth (!!!!!) year of teaching, and I realize how extraordinarily lucky I am that I can go back and feel safe doing so. I know not everyone is in that situation. 

So, let me see if I can answer all the obvious questions:

NH has never had really high numbers of Covid cases, and most of the ones we have had have been in long term care facilities. Cases have also been declining pretty much all summer; they’re in the single digits where I live.

My school was built to hold roughly twice as many students as will actually be attending this year. Normally, that’s a bad thing because declining enrollment is not great, but right now it’s good because it means we have big classrooms, wide hallways, and acres of land on which to hold outdoor classes if the weather permits. 

All excess furniture was removed from classrooms over the summer and tables were replaced with single-student desks to make distancing even easier. My desks are, in fact, six feet apart. They’re in rows, but I’m old school and have pretty much always had rows anyhow, so that’s not a big deal for me.

Our classes are capped at 15 students. We achieved that by switching from A/B block scheduling to 4x4 semester block scheduling, which is going to be an adjustment for all of us (including me), but is so smart for the situation we’re in.

Students will go to one classroom for the first half of the day. For the first forty-five minutes, they’ll work independently on stuff for any of their classes, and for the next ninety they’ll be in the course with the teacher whose room they’re in. They’ll go to another classroom for the second half of the day, same idea (lunch will be eaten in the classroom during that time, as well). They’ll have the same two classes everyday for two weeks, then switch to their other two classes for the next two weeks, and so on... It’s a little bit tricky to wrap your head around, so don’t worry if you read that and were very confused. 

We have chromebooks for all of our students, and The Principal said today that we’re also getting headphones for all of them.

Masks are required for everyone in the building (and the district is providing them), there’s a daily screening tool we all have to fill out before arriving, and there are state guidelines for things like travel outside New England, what to do in the event of a potential exposure, etc... 

Everyone’s workspace has to be cleaned at the end of class. The district is providing cleaning supplies. 

There is an option for fully remote learning, which about 10% of families have opted to do; in that case, teachers either have a fully remote section of a course (if there are enough students to warrant that), or students are doing coursework on VLACs, which is NH’s online learning program. There are no hybrid classes.

I’m sure I’m forgetting to mention a thousand other things, but those should give you an idea of how we’re making this work. It took A LOT of planning, and input from the faculty, staff, students, parents, nurses, local pediatricians, and more. Our admin team really listened in order to figure out not only what would work, but what would be best possible plan for everyone involved. I know many of my colleagues still have questions and concerns, and that’s totally valid (many of my colleagues also have families and therefore have more to juggle than I do), but I’m confident that we’ll have a good start to the year.

Today was, of course, an atypical first day of in-service. There was no big breakfast gathering for the entire district, no first meeting with The Superintendent (and, alas, no bingo game for me and my cacophonous friends); instead, there was a temperature check from one of our nurses and a quick welcome back from The Principal, who basically did laps all morning so he could see everyone and wish them well. 

I went and said hi to the other teachers on my floor, then went and checked in with Mr. N, the new teacher I’ve been assigned to mentor this year (our district has a formal mentor program for all new hires, even if they’ve taught elsewhere before, like Mr. N has). I’d actually met him over the weekend because Mrs. T and I invited both our mentees for coffee, but I figured he’d have some newbie questions for me today. 

Time to set up classrooms was followed by Covid training via Zoom webinar with all the nurses in the district, and then lunch, which we did picnic-style on the football field. It was a beautiful day, so The Principal decided to hold our afternoon faculty meeting out there, as well. He and the other administrators went over the nuts and bolts stuff they usually go over, and that took us to the end of the day. 

We have seven more days of in-service because there is a lot to do to prepare, and the school board agreed to let us take all the teacher workshop days that are usually spread throughout the year and drop them here at the start. So students will arrive on September 8th. 

I had a couple GOV students come in to retake tests and/or make up work this morning. After they left, I turned on Inauguration Day coverage while I did my grading and responded to some emails.

Mr. N came up as President Biden was being sworn in. We watched his inaugural address, then ordered lunch from the deli down the road. We had a mentor-mentee chat about how the first semester had gone, and what he can expect second semester. He’s a new dad, as well, so we chatted about that adjustment. 

Today was a bit of a mess, but it’s the kind of mess that’s funny in retrospect.

I came into work thinking I’d have a pretty easy morning since it was a remote learning day and I’d set everything up in Classroom yesterday afternoon. I had a meeting at 8:30, but until then I just had to be at my computer in case students emailed me with questions, and I could do some planning or grade assignments as they were submitted... I got on a roll editing a project for one of my ninth graders (final drafts of the Subculture Projects they created last week are due tomorrow), paused around 8:25 to get ready for my meeting, logged on Google Meet....

And no one was there.

Because the meeting was at 7:30, not 8:30.

Luckily, it wasn’t mandatory and could’ve been an email- school counseling just wanted to go over some AP test stuff- and no one was angry at me. Some folks may have definitely thought I was wicked dumb, but ehh. I’ve always said that I’m a hot mess when I’m not teaching.

I spent the rest of the morning answering emails, grading work, etc... then had lunch with Mr. F and Mrs. R. Shortly after we finished eating, the power flickered, went out entirely, and then the fire alarm started going off. It was struggling to go off, at first, though, and then started blaring, and everyone was very confused... but we evacuated to the gym because that’s our winter fire drill procedure (note: our gym is a separate structure). I took advantage of the time in the gym to chat with Mr. N about how his day had gone and how the new semester’s going. After a while, the alarms stopped, the power came back on, and we were cleared to go back to our classrooms.

No idea what happened to cause all that, but, y’know, not my circus...

By then, there was only about half an hour left in the day. I spent it making photocopies for my next few GOV lessons and tidying up their first test (which I’m giving in two weeks). Before I left, I ordered coffee and a bagel from the shop in my neighborhood, so it was ready by the time I got there.