Friday, September 7 - New Food Wake Up

Our school cafeteria has updated their menu.  One of the new daily choices is a boxed meal that consists of celery and carrot sticks, grapes, chunks of cheese, hummus and crackers.  I was offered one of these to try today and saved it for this evening.

As I was eating it I was reminded of when my daughter was young - I think in the second or third grade - and she loved the move Aladdin and could recite parts of the dialog by heart.   We happened to be on a bus trip with my mother and sister to New York to see Cinderella on Broadway and she was entertaining us with her recitations.

There is a part she rattled off that had us in stitches and she couldn't understand why.

In the scene she was reciting, Robin Williams as the Genie says "wake up and smell the hummus".  Well not knowing what hummus was, she was saying "wake up and smell the homeless."

Makes me smile every time I eat hummus to this day!

Friday, June 29 - Graduation Cupcake

During the last two week's of school there were so many class parties/picnics that it was very hard to keep track.  It was also very hard to keep track of what I was snacking on.  There were all kinds of treats that passed through the office and when there was enough, some of them came back up to the office.  We had cupcakes, brownies, ice cream, Rita's ice, donuts.  I did not partake of all of them, but there were some that were just too good to resist.  Take for instance this cupcake made by a mom of a 5th grader. 

We don't actually have a fifth grade graduation but they do move on to another school so this mom decided they should have graduation caps.  She also related, and I can attest to this myself, that those foil cupcake liners are dangerous when they're fresh out of the oven.  Ouch.  Best be quick about it.

We also got a large tray of the soft pretzel rods and a wonderful edible fruit arrangement and several different kinds of candies.  

Yes, it certainly was a yummy couple of weeks inded!

Friday, June 22 - TGTYO

Thank God This Year's Over.

It has been rough.  Rough in so many ways.  Right down to the last official school day which was Wednesday. 

At the beginning of the year I thought that I could look at myself as the glue that held things together being the   one in the office, besides the principal, that was familiar with the workings of our building.  We had merged two schools which meant merging two staffs and two areas of our community.  Now, the children had been together before in the Pre-K-2 school but the staff was at odds being that we were considered "sister schools" while theirs was still open having the same grade levels (3-5) and there was always an underlying current of, shall we call it "competition".  

With the closing of their school came a realignment of the grades.  The lower school became Pre-K to 3rd and we housed all the 4th and 5th graders.  One would think that with only two grade levels that things would go smoothly.  Not so much.

And to top it off, for me at least, there was a change in our office staff and they moved the secretary from the Pre-K-2 school to our office and our secretary to the administrative offices.  No one was really happy about that move.  

I know that  all sounds confusing and if you followed it, good for you.   It was much more of a challenge than we all expected I think.

After a few weeks, or maybe it was only days, I felt that the glue was really being strained and thought that being a rubberband, which has more flexibility, would be a better thought.  So I stretched myself and tried to accommodate to the ever increasing demands of the job.  But it seemed that the rubberband had to become bigger and bigger and bigger to make those accommodations.  All the while it was growing though, it was also reaching it's point of snapping.  

Even with detailed explanations and a deep summoning of patience on a daily basis there were just those that did not grasp the fact that they were being absorbed into another culture and that pointing out that they had never done something or done it "that way" before was getting old.  

I told myself mid-year that it was time to lower my expectations.   It wasn't going to take a few months, it would take a full year of going through all the processes and events that usually transpire during the school year.  

But I wondered nonetheless, at why in the classroom, the teachers expected their students to acclimate to their way of doing things within a short amount of time, yet they were digging their heels in as to how our daily routine transpired.   

Should I need to remind you in November, January and March that attendance has to be done by 9:00?  Should I have to remind you in December, February and April that it would be nice to let me know if a parent has let you know that a student is on vacation so I don't try calling them at home, or interrupting your class?  Should I have to send e-mails reminding you that if you use the last of something in the supply room you need to let me know so I can reorder before the next person "really needs" something?  And I know it all sounds like little stuff, but it builds and builds and builds and just like the rubberband you snap or you snap at someone and that's never a good thing.

So right about the time of Spring Break, during which I used some of my vacation days, I came to the conclusion that not only did I need to lower my expectations, but I needed to lower my standards too.  

I was seeing, all around me, people who were basically not putting the effort into making things go smoothly - and getting away with it - and I thought I should do the same.  But it's hard to lower your standards.  Even if your boss tells you that you "shouldn't expect people to do their job as good as you do yours"!  Is that what it's come to?  

So, did I leave every day at 3:30 like I'm supposed to?  No.  There were days when I stayed later or came in earlier to get something done that just wasn't going to happen during regular working hours with all the interruptions.  

Did I turn away the students and the teachers who needed my assistance with something when I was right in the middle of my own work?  No.

Did I get frustrated and voice my opinion sometimes maybe a bit too conspicuously - you bet your ass I did. And what did that accomplish?  Nothing.  It only made me realize that the rubberband stretches only so far and that if I was going to hold anything together it would be with humble twine and the ends would definitely be frazzled.  

I think that maybe this summer I will take that rubberband and make it into a sling shot and when someone tells me in September, as I know they will, that "that's not the way we used to do it", I will pick up the sling shot and one of the marbles that I will have surely lost from hearing that statement again, and bean them right between the eyes.  

Just kidding.  But maybe I'll hand them a rubberband and tell them that it's time that they learned to be more flexible.  I've got the whole summer without staff around to contemplate that.

Friday, June 1 - Old Words?

Recently I had to write down an account of a situation that happened in our office.  I can't go into details about it, but I was questioned by two people (younger than me) who read my account concerning my use of the word "fetch".  

I said:  So-and-so went to fetch so-and-so.  

After the second person questioned me on my use of the word “fetch”, I felt I needed to explain that I didn't mean it derogatorily, and added that I am old and I use words like that.  

I asked my husband and my daughter if they thought that it was strange to use that word and they both said no. Of course they could just be trying to get me to stop worrying about it.

Then I saw this as I was trying to pin something on Pinterest – 

And tonight I noticed that I-Phone, of which I have one, under Settings says “Fetch New Data”. (Not a picture of my phone)

Guess I’m not as antiquated as I thought.

Friday, May 25 - Will It Count?

We had our Memorial Day program at school today.  It's a day that is filled with activities and assemblies for the students to learn about the significance and to commemorate Memorial Day.  The students do patriotic themed crafts, participate in a sing-a-long, go to gym boot camp, package treats to send to our servicemen, visit a museum of armed services paraphernalia donated by members of the community for this day, and more.  It's an educational as well as fun event that begins with an opening flag ceremony, very brief "words" from local and state dignitaries that have been invited to attend, and the band and the chorus perform one selection each.

On the answering machine this morning.....

"Hello.  My son said that today was going to be a fun day at school and he didn't want to participate.  If I let him stay home, will it count as an absence since it's going to be a fun day?  Here is my number.  If I don't hear back from you I'll know it's okay to keep him home."

God Bless America!

Friday, May 18 - What Happens When a Student Forgets Their Sneakers?

1.  They tell the teacher that they've forgotten their sneakers.

2.  They come to the office to ask to use the phone.

3.  Six out of 10 students will need to have their phone number looked up because they don't know it.

4.  Five out of 10 students will have to have assistance using the phone because they only know cell phones and cordless phones and do not know how to use a push button with curly cord.  And............. they do not know not to dial 8, or 908, etc.

5.  Three out of 10 students will have to call again because they didn't follow instructions and leave a message the first time, which will result in a parent frantically calling the office wanting to know who from the school called and the office having to make numerous calls to .... you get the picture there I'm sure.

6.  The parent will arrive with the sneakers, usually not in a bag,  and attempt to place them on the counter, whereby they will be instructed to put them on the floor under the chair across the room, and look at us bewildered that we should make such a request (doesn't everyone put shoes on their counter?).

7.  The classroom will be called with the information that the sneakers have been delivered for so-and-so and 9 out of 10 times the student will come to get them.

8.  The 1 out of 10 student who forgot to come to the office to get their sneakers will not have sneakers for their after school activity and the office staff will be reprimanded for not delivering the sneakers by the parent that took time from their job to bring the sneakers to the school when their distraught child called.

It's the middle of May - we had five students in one day last week and three already this morning that have needed to call for "sneakers."  Not to mention the ones that forgot their projects, lunches, etc.  (We do not allow them to call for instruments, however, there are some teachers that allow the students to call from the classroom which totally defeats the purpose of not interrupting the office staff as each one of the deliveries warrants a doorbell being answered and a phone call being made to the classroom.)

My conclusion - there are little or no consequences for the student who forgets their sneakers and many for the office staff.  

I raised two children - they are 29 and 31 and have no ill effects from forgetting things and not having them delivered to school.  They may have had to sit out a gym class, sat on the bench during recess or were sent to work room.  They might have even been marked down a grade, depending upon the grade and the teacher.  BUT, they are more responsible for having borne the consequences of their forgetfulness themselves.

So please reconsider letting your students call home for whatever it is that they have forgotten - unless it's lunch, we don't want them to go hungry.

You may think that it's only one interruption but it never is.

(e-mail to staff)

Friday, May 4th - Not Quite an Oxymoron

A call to the office this week from one of our classroom teachers:

"Can you tell the custodian that our heat is cold."