Week Number 2!

Week number two was definitely less stressful and more routine than the first week. I don't think that I could have handled a second week that presented the same challenges of week number one. Teachers, students and staff began falling into the regular routines. We did make one major change to the way our buses were dismissed. In the past, when the weather was nice, all bus riders were dismissed to the buses and teachers walked their homeroom classes to the loading area and attempted to load the students in an orderly fashion. This was a difficult proposition as teachers tried to load students onto multiple buses without getting kids (especially younger students) onto the wrong bus. Through the first week of school, we had buses return each day with kids who were on the wrong bus. We tried to simplify the procedure by having grade levels work together and have a single teacher responsible for all of the students on a grade level who ride the same bus. This way we can dismiss one bus at a time and the teachers take the whole group that they are responsible for to one bus. This process has sped up dismissal and dramatically reduced the number of kids returned to school because they were on the wrong bus (zero since the new procedure was implemented!). We also solved another problem by doing this. Rainy day bus dismissal was a completely different procedure that required even more work by the teachers. Luckily, the newly implemented procedures are able to be used for rainy days as well. So we have only one set of bus dismissal procedures that can be followed each day. This routine helps the children feel more comfortable.
We are now working on changing some of the car dismissal routines in order to make the system more efficient and provide an added measure of safety.
My favorite part of the day is my "morning walk-around" when I get a chance to visit each classroom and say good morning to staff and kids. The first week of school, I was able to do this daily. Last week, I only had the chance to visit on two days. Today, I vowed to do it every day that I am here. I was able to make it to each room!
I continued to be amazed that my staff works so well together. The teachers support one another and work hard. They are more than willing to step in help another teacher when needed. I am fortunate that the support staff is so willing to multi-task to help meet all of our needs!