Yesterday was back to school day and ugh what a day! Tuesday is my day in the all in one kindergarten class. It's the only class of the school so no colleague but I have a great teacher assistant who's been here for 8 years plus a teacher assistant in training.
Things are thought though cause the main teacher is on long sick leave (read she wants to quit) and left taking a lot of things in the school. I spent Monday redoing all of the posters you normally find: the alphabet, the numbers, date cards, etc. This person being the main teacher is also the headteacher/principal so she carries the responsabilities. But as she's out of the game another one had been named to take her place,but nothing was really official as she didn't want the job.
So yesterday morning the parents wanted answers: who will be there on Thursdays, Fridays and Mondays? Who's the headteacher ? I had no answers to give them. Plus some of the parents of the 1st year Pre-K had has info that they were to pick up their kids at 10.45am instead of 11.45 and that there wasn't class for the first year in the afternoon... Who gave that information? No one knows... Parents were pissed. I told them I'd call the district to give them a name of the other teacher by the end of the day.
A local district of education represent came by in the morning to check how things were, the numbers of students present and when I told her about the 1st year leaving early she told me it was forbidden to do so (the previous teacher clearly did things her way and every day we're uncovering new things...). Then in the middle of the morning a man rang the bell. He was a substitute send by the local district of education as reinforcement to help me with the situation. He was actually really nice and took over the PE lesson in the afternoon so I could take a breath.
So at lunchtime I clear the situation with the local district, had a name. The chief of the local district even called me during the afternoon (as a teacher you rarely see him or hear from me except through email and if you do well...). The guy call me from his mobile phone! Told me what was the situation, that he'll come to talk to the parents Thursday morning, that the sub in reinforcement would be staying for the rest of the week, to call him on his mobile if there ever was a problem with the parents and he would come right away and thanks me for me loyalty and devotion (I almost answer him that I had no choice and that I was not really thinking but that the survival mode had to take over faced with the shitty situation the whole educational system put me in).
So I put a paper with the name of the teacher for the rest of the day and mine that I put in front of the school for all the parents to see. At the end of the day they were happy to have answers, their kids had hada good day and everything was right in the world! Yeehoo!
But as it would have been too easy this morning I called she new teacher who had been called up to the the other 3 days of the week so we could talked about the organization she wants to put on place, so I could tell her about what I did yesterday, etc. Well surprise, she's out too cause she hurt herself and can't walk anymore let alone drive... 😔 I can already picture the parents Thursday morning... The chief of the local district of education better be prepared cause they'll be all over him. I'm serious considering asking for a change to drop off my other 2 positions to take over full time here and so to carry the principal responsibilities.
But outside of all this admin shit hole I had a great day and the kids too! Only 2 first year Pre-K cried at morning and afternoon drop-off and not for too long. The kids are great, refered to me as their teacher right away, listened well, no behavior problem, we used pots of liquid glue with the 3rd year Pre-K and things were pretty clean, I got a lot of hugs, and "oh I'm sad it won't be you Thursday, we'll miss you". So it's all that matters.
Last update August 27
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