Well, Friday was our last day on contract (teacher work day). Our school is closing and I'm being transferred to another school-well I was packing and cleaning when I got a phone call from my new principal. I had been assigned to second grade and she wanted to move me down to first. She wanted to know if this was ok and I said yes..she said to come by that afternoon to chat with her..well, I did. My principal was busy, so I talked to her for just a few minutes, so the literacy coordinator went to show me my new room. Well, we ran into the teacher who I'm supposed to be replacing in the grade level (she's supposedly moving to another grade). She seemed to know nothing about what was going on or where she's moving to. Some major miscommunication went on, and I feel horrible,even though it's not my fault that my principal dropped the ball on communication. MY principal had to get approval from central office to move me from first to second, so I think I'll stay in this position. However, it's still not the way I wanted to start at my new school.
I love that my administration does all changes on the same day (everyone involved in any one change is told on the same day), usually within hours.
I also started this year on a bad note. I came to a new school taking the position of a teacher who had been teaching 8th grade for over 10 years. She was moved to 2nd grade. I'm pretty sure she was not happy at all. To make matters worse, I ended up cleaning all of her stuff by myself since she was hurt. She said she was going to send her husband and son to help pack but she didn't. I'm pretty sure she felt resentful and I also feel reseltful about having to clean all of her stuff (it was really ugly). As much as I want to keep positive relationship with everybody, I cannot be very nice to this teacher when I see her. I believe this would have been avoided if the principal would have been upfront about this major change with her. I believe she found out about the change through an e-mail 4 weeks before school would start. This was not a good way to communicate this major change.
Wow, I couldn't imagine taking over for someone in this circumstance. I know that my administration has much to improve on and I hope next year will be a good growing year for us, but now I feel blessed to have an administration who truly looks at our needs and views us as a family.
