here we go-countdown!

yep...it's over. summer is officially over. i've been back on campus since august 3rd. so when i say countdown, you may be thinking...countdown to students coming. and while this may be true, i'll bet most teachers have looked at their calendars and already marked out each break...countdown to thanksgiving! countdown to Christmas! countdown to spring break! countdown to summer!!!!! it's natural. it's not on purpose-this is natural, it happens to us all, and teachers, you shouldn't feel guilty about this! as long as you're living in the moment and making things happen in your classroom, it's ok to have your countdown!

i've had meetings, new teacher academy meetings, technology training, MAP assessment training, presented our professional development pd, went to social emotional learning training yesterday and today regurgitated the technology training that we went to. we tried to make it fun, but it was probably about as fun as eating cardboard with no water to wash it down. and tomorrow we continue...yay. 

i wish i had some awe-inspiring words, but i do not. what i will say is that this is going to be a long year-an uphill climb, perhaps....and by up hill, i mean looking straight up a rock face with crags and small handholds and footholds for the climbing. thing is, most climbers will tell you, the excitement is in the challenge. you don't feel the sense of exhilaration unless you've experienced a good challenge.

as you know, our principal was promoted to an executive director position. our AP took a position closer to home. our counselor transitioned to the new personalized learning high school. our nurse...not sure what happened, but we found a new one for this year. our speech teacher-was moved to another school. we have several new teachers (which is totally great-they will fit right in and be an asset to our team; very competent and hand-selected). what we didn't expect was that we are now losing our personalized learning coordinator as well. this is a blow, because he literally pulled everything together and molded so many of the ideas for this program, and now we won't have him helping to ensure that the vision stays its course. we worked so hard last year and put in so many hours trying to piece together a vision that made sense. my only hope is that somehow it maintains some of its integrity as we move forward.

one of the nice things-i'm not sure who repainted the teacher lounge, but it got a face-lift last week. it's fresh, and it reminded me a little of my summer vacation, so i'll have that to help get me through the year!

great beach-y colors, shells, beach pics....

somewhat random native american framed art on the wall...maybe because it speaks of the sea?

***fast forward to friday***
so, the technology training that we  had to got to present, was on wednesday, and fortunately andrea-my co-coach (sounds like i'm stuttering, right? but don't be fooled-i'm not). we weren't certain who all would be in our group, but fortunately all our our new teachers plus a few others were in our group. this was good, because we were able to then say to our teachers-these tools are available to you, but we use some different tools as well.  it was brutal, a total relief when it came to the final slide!

from there, i went to my chiropractor, and signed in, got adjusted and then as she was checking my spine, she found a spot that made me jerk (an area on my lower back had been bothering me); she used her magical little tool and i kid you not, that area wasn't bothering me as i walked up the stairs to my apartment when i got home! #imabeliever ...before i actually left, dr. bree said, "so, i'll see you...tomorrow? monday?" tomorrow? OH NO!! my days are still off-i'm on summer schedule (where i don't have to keep track of what day it is); it was wednesday, and my appointments are mondays and thursdays. dr. bree laughed and said she just figured i was making up my own schedule! fortunately they didn't have any other patients, and she didn't even blink about changing it up. that's part of what i love about this office-they are all about accommodating clients. and she said, "besides, it seems like you needed it!" 

actually, before i walked up the stairs to my apartment, i made a stop at the new walmart superstore on midway, and i was impressed by the floor. yes, the floor. it was a really sharp looking poured cement...loved it. i went to purchase a kettleball for some home exercising(mostly because i saw a great post on my friend, lo's wall)-i was also interested in getting some swimming goggles for onion-cutting(because i saw brandy's onion goggles, and shea said she just used her swimming goggles...novel idea), but unfortunately, their end-of-summer inventory was out. boo. i guess i'll just be looking like gene simmons when i cut my onions until i can find some-or remember to look. anyhoo, when i approached the cashier, she looked at the kettleball and got a confused look on her face, "what's that?" i proceeded to tell her, and as she lifted it, "woah! what are you going to do with that?" "are you going to need help getting that to your car?"  "do you want me to bag that?"(no, you'd have to triple bag it...it already has a handle). "good luck with that thing!" 

yesterday we were back on campus, and i had the opportunity to observe some great presentations by our teachers at cabell. they were prepared, and had useful information to share. we had the pd sessions set up in a 'choose your own session' rotation. then in the afternoon, we had some mission and vision work.

after our sessions, we had an interview for a position at our school, then i got a phone call from ashley, our fearless p.l. leader at the district level. she called to see if i could come down to the admin building the next morning to be a part of a podcast series, and give voice to what is happening with personalized learning on the ground. so i agreed to do it, as it was last minute, and i was pretty sure she probably asked me because kristen and vanessa may have pulled the ol' "ask julie, she'll do it" card.

yep, i'm a glutton for punishment-i agreed to do it, which meant getting up earlier and leaving to battle traffic-which fortunately wasn't nearly as bad as i thought it might be. when i got back to campus, i was immediately snagged at the door to help someone look at their room and figure out how to organize it, and then i had another coach meeting me, as we were planning to collaborate for a thinking maps pd that we have to present for our feeder pattern next week. i was called to the office, before an interview, to have a discussion with our executive director on where we are with our personalized plc and pd plans. it sounds like we are pretty much on the same page in the direction that we're going. (WHEW!) 

after our interview, andrea and i had a meeting with my academic facilitator, with whom we discussed protocols for the coming year. toward the end of our meeting she said the one thing she was a little worried about was the check-in process, because there were a lot of teachers involved. we suggested creating a form for teachers to check in by QR code, like we've been using for our school pd meetings. i hope this is the solution that she was looking for! i love sharing the wealth of knowledge that we've accumulated over the past year! (thanks sean!)

it was great to get home today and be able to walk the boys because the temp was under 100! so we took a long walk and i was so proud of bruno, because this is the longest walk that we've gone on since his surgery, and i let him off his leash to go at his own pace. he did a great job! we stopped by the mailbox, and i had to stop by the office for a package-mail is wonderful, but a package? now THAT's a treat!!

i think i mentioned that hellen gave me a gift package while i was in miami to bring back to the boys-if you aren't up to date, chaco is the toy-loving dog. anything with a squeaker...so i gave him the reindeer first and he almost got whiplash swinging that thing around...he was able to get to the main squeaker in the belly and start ripping out the stuffing, so i went ahead and pulled all of the stuffing so that he could continue playing with it...he went to town-so i put him up for a minute, and he proceeded to find the stuffed bone toy-and got to the squeaker and stuffing...he's ridiculous.

shakin' it out. #happypup

and that my friends is how the new school year begins!

julie