Old Fashioned Way of Communicating

I usually don't like to write about work for multiple reasons. (1) My job consists of way too much confidentiality, and (2) You never know who's going to run into my blog. This IS a small world after all. But, today was a day, a crazy day alright. To make a long story short, we have been deeling with some major schedule changes in our special education department. I have been on board since day one, keeping my negative thoughts to a minimal and constantly reminding others of the positives. The main focus of the schedule change was so that each special education teacher is placed with a specific grade, thus being able to collaborate once every 5 days with that grade level, work only with students in that grade level, and be available to work with a group of students during enrichment time. Sounds great. I am super pumped!

Well, today the new schedule was put in place, and I am afraid of how it is ever going to last. It started as a one-month trial period, to prepare for next year, but we can't imagine having to make another schedule change a month from now. Not for us, and not for the students. It's just too much. Despite the premature negativity from many, including myself on a rare occasion, I came to school today ready to face my new challenges with a positive attiude; coffee in hand and smile on my face.

The new schedule change wasn't my biggest challenge of the day. It is unbelieveable how time consuming it is to schedule meetings, converse with other teachers, contact parents, etc. Last week I played cat and mouse via telephone and email with about 3 different people last week trying to line up ONE, count them, ONE, meeting in the near future. Dates were picked, and one person was unavailable, another date was picked and then the time of day wasn't going to work, etc. It was rediculous. I get tired of trying to set things up via email, and have resorted back to the old fashioned way of communicating ... face to face. I spent and hour and a half today with a handful of different people on about 5 different topics and was finally able to cross a few things off my list of things to do. Plus, this gives me a sense of connection with the teachers and I get a chance to discuss how things are really going for some of my students in the classroom and during their specials.

Overall, the kids were good today. They were okay with the schedule changes for the most part. I could tell that things weren't going as smoothly, but that happens. And I think I am going to blame it on the weather. Remember all that cold weather we got in the past couple of weeks? Well, it has finally begun to warm up a bit (above 0), but now with the warmer temps it has pretty much snowed on and off all day here. It is very pretty, covering the dirty snow that had been sitting there for weeks. But, with the warmer temps, the snow was melting earlier today and has begun to freeze. With that in mind, I am taking a "Personal Snow Day" and staying home from the gym. No swim tonight. And I am not even going to feel guilty. I worked my ars of last week and deserve a monday night off.

I am going to leave you with a funny clip from one of my favorite sitcoms. It made me laugh.



Live life ... and laugh a little!