When the other shoe drops (on your head)

School has started for thousands of children across the state of Texas, but not for us. My district is completing some building projects and therefore pushed back our start date. So this has been the longest summer of my professional career. Granted, it was filled with graduate school and other "fun" activities, but it was long.

I was really looking forward to the beginning of the school year this year. I was a year older, smarter and more experienced. I was within a semester of graduating and receiving my principal's certificate. I had survived scheduling, text books, and discipline referrals (along with parent, teacher, and student complaints...) and so this year was going to go much smoother.

Wrong.

Well, mostly wrong.

I am more prepared to deal with any of the contingencies mentioned above. What I wasn't prepared for was the fact that I would be placed in the same sink or swim situations...In many respects I am actually behind where I was at this time last year. So much for more prepared, right? Books aren't ready, the schedule is problematic, and great ideas about student management went over like a lead balloon...

Luckily, I have a few more days of school, plus some time on the weekend (sigh) to get things put together as much as possible. I'm really subscribing to the old phrase of "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry".

So I'll struggle once again to get things ready for my teachers so they don't have to struggle to get things ready for their kids. So forgive an extended absence from posting...I'll probably be scanning textbooks.