First Day of School

Connor started on Tuesday, T&D started on Wednesday. I worked Tuesday, but we didn't have students until Wednesday, because the construction from the summer wasn't done yet!

Connor's in 3rd this year. He apparently did fine the first week. I keep in email contact with his teacher, special ed teacher & assistants. They can also call me at work if there's an issue. I didn't really hear from anyone, so on Friday I sent an email to his teacher, asking how it's going. So far so good! He should be working on a "word of the day" every day, and he should have homework coming home on Mondays that's due on Fridays. I'm thinking it might be good to have each of us work a little with Connor during the week.

Diana is taking Anatomy & Physiology as an elective this year. She wants to work toward being a Physical Therapist (can't go wrong with the baby boomers getting older!). They are supposed to dissect a rabbit this year. Later, they'll go to a big hospital in Portland and see an autopsy performed. This is the girl who looks away when we watch CSI. Hmm. Should be interesting. She's also taking German 3, Video Production & Algebra 2 as electives. She said she wants to be done with Math after this. Too bad, it really comes pretty easily for her. The required classes are English & Economics, I think.

Trevor is doing Drafting 3, German 3, Trig, Chemistry & College Prep English as electives. The last four are more college-bound classes vs. elective in my book. And he's heading for something to do with engineering, and the Drafting should work best with that. Trig is just a semester class, and if he can do it, Lee would like him to learn welding, just because it would be a good hands-on thing to know - and it fits with engineering too. Trevor's required classes is Government.

I think everyone is going to need to be pretty organized to keep up with the class loads. Both older kids are supposed to do a household chore when they get home, then start on homework. Diana has her route, but she's wanting to change to a "real" job soon. I think we'll wait until after the exchange student is gone though, since it's easier to work around a paper route than it is to ask your new boss for hours to fit socializing with a bunch of german kids. Still, she's almost halfway into what she needs to earn for the trip, and that's pretty good!

The construction in my classroom was so late because 1) the school district waited too long to put the job up for bids - all the local contractors bid way high because their summers were already booked, and 2) they wound up using the district Handymen, who didn't know the codes as well, so there were 5 change-orders during construction.

We still had a toilet uninstalled and no linoleum in our changing room on the first day of school. They finally finished everything completely (I hope) by Wednesday afternoon. The linoleum had been laid on Tuesday, but it needed 24 hours to cure - but we could step on it during our day on Wednesday. Still, all that dust and stuff was a pain in the rear when we should have had kids in class. Oh well.

Now we get down to scheduling who is doing what with which kid. We have a new teacher this year, and she took the first 3 days just to see what the needs of our special kids actually were. On Monday she plans to have a schedule, and that will help us remember to take our breaks and lunches on time too. The new teacher and a new aide still need to be trained on feeding protocols for most of the kids, and that needs time with the nurse and Occupational Therapist. Until then, the three of us from last year will have to cover the feeding schedule. But that's okay, we can do that.

Whew! Once school is going, we get to start thinking about Girl Scouts! Whoopee!!