Feeling at Home

Well, I am three weeks into my new job working at a middle school again, this time as the testing coordinator and instructional coach, and it has been everything I hoped! It feels so good and so natural to be back in a school. I love being around students, I love being around teachers, I love the fast-pace of the school day, I love the 10,000 different ways each day is unique. There’s just nothing like it for me and I missed it oh so very much while I was away.

It is definitely different to be on the admin side of things this time rather than in the classroom. I don’t think one is any more difficult than the other, but they involve two completely different skill sets. One thing I was not expecting was the transition from working alone to working with others. I knew it would be different, but it’s different in ways I wasn’t expecting. For example, it took me a full week before I realized that everything didn’t have to be done via email. I could, like… walk down the hall to have a face-to-face conversation with someone! Imagine that!

But on the flip side, I am not used to being interrupted all the time. When I worked from home, no one interrupted me. Everything was scheduled in advanced because it had to be virtual communication. And no one just walked into my office at home. I worked uninterrupted for hours straight. Being in a school, though, I am interrupted all the time. The other day I sat down to write an email to someone and started it, “Good morning!” By the time I could sit back down to complete the email, it was late afternoon! 🙂

The nature of my job as a CRT is kind of a catch-all position in the school district where I am. It originally was a Curriculum Resource Teacher, who provided coaching and instructional assistance to teachers at each school. But a few years ago, when testing went digital, the CRT also became the testing coordinator who is in charge of compliance and logistics for all our district and state testing. Add in that this position is also where most assistant principals are recruited out of, and it actually becomes a training ground for your next admin step. So, it involves a lot of different moving parts.

For example, here’s what my day was like today:

8:30am – I met with a teacher that I am coaching

9:00am – Courtyard duty where I stand out in the courtyard before school and make sure none of the students kill each other.

9:30am – Bell rings, classes begin, I head to my office for the first time to check my emails and start my day. We are in the middle testing our non-English speaking students, so I worked with our ESOL coordinator on pulling students down to the front office for testing.

10:30am – Science department meeting about prepping students for their state science exam in April.

11:15am – Met with another teacher I am coaching

12:00pm – Back to my desk to send out emails related to our science meeting and send follow ups to my two coachees.

12:15pm – A teacher pops in because his teaching certificate is expiring and he needed some helping figuring out how to renew.

12:30pm – Lunch duty where I stand in the lunch room and make sure none of the students kill each other.

1:00pm – Back to my desk and worked on the science remediation activities we planned in our morning meeting.

1:15pm – Answered a call from a teacher who needed disciplinary assistance in her classroom. She is a teacher I coach, so I went instead of a dean. I ended up staying the rest of the class period with her to keep her students on track.

2:20pm – Leadership meeting with admin team (lasted for two hours)

4:00pm – Left leadership meeting and went to work the car line for parent pick up.

4:20pm – Headed back into my office to check email, finish some of the science stuff I was working on, and pull test booklets for tomorrow’s group of ESOL students.

5:30pm – Headed home!

Busy days are happy days, though. I like going 90 miles an hour. I like problem solving on my feet. And I really like the people I work with, which makes a huge difference!

So, three weeks in and I am 100% happy with the decision I made to go back into a school. All things considered, it’s been a pretty smooth transition and I’m so thankful that I’m here!