Working at a Title I School...

 Let me tell you, when I got my job I was just so thrilled to finally have one that there were probably some things I did not think to ask before actually taking the job. Sure, I'm not positive it would have changed my choices, but perhaps I would have gone out for interviews I had gotten after I said 'yes' since I had yet to hear from HR. One thing I was not told at the interview when I was offered the job was that it was a Title I school, which would have been a pretty good fact to know. I certainly have nothing against them, and I know often these schools and students need a lot of help, but I was not prepared as a first year teacher at the age of twenty-two to deal with THIS.

Before school even started, I was asked to be one of the cheer sponsors. I had mentioned doing drill team through most of high school and dancing before that, and apparently that made me a prime candidate. Then we were told that there were only six girls total, so we would be combining the squads and working together, which was really for the best. It would have been, at least, if the other sponsor and I were not so completely different. I suppose that is another story for another day, though.

I was at our football game two weeks ago and I began to think about some things. I knew we were Title I, but I had never really been able to see the differences first hand. That week we were playing our new assistant principals' old school. It was quite clear they were not really wanting for much, and their demographic is VERY different. I did find this pretty interesting, since their middle school is less then ten miles away from our school.

Then I began paying attention to the details. A lot of my seventh grade boys play football, and they were thrilled to see me at the games, watching them play. While I could tell that they did not really care much about their uniforms, I found it bothered ME a lot. The other team had their name and mascot on their helmets. Their jerseys were their main school colors, were obviously their own with their name and number on them. They had the school name on the front. Despite being in middle school, their uniforms were honestly pretty legit.

Then I looked at our boys.

Plain white helmets, aside from the stains they had acquired throughout the season. White jerseys with blue numbers; no name of the boy, no name of the school. One of the boys told me that before the game they were simply thrown a jersey in their size and told to put it on, and then they would make the list so they could announce it. It made me MAD. My boys care so much about the games, and they have to dress like that.

Now, I know Title I means making sacrifices and not having much, but I did not understand it. Surely there is something that can be done. If several schools throughout our ISD have the money for things like that, shouldn't there be a way to split it up a bit better so we could get simple things like new uniforms for the football boys? At least ones that say our school name across them. I know in the scheme of things, it's a little thing, but I can imagine that the boys might have a bit more confidence in themselves if they had something a bit nicer.

Anyway, it's simply been on my mind. I know things in life are not fair, but sometimes I wish they were a little bit better.

This Girl is Married!

Sorry this is so late, as we have been married three weeks today! Everything has been pretty hectic though. A real update coming soon, and hopefully we will have all of the wedding pictures very soon so I can post more of them. This is a sneak peek from our photographer!

-Tiffany

I get married in ONE week!!

Ahh!

My Classroom

These last three weeks sure have been crazy. I received my job, and then everything got crazy. We moved into the apartment about three weeks ago now (it was three weeks Saturday, actually). We spent Saturday moving in and had almost everything unpacked by Sunday. I had Monday and Tuesday to relax, and then the chaos began. I had new teacher orientation that Wednesday and Thursday, and then had my first official day of work on that Friday where the new administration (which is all four of the principals) introduced themselves and we did some team building things.

The whole next week was staff development, which was an over flow of information and stress since HR was behind and I had still yet to sign my contract (which does not happen until Tuesday evening) so I could not log into the computers, check my school email, or anything else that might be necessary in order to properly work. Then, this week was the first week of school.

Now, someone had to move out of my classroom in order for me to move in. He had been in that room about nine years, and was not AT ALL thrilled about moving despite getting put into a better room. So, naturally, he decided to make me miserable about it. So, he took his sweet time moving his things out, meaning I could not start moving anything in until Thursday, as in, about four days before the kids were going to be there for their first day of school. So that Thursday, after he moved out, my room looked like this...

Now, it might look bad, but you should have seen it before he began to move his things out! I was so overwhelmed and had no idea how I was going to get everything done. Luckily, I had a great group of people helping me out! My parents did a lot, and were even gracious enough to buy some things for my classes, and Michael was a huge help. His mom laminated everything for me, since she can do it all herself at her school, and when Michael brought it home the stack looked like this...

It was overwhelming just to look at that stack of stuff! I'm thrilled with all of the owls and everything, but I had no idea how I was possibly going to get it all cut out in time for me to get it all on the walls. Luckily I had a great helper and breaks during staff development to do some cutting. Then, they were kind enough to give us the Friday before school started as a "work day" which mostly meant that I worked on my room all day so that I could get plenty done and would not have to spend my whole weekend at the school finishing up. In the end, I am thrilled with the way that it looks...

I decided on the owl theme when I went to Mardel and saw all the great things they had, and then decided to go with the fall colors since they are pretty gender neutral. The kids keep talking about the owls and how they're cute, so I would say they're a success! With having 7th grade, I was a bit worried it would be too young, but that does not seem to be the case.

So there it is, my very first classroom!

-Tiffany

I apologize!

Hello all! So sorry I've been so horrible about posting, but things have been crazy. I guess it is true when they say you either have nothing at all going on, or everything at once. The whole, 'everything at once' has definitely hit, and I'm trying to find time to catch my breath. Between moving into an apartment with Michael, starting my first year of teaching, and finishing up wedding plans, things have definitely been a bit hectic. However, I am sure that things will begin to slow down soon, and I won't feel quite so overwhelmed.

This was my first week of work, and it definitively felt incredibly long. Human Resources has been really slow about the whole process, and so all of the new teachers at my school (which is quite a few because of new administration and everything) have been without our emails or any other technology because we do not have any log ins. Luckily, we go next Tuesday night to sign our contracts and everything, so that will fix all of that. I have some pictures of my classroom that I will share very soon as well, perhaps tomorrow.

Our apartment looks great as of now. There are still some things I would like to do in order to make it a bit more homey and like us, but for now I am happy with it. I feel like it's going to be impossible to constantly keep it picked up completely, and I've decided that I'm okay with that. It's not something that I am going to stress myself out about.

I've done a lot of the cooking since we moved in, and I'm feeling pretty confident in it now. Well, more so than at first, at least. I did not know how to cook much before, so I've just been using recipes that I've collected and things, and so far I haven't made anything that we haven't liked. I count that as a definite plus! Hopefully in the future I'll be able to share some recipes, as well :]

Anyway, thank you for everyone that has stuck around through my absence, and all my new followers! I will go through soon and check out all of your blogs as well! :]

-Tiffany