How’s everyone doing after that last, hopefully, hot week of summer? As you have probably guessed, school has started. I am actually writing this in the afternoon of the first day. Although I have been out of school 46 years, and glad of it, this was one day I actually wanted to be there when school opened.
We got up early to get there before any students arrived. I wanted to get video of the first ever student to enter the building, as well as everyone else. (Sorry, I won’t be posting any photos of students or teachers on the internet) I wouldn’t be surprised if this video surfaced again in a few years at a graduation ceremony. The first student was actually a son of one of the teachers, although he didn’t come with the teacher.
I wasn’t expecting the range of reactions that the children exhibited. Never having liked school myself, it was strange to actually see some of the children running into the building like it was the best thing ever! Our board chairman was there to greet most of them, and it was clear that some never even saw him. They had that deer in the headlights look that said, “what have I got myself into”.
There was an orientation evening last week, so it was obvious that most of them knew what room they were in. It did help that many of the children know each other before, so it wasn’t long before a group of boys made a beeline for the gym, and soon you could hear the basketballs! The little ones just milled around somewhat like a flock of lost sheep, while some of the middle classes seemed to settle in and I saw a number of them reading the materials the teacher had left on their desk.
It was also interesting to see how the parents handled the first day. Some came in with the students and stayed a while, others stayed until their student was handed off to the teacher, and some seemed to make a quick dash in and out. A few didn’t get out of the vehicle. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which ones were trying to make the children think this was no big deal for them, and weren’t having much success! I’m sure some of the parents reactions depended on whether or not this was the first time they had ever dropped a child off for school before.
The teachers got to do one thing that until 3 days before school, wasn’t even on the radar, and that was to show the children where their lockers are. Yes, we have lockers! That was on the wish list for the near future, but if you have ever tried to buy lockers, you know how hard they are to find, in quantity, good condition, and affordable. About 3 days before school, one of the building committee happened on a school getting rid of some in Michigan. Although they didn’t have much hope, they made some calls and sure enough, we were able to get 100 lockers for a very reasonable price. They were dropped in the hall Thursday evening, installed Saturday, and somehow a few teachers found time to put nice stickers with their students names on the assigned lockers by Sunday noon when I stopped in to deliver songbooks.
The lockers really make it look like a real school. Another thing that looks familiar is the fact that the lunchroom is now set up. And work is quickly gaining ground in the resource room. The teacher has a desk, newly painted cabinets, student desks, carpet on part of the floor, bookcases, and cubicle dividers that will help keep distractions to a minimum. We need to start repainting the blackboard next week. After having to clean that room out so fast, our other storerooms are filling up.
Although there are tons of little, and some not so little, jobs to do yet, and surely more will pop up, this kind of felt like sort of a hand-off from the construction phase to the teaching phase. A few of us guys hung around for a while after school started, doing little things, until it was just time to move on to our paying work.
Although there is still going to be a need for actual physical work periodically for a while to come, the crew that is “running” the school will be slightly different now. It’s going to be slanted a bit more towards “mindwork” from now on, I suppose. With students here, there are a lot of decisions that will need to be made for curriculum evaluation, student engagement and performance, and what things need improvement or changing next year, or even this year. Our hope is to remain very flexible and responsive to needs as they arise, both in the operation of the school and students learning experience.
As I mentioned earlier, I expect to slow down these posts a bit, most likely to about 2 a month, unless something newsworthy happens. I don’t really want to, but with things running smoothly, there just isn’t as much to write about. I will perhaps see if I can make them shorter, so I can make more of them!
As far as our needs for your help, at this point, our most urgent need is for funds to replace the existing shingle roof with metal. We did have a small pile of supplies that got damaged the other day from a new roof leak. We are patching it as fast as we can, and have begun the process of getting formal quotes for the new roof.
If you want to help with a financial donation, you can go on our website, www.uccs.school, there is a Donate button there, or you can contact us for more information. If you would like to make a totally anonymous donation, there is a button on our website to go through the Anabaptist Financial group. You can direct them to send your money to us, and your identity remains private.
