Year 2, Day 0

I went into school today to start getting ready for the new year. YAY! We don't officially start until tomorrow, and the students don't come in for another week after that, but I felt I needed to go in and start the process of tidying things up, now that all of my stuff is in my new room (YAY!). It also gave me a chance to leave Laura alone for a while so she could get some work done on her new job (YAY!). However, I left my keys at home. I was able to get into the room, but not the cabinets. Still, I got a lot of stuff sorted and put away, and even hung some of my posters up.

First big surprise of the year: Some students were in decorating the halls. One of them, who I taught some last year (and wasn't, shall we say, my most cooperative student), told me that she missed me, and that she'd wished she'd taken the third trimester of Geometry from me last spring. YAY! This is a good sign.

Today was not, however, my first day back at all this month. Over the summer, we lost our second-and-a-half math teacher (the plan was, he'd teach two science and two math classes this year) to another, larger, closer-to-his-home district. The district also found the money to hire both a full-time math and a full-time science teacher. (Essentially, our librarian who retired last June won't be replaced, instead of the librarian and math teacher who retired, which was the original plan.) So guess who got to help interview the new math teacher candidates? Yup, I was part of the team! It was odd, being on the other side of the interview at long last (YAY!), but not at all bad. I certainly had a lot of empathy for the two candidates we interviewed. It was tough, as they were both good, but before I left, we offered the job to the first candidate, who lives two states away and had to talk it over with his wife, and juggle the logistics. Apparently it didn't work out, because today I found out that the second candidate will be the new teacher. That's cool, as we all thought that either one would work. YAY!

Tomorrow, the school year officially kicks off, with the entire district faculty meeting in the school library (yes, that still blows my mind) and other stuff. I'll probably stick around a bit to do some more organizing, too. YAY!

Today's post was brought to you by the interjection YAY!