Back to School

If I thought Babak's visit was a whirlwind, I don't know what to call the week and a half since then!

When Babak left, we had four new Teach for America corps members staying with us. At that point, three of the four had been placed and had signed a lease for the duplex next door to us. It wasn't ready, so they were here for a week until it was. The fourth didn't have a placement. As it turned out, I mentioned her to our district hiring manager, and told her about about how the corps member was very enthusiastic and despite not being placed was coming to Clarksdale to help another corps member ready a classroom. Just as I was leaving the district office, she walked in with the other corps member--made a great impression, and subsequently landed herself a job at the school down the street from mine. Awesome!

Well, the day before they were moving into their place next door another 2010 contacted me for help finding housing in Cleveland. She graduated from Virginia Tech, so you know I was more than happy to help a Hokie : ) It was only too bad that Babak had already gone back to Baltimore! They were in a more tricky spot than the other group, because two had placements, but only tentatively, and the other didn't have one at all. They ended up coming to stay here the next day when the other girls moved into their own place. One of the tentative placements worked out, and our new Hokie friend will be teaching kindergarten. Another CM landed a placement in Greenwood, MS yesterday and has just left to go stay there, and the third has a hopeful placement in north Mississippi near Memphis on Monday. With seven first year teachers around for the start of school, things have been quite exciting!

Teacher went back to school Thursday, July 29th (for new and re-hires), the day after my last post. Aaaaand that's where I've been ever since! My classroom finally felt like it was ready on Wednesday afternoon, and I was happy to add children to it when they showed up on Thursday morning bright and early! I have three younger siblings of my last class at our school; they are all great kids, and I knew two of the three siblings pretty well already as well as their parents. I also had two former students come by when they dropped off their younger siblings to my class and others, and I have to say I was so proud to see them looking sharp in their uniforms and headed off to 8th grade. The first two days were busy but went well, and let me just say that I was reminded about a thousand times why I'm back in the classroom. I think it'll be a great year with this bunch, and we certainly have our work cut out for us.

You will all just have to come visit and meet my new kids... and come see how great my older ones are doing! I told one of my older kids the other day that I sometimes feel like the proud parent of hundreds. He just told me it was a good thing that I drive a "mom car" now instead of my "cool truck" I had before!