The Day 1 Principal

Day 1

I arrived around 7:30 am with my black leather notebook in hand ready to embark on what was to be my first day of a long journey. There were meeting with HR, IT, Ed Tech, Benefits. There were acronyms for everything imaginable. I felt like I was never going to be able to wrap my head around any of this stuff. There were tons of people to meet. I tried to remember all of the names. Someone once told me that when you are learning names to try to find a physical attribute that matches the name. There were just way too many names to remember.

By 12:00pm I had met with the the Superintendent, Title I Coordinator, Teacher Accounting Administrator,  and a Lead Teacher. My head was spinning and I seriously thought about running out of the building. I don't even think that I had lunch.

At 2:00pm I was in a meeting learning about the computer systems at the school I hit a wall. I found myself screaming in my head "Use less words, use less words!" I needed a break. I politely excused myself from the training and said that I think I have am going to go to my office for the rest of the day. School was starting in T- 4 days, and there was so much that I needed to do in order to get started. One of my former co-workers while I was interviewing for positions to begin to develop a start up plan, "Karla, you need a start up plan. What are you going to do on day 1?" I kept thinking, my plan doesn't fit into any of this.

By 2:45pm I was sitting in my office almost too tired to lift my head. But, I had to type a letter to parents introducing myself. After finishing my letter I remembered that this was not a traditional brick and mortar school. You know where you hand out letters from the principal. A barrage of questions flooded my head. Where do I post this letter so that my parents could find it? Do I print it? Who do I ask? Wait what.... I don't have a secretary? Later I found out that I had to build a news center/ method of communicating with my parents.

Just as I was ready to leave at 3:30pm two teachers came into my office asking if they could move their desks. In my mind I saw nothing wrong with it. The move made sense. They taught the same content area, so, why not?  The following week I found out why none of this was as easy as it seemed. After saying goodbye to those teachers I got a phone call reminding me that I was scheduled for a meeting to review the new teacher evaluation tool.

My take aways for the day......
1. Don't make any decisions on day one. Learn the land first.
2. An entrance plan is nice, but they can't always be implemented.
3. I am really going to miss the secretaries at my old school.

Not sure if I want to come back tomorrow, but I am always up for a good challenge.