You navigated EdJoin for countless hours, submitted countless job applications, filled out the additional online questionnaires at each district, and survived the job interviews. You finally get the call you have been hoping for. You’ve been hired! After the adrenaline wears off, you realize that you are in for a big change, and you wonder what to do next.
In most cases, there isn’t much to do right away. Hiring is usually done in May and June, and you won’t even be able to see your classroom until August. You will probably want to get the contact information for your future colleagues, but that will most likely be unfulfilling. As you might know, most teachers go feral over the summer, so getting in contact with them and having meaningful conversations about work during June and July is not likely. (Unless one of your colleagues reads Building Thinking Classrooms and then ambushes you at your home and talks at you about it for hours and hours. That wasn’t me, I don’t know what you’re talking about). So what can you do to prepare for your new job, and what should you do on day one?
Know Your Content.
It’s summer, you have time (hopefully) to read and process information. Take this time to actually read the entire Common Core Standards Framework for whatever grade you will be teaching. I don’t mean just the standards, but the actual framework document. The standards are just a list of skills to teach with some additional explanation. The framework gives much more guidance about the depth and rigor you should go into for each standard, and gives examples of what that looks like. The document is not perfect, and can be difficult to read sometimes, but it is crucial for you to actually read and process. You have to know what you are actually supposed to teach.
Whether going into a new district, a new school, or just a new department at the same school, you have to not only know the content, but also what content is supposed to be taught. You cannot go wrong if you stick to the framework and the standards. The framework will tell you which standards are essential, and which ones are supporting and less important.
For example, the Grade 8 Math Framework is shown above. Notice those little triangles shown after some of the listed standards? Those are the Major Clusters, which are “areas of intensive focus where students need fluent understanding and application of the core concepts.” Let’s say that near the end of the school year one of your colleagues wants to spend the next three weeks on a really cool project on volume, but you haven’t covered Pythagorean Theorem yet. What should you do? Well, I’d go with Pythag, since that is a Major Cluster, and volume is not.
Knowing the standards is critical in planning out your year and knowing where to spend your time. Before the school year starts make sure you have thoroughly read the Framework and know what needs to be taught.
Make A Calendar
If possible, try to find a digital calendar of events for the upcoming school year. The district most likely already has the master calendar for the next school year posted on their website for parents. You might even be lucky and your individual school site will have all of the major events planned out for the upcoming year. If you can get access to that, great. Before the school year begins I like to fill out my school year calendar with as many events as I can to help with my lesson planning. When are the professional development days, minimum days, holidays, assemblies, weird schedules, and ASB events? The sooner you know when those are happening, the better.
Get To Know Essential Staff
It goes without saying that you should treat everyone at your workplace (and life) with kindness and respect. It’s literally the only way society functions. That being said, there are some critical staff members you will rely on that you should meet and get to know on Day One. They are:
The Front Office Staff
Our school has the most amazing front office staff, and yours probably does too. These professionals are crucial for making school function, and all play an important role. At my school we have an attendance clerk, Principal’s assistant, admissions clerk, and office assistant. I interact with them every single day, and they have saved my bacon more times than I can count. Need a last minute supply for a lesson? Office staff. Copier has run out of staples halfway through your job? Office staff. A student left a phone in your classroom? Office staff. Think a student has ditched class? Office staff. Need to find money in the budget for some classroom furniture? Probably the Principal, but maybe the office staff! Just need to vent about how bad the Ducks played last night? Office staff.
If there is a classroom issue that I cannot handle on my own, it can be solved by the office staff about 90% of the time. Make sure you know them in an authentic way, and that they know you appreciate all of the work that they do. Start on day one, and never stop.
The Custodians
My school has over 1,000 students aged 12 through 14. They are loud, energetic, and messy. The school custodians do an incredible job every day to make the school a safe, clean place to learn. Aside from that, the custodian is usually the keeper of the furniture. Your school site probably does have that one piece of furniture that you need, but only the custodian actually knows where it is. Need one more table for supplies in your classroom? Custodian. Did a chair break and one of your students is sitting on the floor? Custodian. Queasy student didn’t make it out of the room before…ejecting? Custodian. Need a 12-foot ladder for your Barbie Bungee lesson? You guessed it.
Aside from getting to know them, one thing you can also establish on day one with your students is a clean classroom. My students know that at the end of the school day their job is to make sure the custodian can skip cleaning my room. It is my hope that the night custodian opens my classroom door, looks around and says, “I don’t need to clean this one!” Their task is huge. Do your best to make it a bit easier. One of my former colleagues kept a vacuum cleaner in his room and would vacuum his room before leaving school each day. Not because the custodian did a poor job, but so they had one less room to clean.
The IT Staff
For better or worse, classrooms are full of technology now. Most of the time it works. Sometimes it does not. There will always be someone at your school site that knows the technology way better than you. Ideally, you have an on-site IT staff person who can come to your aid quickly if necessary. Sometimes it is a teacher in a stipend position. Sometimes you have to send a Help Desk ticket via email (which can be a struggle when your email is not working).
The best option is to meet with your site’s IT person early in the year and go over the technology currently in your room and make sure you know how it works and what to do when something goes wrong. Spending 30 minutes with them at the beginning of the year trouble shooting problems can prevent or alleviate many issues that happen in the classroom. Be mindful of their time, however, since they are extremely busy at the start of the school year.
Hang In There
The first day of work at your new school will be a complete information overload. There will be meetings, handouts, schedules, lists, walkthroughs, etc. You might remember 10% of everything when the day is over. Just keep everything you are handed and read it over the next day.
Forget something? The office staff probably knows the answer. Good thing you already met them and know their names, right? Or it might be on your completed calendar.
Just remember that you are not alone at your school. Even though your classroom can feel like an isolated cave most of the time, you are part of a community of helpful, kind people. There is always someone at your school who can help you out. You just need to ask.
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