It's A Wonderful Life

        Today I was informed as I was walking my 32 first graders to lunch that I would be given a break by our amazing title teachers (teachers who pull students out of class who are below grade level to help them make significant strides towards catching up). I was grateful for a break in the action. I usually arrive at 7:00a.m to prep for all of the lessons I will be teaching that day: reading, math, and science. The students begin arriving at 7:35 and from the moment they step foot inside the building it is game time. After 5 hours of straight teaching I was happy to relinquish my little ones into other hands while I took a break to grab my lunch and take a bathroom break. I walked back to my room to find my principal and DCI (Director of Curriculum and Instruction) who informed me that my co-teacher and I would be the recipients of an extreme classroom makeover.
       After an observation by my principal during a  particularly challenging math lesson on place value (I felt like pulling my hair out) she decided that our current classroom set up was contributing to sensory overload for our kids... who have enough challenges without adding the inability to see the SMART board or hear us when we are teaching. I thought these "home" improvements would be made in the weeks to come, but I should have known better. My principal doesn't let moss grow under her feet. She started rolling up the carpet as she explained that we would need to find an alternate lesson plan to conduct outside of our classroom while they worked to move our math meeting bulletin board, white board, and rolling cabinets. I was so excited to start making changes that would help the kids focus and me to find my voice again (I lost it on Thursday this week).
       However, that was not the end of this makeover. Unbeknownst to me or my co-teacher my DCI had sent an email asking for some help from anyone who was available to put our room back together. For those of you who have seen It's A Wonderful Life, the end scene comes to mind as I think about what happened next. Similar to George Bailey realizing the amazing community and family he lives in, I realized how many people were willing to give up their Friday afternoons to pitch in and put our class back together again. I counted over 10 staff members who came in to put down new transition tape, hang up posters, hang up bulletin boards, and generally clean and organize. I hope my gratitude was palpable. I could never say thank you enough ,not only for the manual labor but the feeling of support in knowing that other colleagues care about me and the kids in my class being successful.
      When I first started working at my school I was informed by the other teachers that the reason why people continued to do this work was because of the incredible colleagues we all have. Thanks to their hard work and village mindset my Rochester yellow jackets now have a little more happy in their hive.