School daze

We had sophomore day at school today. What that means is that all the sophomores come- no juniors or seniors, just sophomores. There was an assembly for them and then they went around the school with a teacher for a tour and then off to the park adjacent to the high school for pizza and then home. It wasn't such an easy day for me. It started at 7:30 with faculty meeting where we went over the policies and procedures. That was insisted upon by the school district office. The principal told us which ones were important to know, where to find them on the district website and then he moved on. We had to go over fire drills, lock down drills, bomb threat drills, and I can't remember most of the information we went over.

One bright spot of the meeting, the new faculty and staff was introduced and when they introduced me I got a round of applause. I guess they haven't had a tracker to work with the counselors for a very long time. I don't have an office, computer, phone or even a stapler, but I do have a desk tucked in a corner of someone else's office. But no chair.

I spent the day helping with those students that still needed to register and pay fees. I took their paper work, made sure it was filled out right, handed out temporary ID cards and the neon green paper that said the student had turned in the paperwork. I then directed them to the financial office if they needed to pay their fees or to the text book depository if they had already paid. Oh, and issuing parking stickers.

Then I walked around the school to get the lay of the land.

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. At the jr. high I left, there were about 850-900 students and maybe 30 teachers and 3 halls with classrooms. This school had 2,000+ students, 75-100 teachers, I have no idea how many halls I walked down because every time I thought I was at the end of a hall, there was a corner and more hall. There is an upstairs with even more classrooms. I have had children attending this school for the last 8 years and I didn't even know there was an upstairs! We have 4 "satellite" buildings- trailers with classrooms because we don't have enough classrooms. There is an addition being built onto the school, but it won't be ready until next year and should double the size of the school.

I think I will probably walk around the first couple of weeks with that dazed look. Just like the sophomores had today. But a bright side, I wore my pedometer a couple of times at the jr. high and I used to walk 3-4 miles a day. So if I can do that much in that tiny school, I should be able to do at least double that if not more. But right now I feel that first day of school, I don't want summer to end tiredness, so I think I will just go read.

---

Indeed.