Wild Week

 Okay, I understand that today is only Tuesday. But trust me. It's been a wild week already. Really. Hear me out.

The crazy at the beginning of Monday came from home printer troubles after spending most of the Sunday visiting with my in-laws. My home printer has decided to print a blue background on all pages with color, and a gray one on all black and white documents. I use it anyway on Sunday nights when I have a 7:15 meeting with the admin team on Monday morning. But this week my computer stopped connecting to my home printer about halfway through my Sunday night print jobs.

So, I went into Monday morning without all of my copies ready to go. I was ready for all of my morning classes before my prep period and lunch, so that was good enough... Until during my last lesson of the day I started wondering if I had made all the copies I needed to complete the activity. I had just started ruminating on how I could fill the end of the day if I didn't actually have everything my students needed to complete the activity.

That's when the fire alarm went off. As the student body lined up outside behind the school, we heard the fire trucks arriving in front of the school. It wasn't a drill. Apparently it wasn't a fire either - it was smoke from crayons being melted during art class. And it turns out I DID have all the copies I needed. But my instructional time was eaten up by the fast walk outside, standing around in the cold, and the leisurely walk back into the building.

Today was slated to be really, really long. Tuesday is our early dismissal day for staff meetings. My fellow GRACE (guiding regionally, advancing Catholic education) teacher leader and I were running the meeting. Finally. We had initially been on the calendar to lead this meeting the first week in October. But things kept coming up, and we got pushed off again and again. Today it had finally stuck on the calendar. In the evening the preschool through fifth grades were going to have our rescheduled open house. It was originally supposed to be on Thursday, but the power went out on Thursday. When I left for work this morning, I told my husband I'd see him after open house tonight. He replied, "Unless the power goes out."

As my students were eating lunch, the principal came over the intercom and told everyone that due to high winds, no one was going to be allowed outside, and we needed to shut our windows and blinds, "just in case." Recess was going to be indoor. Even though our eating period was only half over, my students began to line up next to my desk to ask me questions about indoor recess. We made it through with the help of Chromebooks. One student commented, "That was the BEST recess ever!" as he logged off the device at the end of recess.

The school alert system announced the end of the high wind alert early into the afternoon instructional time. Did I mention that the high wind alert was actually a tornado warning? Anyway, minutes after the wind alert was over, the power went out.

My students were in the final stages of setting up the activity that was interrupted by the fire alarm yesterday. I handed out flashlights, and let them test their "roller coaster" set up. But I opted to not have them conduct the height and collision trials that will require them to record their results in the dark. So we finished the day reading by flashlight.

When the students left, my day was not over. My principal asked my co-worker and I to give our presentation to the staff anyway. Even though we had set up an interactive activity on Lumio, a Jamboard, and created a spreadsheet for "homework" where teachers need to input their standardized test results for our digital data wall, we went ahead and talked through our points. So much for all the time spent creating the interactive activities and slide presentation for our meeting.

When the staff meeting ended and the power was still out, the principal and marketing director were not ready to cancel the already postponed open house. We were told the decision would be made at 4:00pm. After the low-tech version of our meeting ended much earlier than it would have under typical circumstances, everyone stood around chatting for several minutes. Eventually I made it back to my room, set up several flashlights on my desk, and graded a couple sets of papers. 

It was 4:10 when I finished the second set, so I walked back down the hall to ask whether a decision had been made. It hadn't. Many teachers were hanging around the front office, waiting to hear if we could go home or if we should try to find a nearby restaurant with power for an early dinner before coming back to school. At 4:20 the marketing director made the tough decision to cancel the open house for the second time.

So, what are the odds on us being able to complete our science exploration of energy tomorrow? And will we ever be able to host this open house? 

Dare I ask what could be next?