Motherlode has a post about all the many activities that take place at the end of the year.  The comments are really kind of funny.  There’s the ones that commiserate, listing all the activities they’re participating in at the end of the year.  There are the complainers that this is too much and they’re not [...]

I hope to write more in-depth about both of these, but for now, I want to ask/say: 1) How important is a fully fleshed out curriculum?  I mean pages and pages of “Students will be able to:” kind of curriculums.  I have a curriculum. It’s relatively detailed, but I think the whole thing, from 6-9th [...]

We got our hoped-for snow day today.  For Upper School, the semester is winding down.  Final projects are due.  Exams are around the corner.  I have many tasks, large and small to work on over the next month or so, much of it related to recruiting new students.  I can’t tell you how thrilled I [...]

Day 2 went pretty well.  My homeroom is a bit of a challenge.  The girls all know each other, mostly, which makes me feel like an outsider.  We have a lot of administrative things to get done in homeroom and it’s challenging to get them to settle down enough to get through everything.  I haven’t [...]

Someone asked me yesterday afternoon,  “What are you feeling right now?”  I thought it was an interesting question.  Mostly, I feel calm, despite the fact that I felt that my first meeting of homeroom was a little chaotic.  Managing middle schoolers is definitely a challenge.  I have 8th grade students.  Half of them are on [...]

Lots and lots of meetings, which are exhausting, but which, believe it or not, I’m enjoying. I enjoy the meetings because the tone of them is awesome.  Positive, grateful for everyone’s hard work, honest, open.  I haven’t been to a meeting like that in ages. Some of the same complications exist at my new place [...]

Tomorrow, the kids finally–finally!–are done with school.  I’m not entirely sure why school dragged on so long.  People are claiming we didn’t even use all our snow days, so that doesn’t quite explain it.  Of course, Labor Day was late this year, so that partially explains it (given that school begins the day after Labor [...]

There’s a really interesting conversation going on over at 11D about moving to a wealthier neighborhood to take advantage of the school district. The issue is that doing so might bring with it the need to fit in, both by the kids and by the parents, through clothing and other worldly possessions. We recently had [...]

The kids have 2 more days of school left.  Yes, you heard me.  Two more days.  They are in school right up until the 23rd.  The same was true last year and the year before.  They got out on the 22nd one year because it fell on a Friday.  They return on Jan. 4th.  They’ve [...]