Emergecy Staff Meetings, DIBELS, and Subs

Over the weekend, there was a shooting at one of the apartment complexes that is in my school's attendance area. The shooting involved the family of some of the students that attend my school. Many of the families that also live in those apartments were evacuated on Friday night between midnight and 5 am while a SWAT team attempted to remove an armed man from the apartment where the incident took place. The incident concluded with the shooter dead and two others injured. Horrible! This morning we had a staff meeting before school to make sure that our staff was on the same page regarding helping students through this scary incident. We had a traveling team of school counselors at our school today who were available to talk to students who needed support. We were told how to handle it if students brought up the incident and what we should/shouldn't say. I have several students who live in the apartment buildings where this incident took place so I was nervous that they would come to school upset/worried/talking about it. I was happy to see the counselor from my former school and others there to support students who might be affected because I can only imagine how scary that would be to young children. None of my students mentioned anything about what happened and our day went on completely normally, but it is very unsettling to have something like this happen so close to home. Sometimes I feel like I live in such a bubble and I get really freaked out by some of the crazy/horrible things that go on in our world.

The meeting ran a little long so by the time we were released, there were already a few kids in my classroom. I was so happy to see 5 or 6 students doing exactly what they should have been doing even though I was not in the room when they first arrived. Backpacks were hung, students were checking in at the attendance board, and then sitting down at their tables to being their morning work. Nice job Kindergartners! Do I get a pat on the back for that? A high five maybe? I think teaching routines is such an important part of school and especially Kindergarten so it is great to see that they have really taken ownership over what they need to do!

We also had DIBELS testing today which seems a bit crazy considering we started the day by talking about how we are responding to a crisis and how kids may need a lot of support today, but we followed our regular schedule. I am not sure how the day went for other teachers and how upset other students were, but judging from my two classes, the kids were pretty okay. My kiddos did such a great job waiting quietly until it was their turn for DIBELS. We got our scores back already which I am so impressed with. My school is so on the ball with everything--it's amazing! While we were waiting in line one boy said to me, "I've never been in there before (pointing to the room with all the ladies doing 1:1 tests with students) and I don't really know what to say." I told him that the ladies would help him and he just needed to try his best. Then in the afternoon, one little girl emerged from the testing room, sat down, and said to me, "You have no idea what I've been through." haha. They are so cute. I was very proud of my little ones for being so good and well behaved when they had to wait. That can be really hard and boring and it was great to not feel like I had to really try hard to keep them quiet.

Tomorrow and Wednesday I am attending a training that has to do with involving and communicating with parents of color. I volunteered to do this and I am looking forward to getting to know the principal and some other staff members better by going through the training together. My friend Jill is going to sub for me so she came in this afternoon to watch me teach and get to know the kids a bit better. I explained to them that she would be taking over tomorrow when I have to leave and one boy told me he would miss me. Since they are new to being at school and my training does not start until 1, I want to be there when the PM group first arrives and do the first part of my lessons with them and then hand them over. I am so overprotective! In no way do I think Jill can't totally handle it, I just worry that they won't understand why a new person is there, so I want to be there at first and explain again to remind them what is going on. Even though I don't like being away from my kiddos, I do enjoy doing trainings and taking advantage of professional development opportunities. After school I worked on finishing up my sub binder. I will always try to get Jill to sub for me in which case a lot of the info in the binder won't really be necessary, but I want to have it prepared in case she gets scooped up by someone else when I need to be out.

I have gotten some more parent comments and great feedback regarding my classroom blog. I hope it continues to be a source of information for parents so they feel really involved in what we are doing!