We've got to do whhhaaaaatttt???

The beginning of the school year always brings changes of some sort.  Some are welcomed; some aren't so drastic that they make much of a difference; some are met with groans.

This year was a year of groans.

One of the first changes was the time clock.  Word had spread that we would be clocking in and out this year, so we had time to get the idea in our brains.  We had to go to the central office and have our pictures made for our official name tags...my picture looks about like a mug shot.  We have several locations where we can swipe, and if for some reason we have to start or end our day at the central office or at another school, we can swipe at those locations.

When I first started teaching at BRHS, we had to keep up with time cards that we wrote our times in and out on, and then we had to turn them in at the end of the pay period.  I never really understood why we did those because no one verified the times we wrote, so a person could SAY he or she arrived at school at 7:00 when it was really closer of 7:30.  After a few years, those went by the wayside, and we didn't have keep up with our times for a few years.  Then we had a program installed on our computers.  We had to clock in every morning, but we didn't have to clock out at the end of the day.  That didn't even last a year.  Now we have the ID badges with magnetic strips that we have to swipe every morning and every afternoon.  So far I haven't forgotten to clock out, but I'm quite sure a day will come when I go to swipe in one morning after I forgot to swipe out the day before.  Janice can manually override it, but I would HATE to have to ask her to do that.

Honestly, though, what would it matter?  I'm a salaried employee, so even if my time shows I worked almost 24 hours, clocked out for one minute, and then clocked back in, I'm still going to make only $2.50 for the day.  (Yes, I put $2.50 because everyone knows people don't choose to teach for the money.)

The second change is that we now have to call our own subs.  This we didn't know, so about 70 people thought "Oh crap!" at the exact same time.  In my previous 18 years, I have never had to call my own sub.  I am spoiled!!!!  We all are!  I will pray daily that I don't ever wake up with a horrible stomach virus and have to try to call a sub.  What will happen is that all of our super great subs will be booked months in advance (and if I knew I had a day I was going to have to miss six months from now, I would go ahead and get my name in one of their calendars!)  Then while we're puking our guts out, we're going to have to go down the list and pray we can find someone.  Fortunately, I haven't had to call in very many times over the years.  Maybe 5 or 6 days total.  Most of my days that I've taken have been pre-planned.

At one of the meetings we had today, one of the other teachers brought up something I hadn't thought about.  Let's say that one day next month I do wake up terribly sick.  Naturally, I will call the subs I like the best first.  Now, let's say that we have a really nasty virus running rampant around the school, and six other people have already called those same subs.  How many calls would you have to take before you were ready to scream?  Yeah, I wouldn't be very happy after about the 3rd one.  AND what if I have been up all night long sick.  I'm going to want to call as soon as I can.  How early is too early?  Some people may not mind being called at 5AM, but others may not want to be called before 6.

And the final change that has had ALL of us groaning loudly is our bus duty schedule.  We have to do one month of morning duty and one month of afternoon duty.  Yep...I'll have morning bus duty from Nov. 1 - Nov. 30.  Well, except for Saturdays and Sunday.  :)  One of the nice things about November is that we'll be out Nov. 11 for Veteran's Day and Nov. 23-25 for Thanksgiving.  Not quite as nice as having duty during December, but not everyone can have a short month.  My afternoon duty is in May.  At least the weather should be nice.

We've always had several weeks of bus duty.  For years, we would do three or four of morning and afternoon (same weeks for both).  The last couple of years, we've had five weeks of morning and two weeks of afternoon, spread out over the year.  So while we're still doing roughly the same number of days for each, just the fact that we have so many weeks consecutively is what makes it seem so bad.

I try extremely hard to be a team player, so I don't typically complain about stuff, and I'm not complaining about these changes.  I'm just sharing them.  It will take some time to get used to them.

Guess that's it.  I'm about to call it a night.  Getting up at 4:50 yesterday and today has worn me out.  Sitting through meetings most all day for both days hasn't helped either, and we have the joy of sitting through even more tomorrow.  Ahhh...I love professional development days.  LOL

Have a GREAT day!