PD Day Agenda

9:30 sharp (as per the email to staff)- PD Day begins
Teachers wander into the library and mill about, slowly noticing that we have assigned seats. Some people try to switch groups. One entire table switches locations because they have been placed so far to the front and side that they cannot see the screen.

9:33:30 – Principal address
“Today’s PD will be extremely useful.”

9:35:12 – First speaker.
Topic: substance abuse
Y’all, it is happening: kids are still abusing substances. You know it, I know it, they know it. Sure, the overall stats are pretty good and, yeah, we *could* invest in vape detectors for the bathrooms, but that costs money, so instead someone will tell you about marijuana and cannabis as though it is still the 80s. We will not talk about things like phones, social media, opioids or fentanyl. Stay focused.

Some time later – Break – supposedly 10 minutes but now 5 because we are already behind

10:47:08 – Teacher-led presentation about [Literacy/ Numeracy]
Note that this session will begin just late enough that the staff who worked like crazy on this presentation will have to cut something important, and every minute extra will shorten our lunch.

10:48:00 – ICEBREAKER
Today we will either be annoying the Humanities teachers and boring the Science/ Math teachers or annoying the Science/ Math teachers and boring the Humanities teachers. Roll the dice.

10:59:21 – Chipper staff members (confession: I am usually one of them) begin desperately attempting to convince other staff that they should stop saying that they “hate [math/English]” and that they really should not tell their students that [any subject but mine] won’t be useful after high school.

10:59:42 – If the school is providing lunch, (unlikely but possible) it arrives. It is set it up in the back of the room as staff continues to learn about [math/English] and why we should integrate it into our classroom. The smell of lunch now fills the room as the staff presentation continues.

Special note: today’s lunch is scheduled to begin 30 minutes later than on a normal school day. The smell of food should permeate the room long before teachers can eat.

11:12:37 – The buzz of teacher talk suggests that everyone is on task and excited to use [math/English] in our classes next week. Or maybe it suggests that Mr. X has pulled out pictures of his twins – now 6 months old! – and everyone is cooing over them. Well, everyone except the AP Physics teacher, who is still marking tests, and two basketball coaches who are hunched over a playbook. “Look!” says a harried teacher-presenter, “That playbook is a perfect example of [math/English]!”

11:28:16 – Everyone applauds the teacher-presenters. One of them is visibly sweating; another has just wiped away tears; a third is still looking at pictures of the twins. The principal announces that all 17 afternoon sessions are now “self-directed learning” to honour us as professionals. To prove we have “engaged with the content” teachers are required to complete a “proof of engagement” after each session. This may include Google forms, e-signing a document, taking an online test, a spit shake, swearing on a religious text of your choice, taking a blood oath, offering up your firstborn unless you guess the name of a short bearded visitor, hopping on one foot for exactly 2 minutes and 16 seconds, and other activities to show that we have completed each session.

11:30 – Teachers leave for lunch

12:30ish – Some teachers return

Afternoon – 43 voluntary meetings are available for teachers to attend this afternoon. None of them are about any of the 17 required afternoon topics. They are voluntary so we do not have to be there because this is the time scheduled to complete our required self-directed work. If we choose to attend the voluntary meetings, we will have to complete the required work at home. Oh, and the Principal will be at all voluntary meetings and will take attendance. Just in case.

Partial list of the 17 Mandatory Self-Directed Training Sessions

From the Ministry of Education: The total video time of this training is 7.25 hours, not including the time required to prove you did the work. We have allotted 3 hours for you to complete it. We have disabled your playback speed options on some – but not all – of the videos. If you figure out which videos allow you to change the speed, AND if you skip slides on the boring slideshows and just go straight to the tests, you can probably finish by the end of the school day.

Note: all training will be identical for all staff K-12 at all sites. There will be no differentiation.

7 minutes, 8 seconds: Equitable and Inclusive Schools

14 minutes, 12 seconds: Child Abuse Prevention and Reporting

8 minutes, 47 seconds: Appropriate sign-offs for professional emails

4 minutes, 3 seconds: Cybersecurity, Part 3

21 minutes, 32 seconds: Ladder skills

3 minutes, 54 seconds: Concussion Symptoms

3 minutes, 2 seconds: Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires

18 minutes, 7 seconds: Stop, Drop and Roll

5 minutes, 4 seconds: Shoe Tying – Reverse Chain or Bunny Ears?

1 minute, 44 seconds: Self-care to Prevent Burnout – You Are Responsible for Your Mental Health

Conveniently, no one knows when the teachers go home.

Community #SOLC25 1/31

It’s snowing again. What purports to be our front yard is currently a pile of snow so tall that shovelling more snow on top of it causes mini-avalanches either back onto the shoveller or over the top and down the other side. Across from our driveway, a snow pile significantly bigger than our minivan looms ominously. To leave home in the car, I have to do a sort of backwards three-point turn, using the snow mountain as a semi-soft reminder of how far I can go – though our recent thaw-freeze cycle means that the snow is a little more compacted and a whole lot harder than it was a week ago. Our street was due for snow clearing *before* the last big dump, but each major snow storm sees the city scrambling to remove snow from the bigger roads while our little residential street slowly subsides under the white stuff.

As I leave my house to walk to a massage appointment, neighbours are already out clearing their driveways. Glenn pauses to greet me, teasing, “Here I thought you were coming out to shovel, but I suppose you’ve got teenagers for that.”

“Ha! They’re only any good if you can wait until mid-afternoon for the driveway to be cleared.” I laugh. Then I realize that Glenn is shovelling Mario’s driveway – and Mario is maybe snow blowing Glenn’s driveway? Unclear. And a guy from the halfway house – someone I haven’t met yet – is obviously helping Glenn.

“Did you all get confused about who lives where?” Everyone laughs, and we banter for a moment before I head on my way, grinning at the way our neighbourhood functions.

***

The massage therapist has a 7-month old and updates me on all the recent developments – he’s rolling both ways now, and he’ll be crawling any day now. I tell him (the father, not the baby) about my own children, and we marvel at the changes in our lives since I started seeing him a few years ago.

After the appointment, we’re still chatting while I put on my coat and boots, and his next client arrives. “I thought I recognized that voice!” she laughs, and I turn around to see a former colleague. Since I last saw her, she moved away and back, had a baby, turned 40. Social media has let us keep up a little, but here in the little office, we greet each other again.

***

And now I’m home, starting my 8th year of participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge. I have already read a few blog posts from friends (though I’ve never met them in person). I write knowing that some of my friends from as far back as elementary school will read my posts, and we’ll reach out and catch up a little. I’m anticipating a month full of moments where we’re all shovelling each other’s virtual driveways and running into each other in the comments section. Once again, I’m looking forward to this community we create with words.

With many thanks to the team at Two Writing Teachers for growing and preserving this community.

Washroom Woes #SOL24 26/31

“Excuse me,” an unfamiliar adult leaned through the office door, “can you tell me where the staff washroom is?”

One of my colleagues looked down and tried not to snicker.

“Um…” I started, “well, there *is* a washroom on this floor, but the light is out, so you have to use your phone as a flashlight.”

The poor supply teacher looked a little startled. I quickly continued, “Probably the easiest one to find is” and then I gave a set of complicated directions to a washroom some distance away from us. She looked at me, wide-eyed, nodded, and left.

Glenda at Swirl and Swing has written before about trying to find a bathroom in a school. It seems like a small thing, having a restroom available, but apparently, in schools, it is not.

We have one one-seater staff washroom on the second floor that serves about 30 teachers. Also, it has been out of service for literally months of this school year… so far. For at least half of the first semester, the toilet wouldn’t flush. The care staff helpfully put tape over the seat to remind us not to use it.

For the first few days, none of us worried.

After two weeks, someone started a “days without a washroom” count on the whiteboard in the office. It was funny, but by week – what? three maybe? – we started to fret that our lovely care staff (who were in no way responsible for fixing the toilet) might feel bad, so we erased it. Another week passed, and someone started a “guess the date” – when will the toilet be fixed? Weeks later, even that was erased – our most outlandish guesses had been left behind.

“Never,” said one teacher.

“Not until next year,” said another. No one dared ask if they meant 2024 or next school year.

Eventually, the Chief Custodian caved and told us that he hadn’t been able to fix it himself. Given this almost unthinkable turn of events, rumours started to swirl: they had called a Board plumber who was booked for weeks in advance, said one teacher. “I heard the plumber came and declared that they were going to have to turn off the water to a whole section of the building,” said another. Someone else swore it would take an entire weekend to fix.

Every few weeks, someone worked up the nerve to email the principal and point out that we still did not have a working washroom on the second floor. He rarely replied.

“Just use the downstairs toilets,” groused the custodian, tired of us pestering him.

“It’s actually really inconvenient,” grumbled a teacher.

Then, one day, months after the toilet had been taped shut, with no warning whatsoever, the washroom was working again. Everyone was relieved (ha!), and life returned to normal.

Until last week. Then, someone came out of the washroom and said, “Um, did you notice that the light isn’t working?”

We had. Again, we emailed the custodian. This time he told us right away that they had tried changing the light bulb, to no avail. “We’ve put in a work order for an electrician,” he told us. “He should come soon.”

That was early last week. Since then, we take our phones into the washroom, and use them as flashlights. No one dares ask when the electrician might arrive; the custodian has already reminded us that we can use the bathrooms downstairs at the other end of our wing.

Someone suggested another guessing game on the whiteboard, but there were no takers. Some of us are pretending it’s perfectly normal to take a flashlight to the only staff washroom on our floor; some people make sad little jokes about it. Mostly, we try not to think about it – unless an unwitting visitor needs to use the bathroom, which is down one hallway, down the stairs, around a corner and to the left – oh, and unmarked. You just sort of guess which door is which.

I’m thinking of drawing up a map – or stocking up on flashlights.