Posted By: Dave H
Heather's First Day of School . . . with a twist - 08/15/07 07:40 PM
Well, Heather has come full circle. Today is her first day of school - as a teacher. After four years of hard work she qualified to graduate with distinction from her Elementary Education major at Indiana University. She topped off her school work with two different student teaching placements. The first was in one of our county schools. The second one was a bit more exciting and interesting: she went to Australia to complete her student teaching requirements, after spending the better part of three semesters travelling one night a month to Bloomington - about a 2.5 hour drive each way - for classes and workshops dealing with her overseas teaching. (This class is considered a graduate level series of courses, and provided her with 9 hours of graduate credit for successful participation.)
This year the state finally decided to start funding all day kindergaten, starting with partial support and increasing funding over the next several years. It took until late June before the state told the school corporations how much funding they would receive. By the end of July our corporation had decided how they were going to proceed with implementing all day K. They came up with a plan that would put one section in each elementary building. Unfortunately the state's funding would fall way short of what was needed to fund a section of all day K in each of our 11 elementary buildings, but they are allowed to combine funding with their Title 1 funds since the initial children offered all day K will be those most in need of the extra help.
Heather will be teaching two sections of supplemental kindergarten/ all day K, made up of kids educationally at-risk. Her bigger challenge is that the classes are in two different school building so she will have to travel between the two.
Luckily she won't have students until after Labor Day as she has to "build" the two classrooms from scratch. One of them is completely empty, the other is full of desks and material too large for a kindergarten student. Setting up one classroom can be daunting, but she has to set up two.
I mentioned that Heather had come "full circle" at the start of this post. One of the schools she is assigned to is the school where she went to kindergarten. Even better, the room she will have is the same room that she began her school life in 17 years ago. To me, that is just too cool.
Susan and I are proud of what Heather has accomplished and of her choice of teaching as a profession. We know what she will do well and want to congratulate her and wish her well as she heads back to school.
This year the state finally decided to start funding all day kindergaten, starting with partial support and increasing funding over the next several years. It took until late June before the state told the school corporations how much funding they would receive. By the end of July our corporation had decided how they were going to proceed with implementing all day K. They came up with a plan that would put one section in each elementary building. Unfortunately the state's funding would fall way short of what was needed to fund a section of all day K in each of our 11 elementary buildings, but they are allowed to combine funding with their Title 1 funds since the initial children offered all day K will be those most in need of the extra help.
Heather will be teaching two sections of supplemental kindergarten/ all day K, made up of kids educationally at-risk. Her bigger challenge is that the classes are in two different school building so she will have to travel between the two.
Luckily she won't have students until after Labor Day as she has to "build" the two classrooms from scratch. One of them is completely empty, the other is full of desks and material too large for a kindergarten student. Setting up one classroom can be daunting, but she has to set up two.
I mentioned that Heather had come "full circle" at the start of this post. One of the schools she is assigned to is the school where she went to kindergarten. Even better, the room she will have is the same room that she began her school life in 17 years ago. To me, that is just too cool.
Susan and I are proud of what Heather has accomplished and of her choice of teaching as a profession. We know what she will do well and want to congratulate her and wish her well as she heads back to school.
