My school has approximately 420 students from Pre-K through 5th grade. However, for FTE, full time equivalent count, we cannot include our sixty Pre-K students. This leaves us with about 360 kids which that state uses to determine our funding. My county has been nice enough to grant each school with a full time media specialist and at minimum a part time clerk no matter what their count. This year we earned an additional part time paraprofessional position for school, and my principle told me that we could use the new position to make my clerk full time. She moved from being in the media center four hours a day to almost six hours a day. Unfortunately, this has proven to be a challenge for me. Last year she was with me for four hours straight. Now I am having to adjust her schedule around her lunch break, lunch duty, and to meet the needs of our front office staff. It has been strange, but we are adjusting to the time changes as the days progress. My biggest trouble now comes when I have to communicate my expectations. I am the type of persons that feels the need to do a task a certain way. I can be down right stubborn about when and how a job gets done. In fact, I am hardest on myself, but I have to realize that jobs can be done in ways other than those I feel is best. I believe that we will be a well oiled machine within the next few weeks.
Scheduling matters aside, there were some great experiences in the media center this week. Our inclusion Pre-K class came in for story time. It was a blast. They were so eager to listen to some stories before they went to lunch. I choose to read two books about animals this week. The kids were spot on when I asked them to "talk" like the animals in the book. I would ask, "What does the duck say?" They media center was soon filled with quack, quack, quack. I cannot wait until next week.
I was also able to divvy up the twenty-eight Chrome base computers that I talked about in last week's post. I conducted a walk through of the school on Monday morning to see the number of student computers in each room. Then I calculated how many student computers were needed so that each class on a grade level had the same number of machines. Each class ended up with three to four students computers. It was like I was Santa Claus each time I entered a new room. I have to say it is a good feeling.
My last bit of excitement was finally getting in a book order that I placed last year. Five boxes, containing almost 300 books were delivered Monday. These were already labeled when they arrived. Woohoo! My clerk and I went through each box to make sure that all of the books listed on the packing slip were delivered. The school secretary needed this information so the items could be marked as received and be paid for. Now we have to stamp each book, import the MARC records into Destiny, and display them for the eager students that will be flooding the room next week to get a look at our new titles. I think that I am more excited then they are.
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