The Grand Welcome

This is the third teacher orientation that I have been through.

My first new teacher orientation at Harlem was boring, but my dear friend Karin was with me and that made it more bearable. When I was in Aurora, the teacher orientation was just awful. There really is no other way to way to put it. 

But the new district that I am in really pulled out all the stops. The theme was 'Red Carpet'- and they treated us as such.

The first day of orientation I arrived about 30 minutes early thinking I could sneak into my school building to drop off some stuff. However, there was a GIANT line of people who all had clappers and it was pretty obvious that I wouldn't be able to slip past them to my building. So, I walked over and asked (who I later found out was the superintendent of the district) if I was late. They all laughed and told me to walk down the red carpet that was lined with people handing out free stuff.

At the end of the carpet were several people taking pictures of me walking down the red carpet. It was kind of weird so I tried to yuk it up a bit. After I came inside, some of the photographers came in and asked for my name and new school in case they put it in the newspaper. 

Today, my principal came looking for me, waving a newspaper in her hands. Apparently, I am a great advertisement for our building. She was so happy because my school is never featured or talked about in the newspapers, probably because it is the alternative school.

Here's the link if you would rather check it out for yourself.

This is another 'Red Carpet' experience they gave us. It was a lunch put on by the Chamber of Commerce. That's me walking in- we had to park pretty far away and it was very hot so I'm not looking my best.

This has been, by far, the best new teacher orientation I have been to- hopefully it's my last. 

Today was the first day that I met with the rest of the building staff. They (all ten of them) welcomed me and were so excited to help me. 

I'm so excited for this new school family.

On a rather silly side note, even though the induction stuff was done very well, each power point presentation that went with the presentations had multiple spelling and grammar mistakes. One of the companies down the street from the district gave away very nice canvas bags to all the teachers. However, they should have someone check their grammar before printing over 100 of them...