It's the first day of spring!!!!! (Though, here in New York and pretty much all around the country, spring has really started about 3 weeks ago...)
However, not only is today the first day of spring, it's going to be the only spring-like day for the rest of this week. We're expecting high 70's to low 80's each of the next three days... meaning it's going to be a t-shirt/shorts/all summer clothing mania in school.
I will be able to teach in a cool location because my classroom and my entire "team" is built in the newest section of the school, meaning that we will have access to a REAL fan/air conditioning system all day. The older teams will not due to the fact that our school is pretty old and isn't able to fund a renovation for the other three "teams" due to budget restrictions.
I honestly believe that this fan is a LIFESAVER for the teachers on my team. It blows soothing and quiet (!!!) wind into the classroom, calming down the energy of my 8th graders and curbing potential behavior problems. While colleagues in the other three teams are experiencing greater behavior issues, our behavior problems are being relatively dormant... which is great because now we're starting test prep for the NYS at the end-ish of April (really soon now!). Without this fan, we wouldn't be able to make it through the end of April, let alone May and June. [Fans = evidence of spring #1]
On a side note, more and more students are starting to violate the dress code because of the recent weather. Ms. Lopez and Mr. O'Klay have strict (and I mean strict!) consequences for dress code violations, meaning NO warnings. So when Mr. Parke (a colleague of mine & a 7th grade ELA teacher) and I were assigned to cover detention tomorrow, we were notified that OVER 50 students would be in the room as of right now and probably even more tomorrow since tomorrow actually will be hot. Interestingly enough, our school only holds Wednesday and Friday school-wide detentions. Efficient, guys. Really efficient. ;) [dress codes= evidence of spring #2]
I haven't actually confronted any of my students about the dress code yet, though today Ms. Lopez sent us a pretty lengthy email about how we are expected to uphold and enforce the dress code in our classrooms. Still need to ask another teacher how I can do that gently and in a non-confrontational way... it feels really uncomfortable and awkward for me! Any suggestions?
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