1 Down, 180 to go (give or take...)

Days of school that is!  Wow!  Today was the first day with our kiddos and it was a good day, just crazy!  I will just give you the highlights: first, their routine that they are used to was completely changed this year and none of them were compliant with that.  They were supposed to be having actual class periods instead of working independently the whole day, but they ended up doing their own work when they felt like doing it.  Two boys are as tall or taller than I am and bigger around and they pretty much roamed around, helped the intervention coaches set up a break room and move things around and did a little work.  The two girls were pretty rude and argumentative and got some work done.  The girl I was working with in the morning didn't have the best attitude, but she got a lot accomplished.  However, she had stayed out until 2 am this morning with "some guy" so she was tired and needed frequent breaks and took a nap during 3rd and 4th period; and then complained in the afternoon when we wanted her to do more work about how much work she had already done. (Maybe 3 worksheets)  Then on the way to the gym, she got in an argument with the nurse about something and said 4 or 5 F-words as I walked her down to the gym, then got mad and stormed out of the building and one of the intervention coaches, Mr. Butch, had to go get her.  

We did have one new 6th grade student who we weren't expecting, who didn't have a schedule so he stayed with us all day, and he was a really good kid.  He did everything we asked him to do and was very nice and funny and pleasant.

The girls are 17 and 16, and I'm assuming the two boys that were here today are close to that age.  We had one other boy that works on his own (with another teacher) separate from everyone else so I didn't really see him.  

So, basically it was a lot of redirecting kids, asking them to do their work, sending them to talk with the intervention coaches in the "practice room" where they practice following directions or whatever it is they were asked to do.  I never got the girl I was working with in the morning to do any work this afternoon.  She did write lovely comments on her math paper though: "I hate school.  I hate the teachers.  Don't ask me why because I don't know why.  I just hate my school work."  

Hopefully they will be still and quiet enough tomorrow and our teacher can explain to them that they WILL be rotating through their schedule as planned and hopefully it can be enforced.  This place is to help them understand and get used to how a "typical" school would function and get them to where they can eventually transition out into first, the other part of Whaley (this school) and go to classes with everyone else, and then to their actual home school.  

Even though it was pretty chaotic, I survived and just stayed calm and the staff there is really good.  It helps my stress level a lot that I don't have the legal responsibility for these kids like the teachers.  I'm there to ASSIST and do what I can.

On a better note, I think Max read my blog because since then, he's been a lot better!  He only bit/attacked me once or twice during the night and let me sleep and slept with me! :-)  He made me laugh today when I got home because I had just flushed the toilet and he was apparently fascinated by that.  He jumped up on the seat and would stick his head in the water and paw at it.  I don't think he drank it, as far as I could tell, but it looked like he wanted to.  :-)

Well, I can see that I will have plenty to write about with this job!!  Tomorrow we are practicing evacuation and disaster drills....so that should be interesting!  Oh, and apparently there was a 5.0 earthquake 30 miles from us which most of the school felt but those of us on our end never did!  (That says something about our situation, I think!)