eve of a new year

I remember preparing for the first day of school when I was younger. Things were so much different then. After shopping for new white school shirts at Epsteins in Baltimore, my mother would take them out of their plastic packaging and carefully take all of the straight pins out of the shirts that were holding them to their cardboard 8 1/2 by 11 inch frames. She would then wash them and also wash my uniform jumper. I usually got a new one each year and also had an older one from the year previous, which would require letting out the hem a bit to accomodate my growing waistline. Thankfully I wasn't as conscious about my growing waistline back then as I seem to be now.

We also had gone shopping for new school shoes.
Docksiders were the trend, and each year I would have a brand new pair to start the year. Usually they were brown with thick leather laces in the front. When you purchased a new pair, you were also given a plastic "Dockside" bag that I cherished.

The night before school started, my mother would be busy ironing my new school shirts. She would usually buy me at least five new ones so I would have enough to wear for a week. She would also iron my jumper and all of the pleats in it so that it looked just right. My brother had his uniform pants ironed, as well as his shirts too. She would then bring all of the ironed clothes upstairs from the ironing board set up in the basement to the second floor in our house. Mom would hang the uniform jumper and one shirt on my door handle to my bedroom, and would put the rest of the shirts in my large walk-in closet with a window, so that they would be ready for the rest of the week.

I would already have placed my school supplies that we had bought at various stores inside of my brand new backpack. My mother would allow us to pick out special pencils with cool designs on them, and special folders too. I loved shopping for new school supplies. Every year I got a new pencil box. They were made out of cardboard at the time and usually had a school bus theme on them, even though I didn't take the bus. As I got older, the school box became a pencil case, and paste became liquid glue.

As she was placing my freshly ironed clothes on my door handle, I would take out my school socks. They were long and we were required to pull them all the way up to the bottom of our knees.
The last thing I would do would take out my new Docksides and leave them out by the door, ready for the first day of school!

As a teacher, I am sitting here contemplating different things as the first day of school is coming for another round of fifth graders. I am thinking of how I have arrived here in DC. The long road to my employment with the DC Public Schools. All of the hoops I have had to go through in order to secure employment here. Some of which are still not completed. I am still waiting for my DC teaching license to arrive. I also have not been able to sign up for benefits yet as the system is overloaded with new hires. Shouldn't anyone have been able to forsee this and propose a solution?

This past week has been filled with alot of action. Luckily, I have been very relaxed in regard to most of what has been going on.We have had meetings galore, as the start of a new school year always brings new professional development opportunities.
We have been trained in new expectations for teachers, what one of my new teammates has decided to rename her binder as "Teaching for Dummies."
Apparently the district has not ever told teachers that it has expectations for them, or for behavior in their classrooms.

We will also be evaluated this year five times. Twice by our Principal and three times by someone in the district. Most of these will be conducted without prior notice.

Despite all of these setbacks, I am here for my class and am very excited for the promise of a new year. I, like most of my kids, do not have new shoes for this school year. I also do not have a new lunchbox, unlike how I used to get a new one every year. However, each year still opens with excitement...and wonder...