Dad on Duty #75

Day 1 of the new school year.

Tori and I get there extra early. We have a lot to do today.

The biggest issue on the first day is herding the new students and parents through the school routines.  Where is my room?  How do we go to the bathrooms?  Where is the playground?  How do I get from PE back to my teacher?  And perhaps most daunting: how do I eat lunch?

For the parents: what door do I come in through?  how does this pickup thing work?

The second biggest challenge, again for both kids and parents, is separation anxiety.  On the first day…even over the first week…there is a fair amount of boo-hooing. And some of the kids cry too.

In anticipation of these challenges, the kindergarten hall is crawling with extra manpower.  Every room has an additional teacher or aide, and there’s a couple of floating aides too. I spend most of my morning on that hall.

There are a handful of meltdowns.  One kid hangs out in the hall with his parents, just outside his classroom, for over an hour. Finally, slowly, they transition him into his seat.  He does fine, but Mom is a wrung out wreck.

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Tori and I need to introduce Bobby to the kindergartners.  For an elementary school mascot, Bobby is really quite scary looking.  He seems pretty mad, and carnivorous.   Good lord, look at those teeth. I don’t know who’s idea that was, but I’d like to chat with that person.

We don’t want the kids to be surprised Friday (did that once, my first year. Did not go well. Imagine kids screaming, mute Bobcat trying to gesture in a friendly manner. Disaster.). And Tori needs to go over the rules: no poking Bobby in the mouth, no pulling on the tail, hugs and high fives are welcome.

Tori also reviews the visitor safety guidelines with the new kids; everybody needs a name tag.  If you see a grownup you don’t know without one of these name tags (she’s wearing all the acceptable versions on her shirt) tell a teacher or a Dad on Duty.

She does this all herself; Bobby can’t talk (or hear or see worth a crap. That head is like a big furry cave).

But shortly after we arrive at the kindergarten meeting to begin our first inservice, I hear a really loud shriek.  I think it’s joy or excitement.

Nope.

One KG kid is *totally* freaked out by the killer cat.  She is convinced Bobby is going to eat her.

<sigh>.  That went well.

Later, the freak-out kid’s teacher comes to me and says “so…..she’s gonna need to avoid Bobby. She’s still talking about it”. Oh boy.  How the hell do we do that?  On Friday mornings, Bobby stands in the main hallway, near the entrance, to greet kids. There’s no way around him.  Her teacher says “I think the parents are going to go through the office and out the back door to our hallway”.  Wow. Can’t wait to see this.

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After lunch, there are a few kindergartners wandering a bit aimlessly.  Separated from their classes. When I encounter them, sometimes they know their teacher, sometimes they don’t. “The really nice one” or “the pretty lady” are common answers to “who’s your teacher?”  We just go door to door till someone claims them.

They all have name tags for these first few days, but those are easily misplaced.  After every move (bathroom, lunch, PE, recess), the teachers count chickens to see if they have everybody. One flaw with this tactic: sometimes a random kid gets in your line (they don’t really recognize their classmates yet), but one of your kids is still in the bathroom.  So your count is correct, but you’re missing a kid. That happens a few times this first day, and results in me and an aid individually quizzing kids to get it straight.

One little stinker makes an intentional escape while her class is going to the bathroom, and heads back to her classroom to play.  None of the staff sees her go.  Better yet, she trades name tags with another kid.  Her teacher realizes she is missing, and dispatches me, providing me with her name, but not a description.  On a hunch, I check the classroom.  A little girl is in there with a couple of other teachers (not hers), just hanging out.  I ask the staff members: “what’s her name”, pointing to the small suspect.  They don’t know her, so they (appropriately) check her name tag.  “This is Jane”.  I’m looking for Susie.  So I shrug and head back out in the hallway.  The teacher is still staged there, unwilling to move until we find the missing kid.  She mentions that some of the kids saw her moving in the general direction of the classroom.

I have an epiphany.

“Do you have Jane?” I ask.  “Yes, she’s right here” pointing to a little girl who looks back, blinking sublimely.  “What’s her name tag say?”  The teacher flips it over and reads “Sus……I’ll be…..”   I walk back to the classroom.  “What’s your name?” I ask the girl directly.  “Susie” she answers, without hesitation. The staff members spin around and look at her, mouths agape. I walk back out in the hallway and tell her teacher “found her.  In the classroom”.

Little sh**.   Gotta watch her.  She’s a smart one.

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The Lost and Found is the bane of my existence.  The slowly growing mounds of jackets, water bottles and lunch boxes haunt my dreams.

On the first day, it looks like this .  Ah…..a beauty to behold.  Right after lunch, I find my first lost lunchbox, hanging out in the cafeteria.  It looks oddly familiar.  But there’s no name in it; that’s one of my pet peeves. PEOPLE – LABEL YOUR STUFF. I’m shaking my head in judgement and disappointment, holding the lunchbox, about to head down to L&F, when Frank the custodian comes up and says “I think that’s yours.  You and Tori left it at your table”.

Well, hell.  It sure is.

I promptly got a sharpie and wrote her name in it.

It is NOT going to be the first item in lost and found.

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Dismissal is a bit of a challenge, but no disasters.   I’ll tell you a bit more about some dismissal adventures in our next blog.

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Two more years.   I’ve got this gig for two more years.  It will fly by like *that*.

And then what?

I dread that day, more than you can possibly imagine.  Actually, after saying that, I realize you can imagine. Many of you have been there.

I’ll be leaning on you.  In two years.