Happily Optimistic

I'll be starting my fourth year at my current school, 13th overall, in a little over a month. Other than my first year of teaching and my first year at new schools, this year provides me with the most optimism and excitement. Why? I thought you'd never ask.

We have a new principal this year, and I feel pretty good about that. Now, I didn't dislike my former principal. In fact, we got along very well and she was supportive of what I was doing in the library. She was provided with an opportunity in another district, a move I would have made if I was her, and jumped at it. As far as our new principal is concerned, what I've heard has been positive. The staff at the middle school he was AP at apparently are going to miss him. That's bad news for them, good news for us. He seems to be excited about coming to our school and has been there quite a bit over the summer meeting with teachers and getting settled. Today, we sat down and talked a little about the upcoming year, which he is doing with all teachers who are willing to come in and have a chat. I like this approach. I'm usually not excited about an upcoming school year in July, but this time, I am.

I'm also looking forward to this year because of some major changes in our school. In addition to the new principal, our teaching staff is going to look a little different. Our sixth grade teachers are gone, along with all sixth grade students. Our district has done a little realigning and our elementary schools are now K-5. In addition to this, we had a few teachers move out of our building and few different ones move in. The dynamics of our building should be very different than in the past, and I hope it's a good change.

I have learned quite a bit in the past 6 months since I've jumped into Web 2.0. I'm learning how to use technology better with students and also to improve my learning. I can't wait to begin implementing more projects with teachers and collaborating more to show how important the library and technology can be to our students. I've got some personal things I'm working on for the future and hopefully some of those will start to take shape as well. Regardless, I'm excited about the 08-09 school year.

Now, back to summer vacation!