I arrived there two years ago, the same year the school got a new principal. Since then, test scores have increased dramatically and attendance has improved. My favorite part about that school, though, isn't a number: it's the attitude. The teachers there are the happiest and most welcoming bunch I have ever met, and they like to tell me about the dark days, before the new principal. The kids are well-behaved and respectful toward me, grateful for any attention they get, and I swear cuter than at other schools. I like being there because I feel needed and appreciated, by kids and staff alike. Most impressively, there's not a single person at that school who doesn't credit it's joyousness and productivity to the new principal. A man who frequently comes to work in a T-shirt and jeans is responsible for saving this place from total hell, which is what it's been described to me as before, and the lesson here is this: one person actually can make a difference. To that man, I say thank you for making that school the "happy place" of my job.
18.9.12
Disneyland
I've
been at one of my schools since I first started my job two years ago.
It was a wild first day at that school, one
we still reminisce about to this day; the secretaries like to say
with relief that I wasn't scared away by Day One. It's the district's
lowest performing school and is in one of the poorest sections of
town; there was a stretch last year where bodies were found within
blocks so regularly we had to have extra lock-down practices,
and when two of our kids were orphaned by a domestic violence
incident last year, no one was surprised. It's at that school that I
feel lucky when I can call a parent myself rather than have to find a
translator, and I'm surprised if a parent answers the phone or brings
in emergency medication, and it's where kids know I'm there on
Tuesdays and have parents telling them to save their maladies for
that day to come talk to me about. I have that school because none of
the other nurses want it; it's too "high maintenance" with
its needy population.
I arrived there two years ago, the same year the school got a new principal. Since then, test scores have increased dramatically and attendance has improved. My favorite part about that school, though, isn't a number: it's the attitude. The teachers there are the happiest and most welcoming bunch I have ever met, and they like to tell me about the dark days, before the new principal. The kids are well-behaved and respectful toward me, grateful for any attention they get, and I swear cuter than at other schools. I like being there because I feel needed and appreciated, by kids and staff alike. Most impressively, there's not a single person at that school who doesn't credit it's joyousness and productivity to the new principal. A man who frequently comes to work in a T-shirt and jeans is responsible for saving this place from total hell, which is what it's been described to me as before, and the lesson here is this: one person actually can make a difference. To that man, I say thank you for making that school the "happy place" of my job.
I arrived there two years ago, the same year the school got a new principal. Since then, test scores have increased dramatically and attendance has improved. My favorite part about that school, though, isn't a number: it's the attitude. The teachers there are the happiest and most welcoming bunch I have ever met, and they like to tell me about the dark days, before the new principal. The kids are well-behaved and respectful toward me, grateful for any attention they get, and I swear cuter than at other schools. I like being there because I feel needed and appreciated, by kids and staff alike. Most impressively, there's not a single person at that school who doesn't credit it's joyousness and productivity to the new principal. A man who frequently comes to work in a T-shirt and jeans is responsible for saving this place from total hell, which is what it's been described to me as before, and the lesson here is this: one person actually can make a difference. To that man, I say thank you for making that school the "happy place" of my job.
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