School should be starting on Wednesday. Tomorrow should be the final prep day as all of us new teachers (over 50% of the teachers at Roosevelt Middle School are brand new to teaching) try to squeeze as much prep time as possible into the day. Tomorrow night should be an anxiety-filled evening of internalizing and rehashing over lesson plans and contingency plans.

But, as of 6:00 tonight, that won’t be the case. At that time, as I was driving home from the high school that has been hosting our staff for the last week, Mrs. P (our principal) called me and let me know that Opening Day has been postponed until Monday.

You might be curious as to why this decision was made. A little background for you:
Our school has been undergoing renovations all summer. However, because of Murphey’s Law, the building is still far from complete. Throughout the course of the year, we are going to have teachers on the move, teachers without classrooms, and teachers teaching out of portable buildings (that’d be me). Which, in and of itself, is only an inconvenience. However, because of reasons unbeknownst to us plebians at the bottom of the totem pole, the fire marshal has shut down the school indefinitely. That’s why we’ve been conducting staff trainings at Grant HS and that’s why I still haven’t seen my classroom yet.

At Institute, one of the keynoters at the opening ceremony told us that we needed to be flexible and always ready to “bend like a willow”. In light of that, all I can say is that we just got hit with another gust of wind as we regroup and rally for a Monday morning start. Good luck to everyone starting on Wednesday; I look forward to joining you all in the ranks!