After plenty of preparation and excitement, we managed to get the child off to school.
Sure she was up at 6am. Of course she was ready and dressed by 7am. We needed to pick up her girlfriend Ashley at 8am (no one goes to school alone on the first day) so we had lots of time to stare at each other. About an hour to be exact.
(Her best line – let’s just get in the car and drive around! My retort – where? To Los Gatos!?)
I dropped the girls off in the swirl of kids and cars at 8:05. They bravely jumped out of the car – I say brave because Ashley had had a stomach for the last seven days totally dreading this morning – but Katie sprang from the car with a bound. I made my way home to my first day of interrupted work in ages.
So the first day, she got called to the office.
She’s eating at first period lunch with her friends and over the loud speaker she hears her name and the ultimate command – please come to the office! Turns out the kid was supposed to be in class – she actually had been assigned second lunch. That got her good.
Her day was awesome and she was so excited about being there. I was bombarded with a ton of “parent paperwork” that felt like home work. But the good news is almost all the teachers asked me to tell them about Katie and what she might need to be successful. Katie had some home work too along the same lines.
Also, all the teachers – the whole school in fact – use this great planner in an effort to get the kids to start keeping a calendar of dates and deliverables. It’s no Outlook, but it’s pretty cool. I really like how the teachers are consistent across all the classes.
Here’s her schedule:
Period 1 & 2: Language arts
Period 3: Video production
Period 4: Math
Period 5: Science
Lunch
Period 6: Social Studies
Period 7: PE
Not too shabby – got to love the last period PE – kind of ensures good hair days since she doesn’t have to change until the end of the day!