Behind The Scenes

Have you ever wondered what happens during the summer to prepare for the opening day of school? We certainly have. So we decided to interview a select group of people to figure out what happens behind the scenes. In order to gather information we asked the following two questions of Administrators, Support Staff, and all teachers.

What were your feelings the night before school and the first day of school?

How did you prepare for the first day of school and how much time did it take?   

Support Staff and Administration

The support group is very important. They help the school get ready over the summer for the first day of school.   The people in the support group are the custodians, the cafeteria ladies, the IT Technician, Sam Twining, the people that work in the office, our principal, Dr.Nugent and assistant principal, Dr. Reinemann. They all have very different jobs, but they all have very important jobs. The custodians clean up the school. They spend all summer cleaning, Entrance to the Chickering Schoolsweeping, waxing, mopping, and so much more. We are very thankful for their hard work. The Cafeteria Ladies prepare food for the first three days of school. It takes them about three days to do this. The IT technicians work all summer. They update all the computers and install new software and new computers. They update the servers and Internet connections for the school. The office needs to know who is in each class. They also need to order supplies for each of the classrooms and put them in the correct classroom. They make many handbooks for teachers, teacher’s aids, and the family handbook for parents. They work all summer doing this. We talked to Dr. Reinemann, our Assistant Principal, about what she does during the summer. She spends a good “chunk of the summer” coming to school. She spends part of July and most of August getting ready for the students to come back. Dr. Reinemann makes sure that the custodians have the school ready. She orders supplies and buys math journals and sends them out to the teachers. For example, if you are going up to 5th grade, she has to make sure your 4th grade teacher tells your 5th grade teacher all they know about you. It takes her a little less then a month to do this. That is how the support staff helps prepare school for us.

Classroom teachers

Do you ever wonder what your teachers do during your summer vacation? We did and decided to interview one teacher from each grade: Kindergarten – grade 5. We discovered many similarities and differences. We learned that, every classroom teacher has to go out and buy supplies for their class. GO binders were introduced this year to help students organize their homework, notes for home, and an extra folder for miscellaneous items. Another similarity is that, all the teachers were sad that summer was over. They were also excited to meet their new students and learn about them.  For almost every teacher it took 1-2 weeks, to prepare the classrooms for the school year.

Some different things that teachers do during the summer are… The kindergarten teachers have to clean the toys, and put all the different markers, and crayons, and colored pencils in all the different bins, so it’s easy and clear for the kindergartners to find things. Grades 1 and 2 set up math, reading, writing, and science areas. The older grades focus on organizing their classroom and classroom libraries. The last difference is that every grade gets different level books.

The Specialists

The Specialists, in our school, are the teachers who teach Physical Education [P.E.], Art, Music, Band, Library, and Technology. We noticed there were similar tasks as well as unique tasks for their subject. The average time it took for the Specialists to prepare during the summer was 4-5 days. Most Specialists had lots of new supplies to organize and put away.  They also put up bulletin boards and posters. The Specialists had many different tasks to complete before the first day of school, for example, the Technology Integrator had to set up new network accounts, while the P.E. teachers had to work on writing new curriculum. All their feelings, the night before school started, were the same; they were all nervous and excited to start a new year.
 

We were surprised at how much the school staff has to do, behind the scenes, to prepare the school for the new year. Our curiosity is finally fulfilled.

Reported by: Adam, Chetan, Will G., Alexis, Ryan, Martin, Lauren, and Claire