Ramblings From the Couch.

Whew. This week flew by and has exhausted me completely. It has been a crazy nuts beginning to the school year.

For ten years, I have been working at an "alternative" high school. Notice the quotations surrounding alternative? Yeah, we haven't been a whole lot different than our cohorts at the other high schools in our district. Sure, we may give kids a smaller class size, may water down the curriculum and give students a little more extra work time, but we have never truly been alternative.

This year, with amazing guidance down an unknown road, with a caring and wise principal at the helm(and no, she doesn't read this blog!), we are creating a whole new school. When I talked about it with one of my classes today, I got goosebumps. We have made it possible to gain twelve credits rather than the seven of the past. We also have changed our schedule from a full five day schedule to a four day core class and a half day special Friday schedule. We really have no clue how Fridays are going to look but we are committed to making a program that helps students do better in their core classes as well as giving them an opportunity to gain more credit with more course offerings.

Change is hard and I am very impressed with how little my co-workers are complaining and how much we are getting accomplished. We have put in long hours and have been flying by the seats of our pants while creating and executing a new orientation program(which over two weeks will give students .5 elective credits). We literally have been meeting after school to plan the next day. Our administrators have probably not slept since last weekend. They are rockstars!

It has been many years since I have been this excited about the beginning of school and I am pretty sure I've never been this tired after the first week.

Here is to a sleep filled weekend and to endless possibilities for the new school year!

Cheers!