Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers podcast, where we help new and beginning teachers
navigate through those crazy first years of teaching so you can maintain your sanity and
personal life. Here's your host, him Lapree. Welcome to the Teachers Need
Teachers podcast, the podcast for teachers who don't want to just survive teaching but
actually thrived. You've just been hired to teach at a new school. This
is definitely an exciting time, but I'm sure that there are a lot of
things that are on your mind that you need to plan for and prepare before
that first day of school. But where do you start. In this episode,
I'm sharing six essential questions that you must ask and seek out answers to
the moment you accept the job, shake hands and sign that contract. Taking
care of these six areas will definitely make you feel more prepared. Hair to
greet those students as they walk in your door, and be sure to stay
until the end for the bonus tip that you definitely want to keep in the
back of your mind until you meet your colleagues. Now, these tips are
in order of importance, just because it makes sense to start out with the
first one, which is to find out who are the support staff. So
this include the principal secretary who is going to become your new best friend,
the attendance people, the people that sit up the front office, that great
parents, counselors definitely, custodians, and any other support staff that anyone else
feels is important for you to know. A lot of times these staff are
definitely underappreciated because they work in the office and they're not teachers or administrators,
but they definitely make the school run and make the school run smoothly. At
this point, I have taught at four different schools, and in each school
I made a point of getting to know and kind of buttering up and kissing
up to the principal secretary because they're going to be the one who have the
most information. They know exactly what's going on, They know the principal schedule,
they know what you need to know so that you can be successful at
the school. And whenever you have just these little questions like how do I
do this, how do I put in a purchase order? Things like that,
they're going to be the person that you want to definitely go to now,
even if you're not super nice to the principal secretary. They're not going
to retaliate against you. But if you want them to help you in a
timely manner, or maybe your emergency is your emergency and you want it to
be their emergency, they're more likely to help you if you are genuinely nice
to them. But if you're demanding at all, or if you come off
as above them, just be prepared for a rough time. The same thing
goes with the custodians. They are greatly underappreciated considering what they do and also
what they know about the school. So if a student throws up in your
classroom where if you need something moved, or there's like some huge bug or
infestation and you want them to take care of it in a timely manner,
then you definitely want to be nice to your stodions, and especially if you
have one that's assigned to your area, you might want to think about being
extranized to them and knowing them on a first name basis. So the next
question that you need to answer is what is your teaching assignment? So this
includes what grade are you teaching, what subjects are you responsible for teaching?
Because even if the elementary, especially as you get into the higher grades in
elementary sometimes you're a specialist and somebody else takes care of other subjects. So
exactly what are you responsible to teach? Do you have a planning period and
if so, when is that? And also do you have any supervision requirements
or duties? So maybe on certain weeks or certain days you have lunch supervision,
or maybe recess supervision or nutrition bake supervision, something like that. So
definitely find out what is your teaching assignment and fully find out what that entails.
This could also be asking do you have to teach with a co teacher
and if so, who is that code teacher? Or do you have students
with IEPs in your classroom and what kind of support are they getting from the
school versus what you're supposed to provide. Also, you can find out if
you can take a look at those IEPs ahead of time so that you can
kind of get a sense of what to expect in your classroom. The next
question that you want to answer is where's your classroom? So you definitely want
to start planning out how you're going to lay out your classroom. Every teacher
is different unless there's a certain requirement by your school, but pretty much.
You have a lot of flexibility in terms of how your classroom is laid out,
and you want to plan that ahead of time. I'm sure you're also
really excited to plan out decorations or posters or educational materials that you're going to
be putting on the walls. Of course, I don't recommend spending too much
money on this. I would also try to find out if maybe the previous
teacher left any materials, or you could also wait and see until the school
year starts to see if any other teachers have materials that they're not using anymore,
and you can use those if you're coming from absolutely nothing. New teachers
sometimes spend way too much money on deckoring their classroom in the beginning of the
school year when I don't really have that much money, or maybe you don't
even have your first paycheck yet. So I would kind of hold off on
that and see what kind of free materials you can use at first, and
then you can start investing in your own later on. Something else really important
in terms of your classroom is also finding out where the nearest staff bathroom is.
A lot of times you only have near minutes to run there and use
it. Between classes or during a break, so definitely find out the best
route to the closest staff bathroom to your classroom. The fourth essential question to
ask is what are your bell schedules and school calendar? So this is definitely
important because even if you teach at the elementary school level, there's a certain
time when you are with your students, a certain time for recess and lunch
and things like that. It definitely becomes important when you are in the upper
grades when students have multiple classes and you want to know how long are your
class periods. Do you have just one hour periods that you meet every day,
Are you on what they call a block schedule where on certain days you
see periods one, two, three and other days four, five, six,
something like that. Find out what the bell schedule is, especially in
days like minimum days or just altered schedule days. Also find out what the
school calendar is so that you know the start and end dates. You can
start planning out when your breaks are going to be and you know in the
back of your mind figure out what you want to do on those breaks,
and also the end of grading period so that you can plan for when you
have to turn in your grades for report cards. I especially like to know
any required activities that I have to attend, such as open house or parent
conferences or testing or anything like that. I also like to know if there's
any school mandated professional development that I have to go to, especially as a
new teacher at my school or a district, or just a new teacher in
general, so that I can plan accordingly. Sometimes you can find these schedules
on your school's website, but it wouldn't hurt to also ask your principal secretary
if they have a copy of it that they can give you right away.
The next essential question that you want to ask when you accept that new teaching
job is what technology are you required to use? So this is become really
important ever since the pandemic, when more schools have adopted using technology more in
their teaching. So you may have actually learned how to use one type of
grade book or learning management system, and now at this new school everyone's required
to use something else, So it's really important to find out what that is
ahead of time. If you're lucky, it's one that you've already played with,
like maybe that school uses Google Classroom when you've played with that before,
But it might be something completely new, and it will be easier for you
if you take some time before the first day of school to play around with
it so that you can get to know it, and that'll be one less
thing on your plate once a school year starts rolling. I'd also find out
how soon you can get a school email address, because in some districts like
mine, that could take months before you can even get staff email set to
you. I'd also find out if your school has assigned you a computer,
so maybe you have a computer that's just for school, and maybe they have
a computer for you that you can use at home. Every district is different.
At my school they offer us Lenovo laptop, so you can use it
at school and at home if you want. And of course I definitely find
out if students have access to technology, So if you're like in my district
where students either have an iPad or a laptop assigned to them, then you
definitely want to know that so that you can plan your lessons accordingly. And
while you're at it, you can also ask what technology subscriptions your school has
paid for, so maybe they've paid for something like Paradeck or near a pot
or scholastic scope or something like that, so then you can start planning on
how to use those in your lessons. And finally, the last question that
you want to ask as soon as you accept that job is when can you
get teacher copies of the curriculum? So this is important because you want to
know what you're going to be required to teach. I mean, obviously,
if you're teaching science, there's a science textbook and you want to get your
hands on that because you're probably required to use it. Same goes with all
of the other subjects, and so getting your hands on the teacher edition and
even the student edition actually can be really helpful so that you know what it
looks like when the students are looking at it. Do they have physical textbooks,
do they have online textbooks? Do they have to take home a copy?
You can find out the answer to these questions of course with your front
office secretary, but you can also ask the librarian. If they're they're over
the summer or if it's in the middle of the year, you can just
go ahead and acquire directly. And if you're a new teacher, this is
especially helpful because if there is a set curriculum with activities and worksheets and things
like that. You don't have to try to come up with everything on your
own. You can just use what's already there and just hit the ground running
on the first week of school. Of course, when you meet your department
or your PLC, probably the first week back of school, you can ask
them more specifics about which particular lessons and materials that they use and have found
successful. But at least you'll have some frame of reference for when you start
out the school year. Now, the bonus tip is to find out what
is the evaluation process at your school. So I wouldn't necessarily ask this right
off the bat, because with your principal secretary Terry or any of the front
office staff, you already ask them a lot of questions. But when the
other teachers do come back to school and you're in meetings with them, maybe
having lunch with them, or they're sending up their classroom and you stop by
to introduce yourself, I would definitely ask about the evaluation process so that you
can be prepared. Keep that in the back of your mind so that as
your administrator comes to visit and observe you, you know what you should be
showing them. So that you can get a positive evaluation. Of course,
you want to collect this information from multiple sources because everyone has a different experience
when it comes to evaluations. I know of teachers who constantly get negative evaluations
and yet they're still there, but they're always on edge in terms of whether
or not they're going to be let go. And then there are other times
when administrators barely seem to pay attention or care about evaluations and they just let
teachers slide either way. So you want to find out by collecting anecdotes from
different people about what the evaluation process was like for them, and that way
you can be fully prepared. So these six questions will definitely make you feel
more prepared and definitely ready for whatever a way to this coming school year.
I definitely hope that you found these tips helpful and I can't wait to hear
how your first day of school goes. Be sure to email me at Kim
at Teachers Need Teachers dot com. Also if you have any other subjects that
you'd like me to cover in a future episode. Thanks for hanging out with
me today, you guys, and I will see you next time. Thanks
for listening to the Teachers Need Teachers Podcast. Love this episode, head over
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