Thursday August 24, 2000
We had meetings most of the day and the thing that struck me was how organized this place appears to be. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but in both the team meeting and department meeting, things went fairly smoothly. The people conducting the meetings had agendas and were pretty much to the point. When we had a larger faculty meeting, it was longer, but also well organized. The pervasive vibe around this place is that people seem to really care about the test scores that this school has. Maybe too much emphasis is placed on this, but it certainly is a source of pride. It makes me feel that if I just do what I did last year in my classroom, that will be more than enough to contribute to the school's rise upwards. My classroom is getting more organized and I felt better today coming to work. I think that this, for now, may be a pleasant place to work. On the other hand, the faculty seems rather clicky, but maybe it is just me being oversensitive.

Saturday August 26, 2000
I went to school today to finish up my room and prepare for Monday. I was informed that the students expect a syllabus for their courses, so I made some up and put them in to be photocopied. It is kind of hard to believe that this school is so different from the one I came from, but I keep on pinching myself and will probably see things differently this week when the kids actually show up. During one of my meetings this week I was told that we usually do not stay the entire day during the teacher workdays. What a dramatic difference from the place I just came from. They actually have class sets of novels to read! At this point, I'm just waiting till Monday and get this ball rolling. I still feel a little weird, but I know I am good at what I do for a living, and have the confidence to make it work in a new envioronment.

Monday August 28, 2000
The first day of school at Sunnyland was a dramatic shift in my public school experience. Things ran how they were supposed to run with a few minor glitches. The schedule was pretty near to what they said it was going to be and when it deviated, they came on the announcements and said precisely how long it was going to be. I would estimate that over 90% of the kids came on the first day; the first day at Shitsville generally garnished a 65%-70% attendance rate. There will be more coming in after Labor Day, so I can see why this school was able to test 98% of their kids on Competency Exams whereas Shitsville struggled to test most of the kids.

Everything is different here: The bells ring on time, timely announcements are made, the kids are generally well behaved with a few problems, and there are virtually no kids in the hallways during school hours. In short, this place is a 'real' school.