I know , long title.
Over spring break I just took off with my lesson plans. I got my special binder ( I always used binders for my lesson plans back than) and just knocked out the last three months of school with my top 12 lesson plans that I had done in the past. Don’t ask me to remember them, but they were a hit. I started off my time, reorganizing the layout of the tables and my boss had given me a purchase order to stock up on supplies.
For those of you that don’t know what a purchase order is, it’s a piece of paper that is attached to an account through the district that works like money. I went and bought a ton of stuff.
Most of the programs in the elementary schools use the Multi Purpose Room as their main hub. Due to the size of the school age programs, that was the best place to house them all. However some sites were small enough to have just one or two classrooms to their selves and didn’t need the MPR, and others had more than capacity that the MPR could hold and needed to spread out into classrooms that were either empty or secondary space that ( like my science teacher did for us at the middle school ) the program could use.
The facility that I was going into only had licensing for just the one room, and the outdoor playgrounds. The amount of kids was just enough for the MPR.
They Layout usually is pretty simple. You have a section of tables for table activities, such as; board games, arts and crafts, table toys, legos, building things, etc. You had another section for floor play, such as; building blocks that are too big for the tables that go onto carpets, Reading area with bean bags, etc. Then the third and sometimes it was split into two sections itself was the active area. Where the kids could play four square, hula hoops, scoops, etc. Later in the afternoon it could turn into a group active game area.
The layout that the coordinator before me had was about 8 tables, no carpets, and just one active game. Like I said boring. For the three months that I was there I turned it over into a beautiful, organized, and clean space. With the help of another fellow member that was a Coordinator, but he was stepping down to a club leader to have more time at home, he helped me with filling in all the blanks, and the paperwork. I want to thank him from the bottom of my heart, he helped me out a lot.
The Parents, some where skeptical at first. Anyone new coming in to watch over their kids, i didn’t blame them. Actually one parent in particular was the best kind of skeptic. She made it hard for me at first, but we grew to understand each other and we are even really good Facebook friends still. Other Parents were so happy I was there, and was so happy with all the changes. I still keep in touch with that particular parent as well, since her girls were her whole world, and I became their world. LOL. Not to toot my own horn, but I was pretty awesome in the beginning.
That summer, I was working the Summer School Program and teaching soaps and candle making, dance, and helping out with the front desk. It was a cool new thing to do during the summer. I was used to being a club leader for someone else. However I got my Substitute certificate ( which doesn’t require you to take a teacher test) and joined the summer program. Got more pay, but less hours, so it came out to be the same as my new coordinator pay. which was now at 15.00
It was also this summer, that I met my hubbie. Went into the local shooting range on fathers day and he was one of the rangers. It was love at first site, and we never were apart after that. I was excited to start my site off its first year with greatness and maybe even fall in love.
By the next year, my first official year, my program had grown double in size. Guess word got around that the program was a success. It wasn’t just after school care anymore, it was after school Club. Kids wanted to come and be apart of something and were safe doing it too.
By that year I had a whole new team of staff too. It was four of the most amazing staff members you could ever ask for, in your first official year as a coordinator. They know who they are. I had three girls and one boy. When it was time to get ready for the year, we got the official word from the principal that we could use the stage as a secondary space and the MPR table room. We got certified for those rooms too. The Table Room became the 4-5 grade personal space. Which they loved. The Stage became the Homework club and the Club Specials room.
That year, I chose to have the front desk for the parents all about APPLES and Picnics. It was so stinking pretty and cute. I loved themes. I wanted to do ABC’s theme all over the place. We even got word we could have a Kinder Room in an adjacent classroom from the MPR. Which ended being perfect. More Storage and more space to spread out, and I got to move my office desk from the stage to that room. I can’t remember, but the theme was for the letter B, I think one of my girls decorated it in BEE’s. If my memory serves me right. Correct me if I am wrong below, my wonderful staff.
The principal was a retired teacher that came back to act as principal until the following year. He was so nice and generous, and wanted me and my staff to be apart of anything and everything. Which we all tried to do. Attend meetings, kids events, and school charities. I think the most interesting day that year was the day of the flood. The Program was canceled for the day, due to everyone panicking, but we had to get to school and help the kids get out to their cars.
We just got everything ready for the next day and then went home. As far as the lesson plans went, I went a little bit overboard. LOL. I chose a theme for the ENTIRE MONTH and then each week would be apart of that monthly theme. Example: Around the World Month, we had Italy as one of the weeks and the special event ( we had those on Wednesdays because they were the longest day due to early release) I got a baby pool and got lots and lots of grapes. Had the kids take off their shoes and socks and got to squish the grapes like real Italians did.
It was also during this year that I started to realize what a hypocrisy being a coordinator was. The managers ( now this is my experience and some other staff members would agree with me, I am not wining) they had their favorites, usually it was their close friends, and there was the rest of us. Under appreciated, used, and abused. I swear I never could do anything right by their standards. It all fell down hill after a parent complained about me making his daughter cry.
Let me explain. I can’t remember the event going on in the school, but it had something to do with the kids would make rings of paper with compliments on them for other kids and would attach them to each ring, and the kids would collect them from their friends, teachers, etc. To show that bullying isn’t allowed. The girl was a 5th grader, and she was making rings for herself for her own backpack, and I sat her down and told her what she was doing wrong. I didn’t want her to get made fun of, if she is doing it wrong. Maybe the words came out wrong, but she did ended up crying. Didn’t mean to hurt her feelings.
It was around this time that my husband and I got engaged. It was just before Christmas break. When we returned my boss brought the parent complaint into me and I was crying the whole time. I felt underappreciated, I felt like this person, who I thought I could trust and talk to, was becoming my enemy. She blamed me for the wrong so much in fact that when I finally got the courage to stand up to her, and told her how i felt, because she wasn’t listening to my side of the story at all, just completely throwing me under the bus, she took it more as disobedience, and wrote me up a reprimand for that as well. I was on probation for two weeks with pay while they went through a trial like thing. The managers would look over my case and decide my fate as it were.
I got off. LOL. However It was my first big offense. I knew from that point on, if didn’t do anything to the letter, I would be let go. Not because I did anything wrong, but because they just wanted a reason to get rid of me and put someone there they liked better.
It was also during the whole ordeal that I was being nominated by the most recognized award in an afterschool program. I was happy with my site, my kids, and my families. I would not have gotten nominated without them. I love you all very much for that. The year before award ceremony was during an after school convention. Every manager showed up for that award ceremony for the person who was nominated from our programs, but the year I was nominated, no one came. The only person who came was the Director, who I admired very much, and still do to this day. His vision of what a program looks like, surpasses all programs. I was happy he was their for me, but my own manager couldn’t be there. Some excuse that she was busy with something else. The others, were running Saturday programs. Yea right, their names were on the table with me. A table for 10 only had me, my mom, my husband, and the director. It was depressing. I would look around at the other tables with the other staff members, and I could see some of them staring in my direction. I didn’t win, but if I had, I would have made an amazing speech.
It was at the time of my wedding in April, almost the school year was about to end, that I knew I was happy in my personal life, but the stress at work was getting worse. They had more demands of us, and less money to get it done. Everything I would do, needed to change, and when I changed it, it would need to change again.
At least the summer program was a nice change and distraction. I was teaching again, and helping out with the other programs.
When It came to the new next year, It didn’t go great after that. Got a new principal, a total BITCH. Sorry again for the language, but I am an adult, and that is how i would describe her. She and I, or so i thought in the beginning, had an understanding. Except on the first day of school, it was so crazy, that when I sent the kids to the library ( which was now a place that was certified by DHS) She came up to me and yelled at me in the hallway ( IN FRONT OF A STUDENT) that I was undermining her authority and I didn’t have the right for that space.
It was from then on that she made my life miserable at Sierra. Which by the way, according to the kids, she was jealous of me. All the kids would talk to her about how they loved me, and even when they got in trouble at school, they would ask for me. Anytime i needed anything, she would refuse it, and anytime we did something during after hours, we got blamed if something broke. It got to be so much that my boss came to me the day before fall break, and told me I was being transferred to another site. Just like that. Not the day before, so I could say goodbye to my kids, or have time to collect my things. I was not to return there at all.
BITCH.
You know what. Here is the sad thing, and I hope it has changed since then. The after school programs are apart of the district. They have the same badges as everyone else on those campuses. Principals, her most, think she’s better than everyone else, and think that school is her own personal property. That isn’t the case. A school is owned by the district. The Principal is a body to run it during SCHOOL HOURS. The Coordinator is the body that runs it during AFTER SCHOOL HOURS. Just cause she gets paid more, she thinks she has the power to treat people like shit.
I was heart broken. I was devastated. I couldn’t breath. My staff had to keep telling me to breath. We all hugged each other and I made them promise to take good care of the kids. That is what matters most, the kids. I told them to tell them I loved them, and this wasn’t their fault. It was the hardest thing i had to do, was walk away from that school.
I cried mostly through fall break, I even while we were in NEW YORK on vacation visiting my husbands parents, who lived there at the time, and I did my best to stay positive. I just didn’t think it could get better or worse.
wrong again.
The TAWL Mom 