In-Service Week

In-service week is over.  

It is the first time that I planned and/or led in-service for teachers.  It was really odd being on the administrative side of the process and not the teacher side of it.  All in all, I’d say it went okay.  But, then again, I’m not sure what that week is supposed to look like because last year I was only around for two days of it.  

We did most of what I would consider standard in-service type things from an American perspective:

Ø Introduced new staff

Ø Went over new rules and expectations

Ø Signed contracts

Ø Took time to look at new resources and discuss how they could be used in the classroom

Ø Shared what we learned at our summer workshops

Ø Had time to work on classroom decorations

I’ll have to get some feedback from the staff to see what they liked and what they want to change.  For all I know, they hated it!

A lot of my week focused on building and maintenance issues, another new area for me!  We had to repair the front gate because someone drove into and dented it pretty bad.  We had plumbers in to fix pipes and toilets.   A plumber will be back this week because our water tank sprung three leaks. It won’t be fixed in time for the first day of school tomorrow, but I’m hoping it will be done by the end of the week!

There are still some things that I need to get done before the kids arrive tomorrow—the most important being getting TP for the bathrooms!—but they all are do-able.  I think.  I hope.

Interviews were interesting again this year.  I am so used to the scripted interviews at my old public school that the loose interviewing here throws me.  We had a whole morning of interviews planned.  We all knew about well in advance, yet I was the only one of the three on the interviewing “committee” to come with questions prepared, paper, and a writing utensil.  One person came with nothing!  Took no notes.  Nothing.

We called one man to come for an interview, and he brought his wife to interview as well because she had also submitted a resume. Didn’t matter that we hadn’t called his wife for an interview!  He thought we could just squeeze her in; and we did!  Go figure.  The man was interviewing for a 2^ndgrade position, and the two principals asked lots of questions about how he would decorate his room.  Not in the sense of “What will you put up?” but in the sense of “You are a man.  How will you be able to be creative and decorate?”  Irony of ironies—we ended up hiring the wife and not the husband!  Seriously, only in Haiti.

Carrying them in

K-3 classroom

Of course, I don’t know why I should be surprised by these things because one applicant put on his resume that he was married to only one woman.  I don’t know whether he meant to just one woman at a time or that he had been married only once.  Didn’t call him for an interview, so I couldn’t ask.  Which would've been okay here in Haiti!

The coolest part about all the interviewing is that we hired a part-time music teacher!  That rocks!  That’s something we didn’t think we would be able to do until January, but God had other plans.  

Three "extra" for this year go in the play room

The other thing that I’m TOTALLY excited about are our new benches for the kindergarten, 1^st grade, and 2^nd 

grade classrooms.  All 12 were delivered yesterday, and they look awesome!  We now have enough seats for our younger kids without the small rooms looking completely overcrowded.  Again, God is good!  The desks were made by Maxima S.A. here in Port-au-Prince.  They are amazing to work with and do awesome work.  I hope to work with them more in the future. 

We are ready to embark on the first day of our second year of school for the Haiti Center for Inclusive Education—thank you to everyone who has been a part of this over the years!