Teacher in Charge

I'm sure many have heard me say I have no desire to be a principal.  I have never had a desire to be a principal.  I sometimes question the wisdom of getting my master's degree in admin when I don't want to be a principal.  So, who did my principal decide to leave in charge while he was living it up in Arizona?  This girl.  Not only did I not get to go to the super education conference in a beautiful resort, I got to be the go-to person for all of the problems in the building.  A week being in charge has had no effect on my feelings about being a principal, except to reinforce them.

To begin with, we were already short staffed.  On a normal day, we have five regular classroom teachers, one native language teacher, and me as the sped teacher and three approved substitutes.  Our custodian resigned the week before so I started the week with no custodial staff.  Two of our five teachers went on the trip to Arizona thus taking up two of the three substitute teachers.  The third substitute came back from a trip to the doctor with instructions to do nothing for 45 days.  After covering the two teachers out for the trip, we had no substitutes.  On Wednesday, one of the three remaining teachers had to attend a training, but we had no subs to call so we were scrambling throughout the day to keep her class covered.  At the end of the day, though, we could all take a deep breath and go home feeling satisfied because we had made it all work.  Job well done.  Then Thursday happened.  Two of my three remaining teachers called in sick.  We had no substitutes to call.  Then, one of the scheduled substitutes did not show up.  Summary of all of those numbers: I had four teachers out of the building with only one substitute in the building.  We were really scrambling to make that day work, but we did and all was well with the world.

Until the weekend.  Then we had a water issue that put the school and half the village with no water.  So I'm stuck texting Mike and sending pictures trying to figure out if we can have school on Monday with no water in the building.  When Mike's plane landed Monday morning, I greeted him with a hug and said, "I'm glad you're back, and it has nothing to do with liking you." 

A is for apple . . . and Arizona

Nanwalek is an Apple school so we have all kinds of technology and toys.  Every student has an ipad, every staff member (included aides) has an ipad, and teachers have macbooks that somehow have to learn how to share a classroom with their inferior cousins, the regular, non-apple computers.  We also have a couple regular Mac desktop computers (or whatever Apple calls them) and a few super cool little gadgets called spheros or something that look like a ton of fun.  Every year we have a chunk of funding provided to purchase apps and also get on-site visits several times a year from Apple staff to help with any issues and provide training on how to use all our great toys for learning.  Our kids have done some pretty amazing things with this stuff.  It's pretty nice!

When I think of Arizona, I don't usually think of apples, though.  I don't usually think of any vegetation when I think of Arizona, actually.  I'm sure this is a bit unfair to Arizona, but it is a desert.  Apple, the computer company, though, doesn't seem to mind the desert thing, so that's where they decided to have their education conference.  Mike and a couple other teachers got to attend since we're an Apple school and had a ton of fun, so I hear.  I was not invited to the party.  Mike got to go through another Apple school and discuss some of the things their doing with the technology and then attend the conference where they had all kinds of fabulous PD for everyone.  He also spent a large part of his time sending me way too many pictures the resort and conference and their fantastic meals - grrr!  So while I'm looking at just how fabulous everything in Arizona was, I'm left behind as teacher in charge to deal with any snags that came along.  Bigger GRRR!  That adventure, however, is another blog entry all in it's own.  When I get a chance to get the pictures off of my phone, I will post all of the pictures my little stink bug sent me so that you just how onery he was.  GRRR!

Halloween Festivities

This last week has been very busy, being the week of Halloween.  Halloween is a big deal in the community.  I haven’t done an official survey, but I would venture to guess half my students or more like Halloween more than Christmas. We started the festivities with the annual Halloween Carnival last weekend.  Teachers and community members all had booths with games or food for everyone to enjoy.  The basketball team ran concessions and the jail, where you could send anyone to the slammer for $1.  I did some time there myself and “carved” my name in the wall (they put up a piece of paper for all of the inmates to sign).  The kids could also play hallway bowling, pin the bow tie on Mr. Bones, a cakewalk, basketball, frog toss (don’t worry, the frog wasn’t real - no frogs were harmed at the carnival) and then there was my game.  I am not creative so I searched the internet for fall festival ideas.  I found a ping pong tic tac toe game that I thought would be fun.   We quickly decided getting three in a row was unreasonable so we just considered getting the ball in one of the nine cups a win.  Since there was no three in a row element, when I tried to explain the game, most of the parents said “Like beer pong?”  Leave it to my luck to find a way to inadvertently bring a drinking game to a school function.

We then had trick-or-treating Wednesday evening.  Mr. Crain made an announcement in the morning letting the kids know that trick-or-treating ended at all of the teachers’ houses at 9:30.  Several teachers expressed their appreciation, because the kids really get into their trick-or-treating.  A few of the kids brought the cutsy little pumpkin buckets for their candy, but most used their backpacks or pillow cases.  The nolstagia in me loved the pillow cases but I know it was more about practicality.  The cute little buckets aren’t nearly large enough to hold all of the candy they would get.  I saw a couple backpacks that were almost full by the time they got to us.  Nanwalek does this trick-or-treating business right!  So much so that I was happy to have parent teacher conferences on Thursday and Friday instead of school.  I’m hoping they have depleted much of their candy supplies over the long weekend and the sugar rush is over by tomorrow morning.

DJ Bones rocking it out with the disco lights!

Fall, Kind Of

With the rainy season comes lots of rainbows,
apparently there's not enough room for them all.

It's sort of fall now.  The weather has been warmer than usual for this time of year.  Our high for today was 51 and, while our lows have gotten into the 30s, we haven't had a frost on the ground yet.  Bede just got it's first dusting of snow Monday - I will take a picture as soon as I can catch it not hiding behind a shroud of clouds.  Six years ago, we had our first snow on the ground, not just in the mountains, by Halloween.  We only have a few days left to see if this year will follow the pattern.  The rainy season has arrived, but it was late to the party as well.  We now have more rainy days than dry ones, but it took a while for that to happen. 

Fall in Alaska is definitely different from fall in Missouri.  We don't have deciduous trees in the village to enjoy the changing of the colors, but there are some aspens and birches outside of the village that are pretty - for a two week window.  If you don't get out of the village in that window, you miss seeing the leaves change color.  There isn't as much variety in the colors that we have in Missouri, either.  On a really good year, Missouri will have bright reds and yellows, and brown leaves.  Here, all of the large plants turn yellow, with only a few little plants turning the pretty reds.  Then, they lose their leaves very quickly and now it is just wet and gray and will stay that way until May.  

But wait, there's more.  It doesn't show up well in the picture,
but there's actually a fourth rainbow coming up to make two
V rainbows sets.  Does that make it a double double?

 

Fall berries.  I forget what they're called.  According to the
internet they're edible, but I haven't been brave enough to try.

We get some pretty spectacular sunsets
when the rain stops enough for the sun
to shine.

 

A little bit of fall color, but not much.  The red plants are only
a few inches tall.

 

Seagull swarm!  Anytime the seagulls are around, I always
ask them not to poop on me.  I'm pretty the risk of that
happening was very high on this day.

More seagulls swarming.  There are only
a few left in the village now.  Most have
already moved on for the winter.

 

 

 

Alaxsxa

Last week we had a theater group present for the school and community.  They weren’t able to do the full show because of time restraints (the flew over, set up, performed, tore down, and flew out in one day) and the issues that come with having to bring anything you want to use for the performance on a plane.  Instead, they performed select sections, showed recordings of previously performed portions, and gave brief descriptions of omitted segments.  Sometimes, you have to get creative to make things work out here.  The play was titled Alaxsxa after the name the native Alaskans gave the land before Russians came.  The play was an intermingling of Alaskan history and the personal stories of two of the actors, an army brat coming to Alaska and an Alaskan native from the same community.  As they went through the stories they were able to share the different perspectives and discuss some difficult topics and issues within Alaska.  At the end of the play, they had an open forum discussion with the community and then our seal dancers performed a seal dance, a sea-gull dance and another super cool dance that I don’t know what it’s called.  We really enjoyed watching the dancers and Mike looked like he enjoyed joining then when one of our middle school students pulled him up to join the group.  Unfortunately, my camera and I are having some conflict about how it’s handling what it thinks are low light situations so I don’t have any good pictures of that part of the dance.

PFDs

Thursday PFDs began direct depositing into accounts of Alaskan residents.  You are probably asking yourself "What the heck are PFDs?"  Well, you may have heard people say things like "They pay you to live in Alaska."  While that's not really accurate, PFDs are the source of that common misconception.  When Alaska discovered oil, they came into a nice chunk of change and the problem of what to do with it.  The state decided to use part of the funds for state improvement projects like roads and decided to set aside a portion of the proceeds to invest.  The Permanent Fund was created to manage that process.  They began investing in various things (stocks, real estate, etc) and actually invested so well that there have been years the state has generated more income from the Permanent Fund than from oil production.  By 1980, they had done well enough to decide to give some of the proceeds from those investments back to Alaska's residents.  Thus begun a tradition that is probably bigger than Black Friday.


Every October, Alaskan residents receive their PFDs and have to decide what to do with that extra money.  Dividends typically range between $1000 and $2000 per resident, and children count.  So if you are a married couple with four kiddos, you are looking at getting somewhere between $8000 and $12,000.  We will not qualify for permanent funds for another two years.  You have to be a resident for a full calendar year, beginning January 1st, before you can apply the following year.  If you move here January 2nd, you gotta wait.  You also cannot receive dividends if you were incarcerated during the year either.  I guess the state can't be sure you would have remained a resident had you had a say in where you lived.


Since the dividends bring a large sum of money to Alaskan families the same time every year, there are PFD sales and promotions everywhere!  I would venture to say these PFD sales generate more income for Alaskan businesses than Black Friday sales.  The grocery stores are crazy busy, included the village grocery store.  (Have I mentioned lately how much I already dislike shopping?)  The village runway was busy all day Friday with people leaving the village to go shopping, mostly taking trips to Anchorage.  Attendance at school will probably be lower next week because those families will still be out taking care of their errands.  PFDs are such a big deal in Alaska, they are actually the number one issue in the gubernatorial election this fall.  Now, if I could just get voter registration to realize my polling place is in the wrong fly-in village and that fly-in village is around  250 miles away from mine as the crow flies, I might be able to get to vote in that election.

One of many magazines and fliers advertising
PFD sales.  Totally bigger than Black Friday!

Strange Mathematics

In math class we learn that you can't add apples and oranges.  They are two different things, thus unlike terms.  Alaska would like to challenge this mathematical theory.  Here fish = bears.  Since the fish are beginning to die in pretty big numbers, the bears are coming down to the creek to feast on their finned friends.  Mike has set his game camera out and checks it regularly.  He's trying to stay on a weekly schedule, but has found himself battling with the desire to check after only a couple of days.

The bears have brought with them a few "only in Alaska" moments.  I have the bears to thank for the best tardy excuse I will probably hear in my career.  We had a parent call to say their kids would be late for school because a bear was in the yard so they couldn't leave the house.  We have also had to have an announcement at the end of the day to warn the kids to be careful on the way home because they had seen a bear on the north end of town.  We seem to have a mamma bear who has gotten lost.  Instead of hanging out by the creek to eat fish, she is hanging out by the dump to eat trash.  She has two cubs with her so the community doesn't want to put her down if they can avoid it.  We are hoping when they hibernate this winter, they will forget their source of tasty tidbits.

Hey!  What's this think doing on my tree?

"Who's a pretty bird?  I'm a pretty bird!  Oh, I'm sorry.
Were you expecting a bear picture?"
The seagulls have replaced the squirrels from back home for
triggering the game camera.