summer update

I realized that I haven't written yet about what I've been up to this summer since the school year ended. Well, summer school started last Monday. The Friday before we had our summer school set-up and staff meeting. Tyrone, our principal, told me that on Monday they were going to have me working in the office, "at least for the morning." To which I said, "Oh, what will I be doing?" He told me that I'd be answering phones, dealing with parents, etc. Turned out that I would pretty much be in charge of the office. This left me a bit disconcerted, as I didn't have any clue what types of questions I would need to be answering or how to work in the office really!

Well Monday came along and I ended up being in the office all day, and I think I did an excellent job. The phone was ringing off the hook and parents were coming in constantly, but luckily most of the questions had to do with buses. Many of the families hadn't received their bus information in the mail yet, so they didn't know what bus they were on or what time it came in the morning. I basically had a huge master bus list with all the kids and their bus numbers, stops and pick-up times. Then I had the list of buses, with all the stops listed. A lot of times all I had to do was look up the child and give the information. But sometimes they needed to change the bus stop because their child was getting picked up at a different address from their home address. In this case I would have to figure out what was the nearest stop, out of a list of about 75 different stops! I never got yelled at, but I did have one parent get sort of exasperated with me saying, "Can't you just look and see if there's a stop there!" To which I calmly explained that I had a list of approximately 100 different stops, and didn't just automatically know which one was closest to her house, especially since I don't have a map of St. Paul etched in my head (okay, I didn't use those exact words, but I wanted to!)

I guess I did such a great job, they decided to keep me in the office the next day as well. There were still a lot of calls coming in about buses, as well as new kids registering. The third day they decided to put me in the classroom finally, but this was short-lived when they realized that there were problems with not having someone in the office full-time. Basically our staff consists of the teachers, the Principal and our site coordinator, Andrea, who is normally a 4th grade teacher at Benjamin E. Mays Magnet School (in the same complex as Museum). Andrea and Tyrone are in and out of the office during the day, but they don't have an actual secretary (or "clerk") this summer because of budget constraints. So basically I have taken over that duty. Now that things have died down, I'm not really doing much of anything. I answer the phone, which doesn't ring too often, take care of attendance, call teachers if a student needs to be pulled, etc. I also supervise lunch and take the 3rd grade class outside afterwards. That's about it! It's a pretty laid back schedule, although I wish I could do more moving around during the day. I don't think I could ever have a permanent desk job.

In addition to summer school, I'm starting work twice a week at Neighborhood House in West St. Paul. Neighborhood House is at the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center, and provides all kinds of services to residents of the community. We have two AmeriCorps members placed in the Youth Center. I had sent out a e-mail to my Corps at the beginning of summer stating that I was looking for some extra hours, and one of our Neighborhood House members, Abdi, responded. I got in touch with his supervisor and he got me set-up to work here from 3:30-8:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today I am pretty much suerpvising the computer lab. Kids of all ages come here during the day for games, arts and crafts, computers, etc. We'll see if they have me doing something different on Thursday!

So that is my summer so far. This is a short week, since everyone has off on July 3rd for Indpendence Day. I'm going to be staying in St. Paul and enjoying my first 4th of July in the Cities. Not sure what I'll be doing yet, but hopefully it will be a fun holiday!