Pre-Job Shenanigans

My position as a fifth grade band teacher at five elementary schools in a district in Massachusetts is now official! I have signed my contract and started apartment hunting, and the apartment hunt is now starting to feel like the job search: sending lots of requests for viewing appointments, only a handful of calls back. We'll see how that goes. My hope is to be moved down there and settled early in August, I'd very much like to help with the high school band camp, which is the week of August 13th, so if I can move the week before that I should be in good shape for prepping and getting comfortable with the area.

In the meantime, I have had my first "task" as the new teacher. The assistant superintendent emailed me, the previous elementary band director (who is now the middle school band director), and the string teacher the registration forms for the instrumental program and the introductory letter that get sent to the parents at the beginning of the year, asking us to look them over and confirm the necessary dates for the informational nights, rental nights, etc... I am very lucky to have the previous director still in the district; he has taken care of so much for me already, and had the date for the rental night all set for her in advance. My first task came in on the registration form. In addition to the typical instruments you'd offer elementary students (flute, clarinet, trumpet, etc...), oboe, tenor sax, and french horn were listed as well. He had said that in the past he hasn't offered these three in the past few years, but I got to decide which ones, if any, I would like to reinstate this coming year. I decided to bring back the french horn but leave out the oboe and tenor saxophone. Tenor sax doesn't make much sense to me to teach to fifth graders unless the student is generally larger for their age since the instrument itself is rather hefty, and I wouldn't want to start a beginner instrumentalist on the oboe, rather waiting until they can establish a decent sense of pitch on another instrument first.

Come the beginning of school I am going to have to take care of all of the demos for the fifth grade classes to recruit more students for the spring. I'm looking forward to it but I expect it will be rather chaotic and a little intimidating to start. I need to make sure I find a way to make it fun and interesting for the students. Again, I'm so lucky to have the previous band director still working in the district, he and the high school director have already been extremely welcoming, friendly, helpful, and supportive of me so far. I am meeting with them both next Wednesday to go over things, get necessary files, get shown around, etc... I can't wait!

Alexis