Introduction to the new school
On the 3rd of August we already went to get acquainted with the new school and teachers. The event went on for quite some time. The day before, a whole package of documents was sent by e‑mail, which the parents and the child had to sign. The most interesting thing is that the grandson read everything thoroughly and signed off on all the right places..
We arrived at the school at 4:30 pm and only at 8 pm we were back home. It all started in a huge hall, which performs the functions of both a sports hall and an assembly hall. It had a small stage, a large electronic scoreboard hung on the wall, and basketball backboards were hung from the ceiling. Here, all the children were registered and papers of an organizational nature were distributed: the rules for entering the school grounds and parking, how the drop-off and children’s pick-up will be organized after school. This gets a lot of attention. The traffic rules even say that the speed limit around the school is reduced to 15 miles per hour during the children pick-up and drop-off, and during normal hours to 25 miles. This is one of the reasons why many residents do not like to live near schools and are very opposed to have schools near their homes.
The speed limit around the school is reduced to 15 miles per hour!
Parents were introduced to the school administration, got handed out papers to which class the child was in, gave a short introduction in which the class teacher briefly talked about herself and her contacts, how to contact her, and handed out the classes schedule. The grandson got into the class “Aluminum”. Their class name is assigned to Mendeleev’s periodic system element. He was already in classes with “Oxygen”, “Helium”, “Chlorine” name. Then the children and parents went to get to know the future teachers and their classrooms. Each teacher briefly told about themselves up to their marital status, where they graduated from, what degree they have, and what they will do in the class.
It was interested to me to look at the classrooms. An American flag is in every classroom, and a telephone was hung at the exit along with a box of tissues. The boards were white all over the wall, without chalk and without rags, not at all the same as we used to. They write on the board with special felt-tip pens and erase with a special eraser. Almost every teacher has a computer that shows some material on the board through a projector. From this year, the grandson’s humanitarian subject is divided into English and history, and the elements of biology, chemistry, physics — this is all related to the subject of science. The music room is full of musical instruments, the Art (drawing) room has several faucets with sinks. Yes, most importantly, the recreations are spacious and along each wall there are long-awaited lockers with combination locks on two floors. I tried to take some pictures, but the pictures didn’t come out very well. It is generally not customary to take pictures of other parents and children here.
While we were getting to know the school, it was raining heavily outside, and when we went outside, we saw two rainbows in the sky at once. People were amazed and everyone took pictures of this phenomenon on their phones.
