Ep 127 Teaching at a new school? 6 essential questions to ask

Congratulations on landing your dream teaching job! The exhilaration of this new opportunity is boundless. I understand that you may have a whirlwind of thoughts running through your mind as you prepare for your first day at the new school. That's why I'm here to guide you!

In this episode, I unveil six crucial questions that you must ask and find answers to as soon as you accept the job offer, sign the contract, and seal the deal with the administrator's handshake. By focusing on these six key areas, you'll be equipped with the knowledge and confidence needed to welcome your students with open arms on that exciting first day.

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Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers podcast, where we help new and beginning teachers
navigate through those crazy first years ofteaching so you can maintain your sanity and
personal life. Here's your host,him Lapree. Welcome to the Teachers Need

(00:27):
Teachers podcast, the podcast for teacherswho don't want to just survive teaching but
actually thrived. You've just been hiredto teach at a new school. This
is definitely an exciting time, butI'm sure that there are a lot of
things that are on your mind thatyou need to plan for and prepare before
that first day of school. Butwhere do you start. In this episode,
I'm sharing six essential questions that youmust ask and seek out answers to

(00:51):
the moment you accept the job,shake hands and sign that contract. Taking
care of these six areas will definitelymake you feel more prepared. Hair to
greet those students as they walk inyour door, and be sure to stay
until the end for the bonus tipthat you definitely want to keep in the
back of your mind until you meetyour colleagues. Now, these tips are
in order of importance, just becauseit makes sense to start out with the

(01:14):
first one, which is to findout who are the support staff. So
this include the principal secretary who isgoing to become your new best friend,
the attendance people, the people thatsit up the front office, that great
parents, counselors definitely, custodians,and any other support staff that anyone else
feels is important for you to know. A lot of times these staff are

(01:38):
definitely underappreciated because they work in theoffice and they're not teachers or administrators,
but they definitely make the school runand make the school run smoothly. At
this point, I have taught atfour different schools, and in each school
I made a point of getting toknow and kind of buttering up and kissing
up to the principal secretary because they'regoing to be the one who have the

(02:00):
most information. They know exactly what'sgoing on, They know the principal schedule,
they know what you need to knowso that you can be successful at
the school. And whenever you havejust these little questions like how do I
do this, how do I putin a purchase order? Things like that,
they're going to be the person thatyou want to definitely go to now,
even if you're not super nice tothe principal secretary. They're not going

(02:22):
to retaliate against you. But ifyou want them to help you in a
timely manner, or maybe your emergencyis your emergency and you want it to
be their emergency, they're more likelyto help you if you are genuinely nice
to them. But if you're demandingat all, or if you come off
as above them, just be preparedfor a rough time. The same thing
goes with the custodians. They aregreatly underappreciated considering what they do and also

(02:46):
what they know about the school.So if a student throws up in your
classroom where if you need something moved, or there's like some huge bug or
infestation and you want them to takecare of it in a timely manner,
then you definitely want to be niceto your stodions, and especially if you
have one that's assigned to your area, you might want to think about being
extranized to them and knowing them ona first name basis. So the next

(03:08):
question that you need to answer iswhat is your teaching assignment? So this
includes what grade are you teaching,what subjects are you responsible for teaching?
Because even if the elementary, especiallyas you get into the higher grades in
elementary sometimes you're a specialist and somebodyelse takes care of other subjects. So
exactly what are you responsible to teach? Do you have a planning period and

(03:30):
if so, when is that?And also do you have any supervision requirements
or duties? So maybe on certainweeks or certain days you have lunch supervision,
or maybe recess supervision or nutrition bakesupervision, something like that. So
definitely find out what is your teachingassignment and fully find out what that entails.
This could also be asking do youhave to teach with a co teacher

(03:53):
and if so, who is thatcode teacher? Or do you have students
with IEPs in your classroom and whatkind of support are they getting from the
school versus what you're supposed to provide. Also, you can find out if
you can take a look at thoseIEPs ahead of time so that you can
kind of get a sense of whatto expect in your classroom. The next
question that you want to answer iswhere's your classroom? So you definitely want

(04:15):
to start planning out how you're goingto lay out your classroom. Every teacher
is different unless there's a certain requirementby your school, but pretty much.
You have a lot of flexibility interms of how your classroom is laid out,
and you want to plan that aheadof time. I'm sure you're also
really excited to plan out decorations orposters or educational materials that you're going to
be putting on the walls. Ofcourse, I don't recommend spending too much

(04:39):
money on this. I would alsotry to find out if maybe the previous
teacher left any materials, or youcould also wait and see until the school
year starts to see if any otherteachers have materials that they're not using anymore,
and you can use those if you'recoming from absolutely nothing. New teachers
sometimes spend way too much money ondeckoring their classroom in the beginning of the

(04:59):
school year when I don't really havethat much money, or maybe you don't
even have your first paycheck yet.So I would kind of hold off on
that and see what kind of freematerials you can use at first, and
then you can start investing in yourown later on. Something else really important
in terms of your classroom is alsofinding out where the nearest staff bathroom is.
A lot of times you only havenear minutes to run there and use
it. Between classes or during abreak, so definitely find out the best

(05:23):
route to the closest staff bathroom toyour classroom. The fourth essential question to
ask is what are your bell schedulesand school calendar? So this is definitely
important because even if you teach atthe elementary school level, there's a certain
time when you are with your students, a certain time for recess and lunch
and things like that. It definitelybecomes important when you are in the upper

(05:44):
grades when students have multiple classes andyou want to know how long are your
class periods. Do you have justone hour periods that you meet every day,
Are you on what they call ablock schedule where on certain days you
see periods one, two, threeand other days four, five, six,
something like that. Find out whatthe bell schedule is, especially in
days like minimum days or just alteredschedule days. Also find out what the

(06:05):
school calendar is so that you knowthe start and end dates. You can
start planning out when your breaks aregoing to be and you know in the
back of your mind figure out whatyou want to do on those breaks,
and also the end of grading periodso that you can plan for when you
have to turn in your grades forreport cards. I especially like to know
any required activities that I have toattend, such as open house or parent

(06:28):
conferences or testing or anything like that. I also like to know if there's
any school mandated professional development that Ihave to go to, especially as a
new teacher at my school or adistrict, or just a new teacher in
general, so that I can planaccordingly. Sometimes you can find these schedules
on your school's website, but itwouldn't hurt to also ask your principal secretary
if they have a copy of itthat they can give you right away.

(06:51):
The next essential question that you wantto ask when you accept that new teaching
job is what technology are you requiredto use? So this is become really
important ever since the pandemic, whenmore schools have adopted using technology more in
their teaching. So you may haveactually learned how to use one type of
grade book or learning management system,and now at this new school everyone's required

(07:14):
to use something else, So it'sreally important to find out what that is
ahead of time. If you're lucky, it's one that you've already played with,
like maybe that school uses Google Classroomwhen you've played with that before,
But it might be something completely new, and it will be easier for you
if you take some time before thefirst day of school to play around with
it so that you can get toknow it, and that'll be one less
thing on your plate once a schoolyear starts rolling. I'd also find out

(07:39):
how soon you can get a schoolemail address, because in some districts like
mine, that could take months beforeyou can even get staff email set to
you. I'd also find out ifyour school has assigned you a computer,
so maybe you have a computer that'sjust for school, and maybe they have
a computer for you that you canuse at home. Every district is different.

(07:59):
At my school they offer us Lenovolaptop, so you can use it
at school and at home if youwant. And of course I definitely find
out if students have access to technology, So if you're like in my district
where students either have an iPad ora laptop assigned to them, then you
definitely want to know that so thatyou can plan your lessons accordingly. And
while you're at it, you canalso ask what technology subscriptions your school has

(08:22):
paid for, so maybe they've paidfor something like Paradeck or near a pot
or scholastic scope or something like that, so then you can start planning on
how to use those in your lessons. And finally, the last question that
you want to ask as soon asyou accept that job is when can you
get teacher copies of the curriculum?So this is important because you want to
know what you're going to be requiredto teach. I mean, obviously,

(08:45):
if you're teaching science, there's ascience textbook and you want to get your
hands on that because you're probably requiredto use it. Same goes with all
of the other subjects, and sogetting your hands on the teacher edition and
even the student edition actually can bereally helpful so that you know what it
looks like when the students are lookingat it. Do they have physical textbooks,
do they have online textbooks? Dothey have to take home a copy?

(09:07):
You can find out the answer tothese questions of course with your front
office secretary, but you can alsoask the librarian. If they're they're over
the summer or if it's in themiddle of the year, you can just
go ahead and acquire directly. Andif you're a new teacher, this is
especially helpful because if there is aset curriculum with activities and worksheets and things
like that. You don't have totry to come up with everything on your

(09:28):
own. You can just use what'salready there and just hit the ground running
on the first week of school.Of course, when you meet your department
or your PLC, probably the firstweek back of school, you can ask
them more specifics about which particular lessonsand materials that they use and have found
successful. But at least you'll havesome frame of reference for when you start

(09:48):
out the school year. Now,the bonus tip is to find out what
is the evaluation process at your school. So I wouldn't necessarily ask this right
off the bat, because with yourprincipal secretary Terry or any of the front
office staff, you already ask thema lot of questions. But when the
other teachers do come back to schooland you're in meetings with them, maybe
having lunch with them, or they'resending up their classroom and you stop by

(10:11):
to introduce yourself, I would definitelyask about the evaluation process so that you
can be prepared. Keep that inthe back of your mind so that as
your administrator comes to visit and observeyou, you know what you should be
showing them. So that you canget a positive evaluation. Of course,
you want to collect this information frommultiple sources because everyone has a different experience

(10:33):
when it comes to evaluations. Iknow of teachers who constantly get negative evaluations
and yet they're still there, butthey're always on edge in terms of whether
or not they're going to be letgo. And then there are other times
when administrators barely seem to pay attentionor care about evaluations and they just let
teachers slide either way. So youwant to find out by collecting anecdotes from

(10:54):
different people about what the evaluation processwas like for them, and that way
you can be fully prepared. Sothese six questions will definitely make you feel
more prepared and definitely ready for whatevera way to this coming school year.
I definitely hope that you found thesetips helpful and I can't wait to hear
how your first day of school goes. Be sure to email me at Kim

(11:15):
at Teachers Need Teachers dot com.Also if you have any other subjects that
you'd like me to cover in afuture episode. Thanks for hanging out with
me today, you guys, andI will see you next time. Thanks
for listening to the Teachers Need TeachersPodcast. Love this episode, head over
to Apple podcast or Google Play tosubscribe, rate, and leave a review.