Familiar faces. This year I’m a one-to-one paraprofessional in a general education classroom. I had worked with my student the year before so I was already familiar with him and was really looking forward to seeing him again. It was exciting thinking about the new school year and how he might grow this year. When we saw each other, he had a bright smile on his face — it felt really good.

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Pat Arnow

Community building. When the school day began, Ms. Wei, the teacher, had the kids introduce themselves to each other. She has an excellent system with different tiers to get everyone’s attention. One is a chime if things are quiet in the room. If the noise level is a little higher, she will use a clap sound and the kids put their hands on their heads and freeze. I try to model with her because it’s important for the students to see us doing what we’re telling them to do. Then we did a scavenger hunt. Each little box had a question like “Did you go to an amusement park this summer?” Kids would go to each other and ask these questions and if there was a positive answer, the kid would sign inside the box. A couple of the kids asked me questions as well. One was “Do you like art?” And yes, I am an artist! It was a good way to get to know them, although I knew at least a third of the class from the previous year.

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An early start. I got up about 5:30 a.m. and had a cup of coffee right away. On the first day, parents will come in with their children and have questions for the nurse, and sometimes they get there earlier than me. So I like to get in a little earlier than usual to see what’s going on.

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Jonathan Fickies

On alert for allergies. The first thing I did when I got to school was get a list of all 477 students from the school secretary. I look for new admits who have food allergies — especially peanut allergies — and asthma, because those are the two issues you want to identify first. Some of the children I know from previous years, but we had a big influx of new 3rd-graders and it’s the first year that we have pre-K. I make an allergy list for school personnel — for each classroom and for the lunchroom especially — and I distribute the list to let them know what to look out for.

The hallway wave. As the students came in, I stood in front of my door and greeted them as they walked by. There’s a little thing I do called a hallway wave. You take one finger and you move it up and down, and that’s the quiet wave. Sometimes they come in screaming and yelling hi, so we try to train them when they first come in to move quietly through the hallway.

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Looking like a brainiac. I’m very fortunate that I live across the park from school so it only takes me 10 minutes to get there. I arrived at about 7:10 and the first thing I do is turn my computers on. We just got new Macs, so I have an old Dell on my desk as well as a new Mac and a scanner — I look like a brainiac sitting in front of my computers. I’m still learning my Mac; the principal is trying to help me out with it. It was nice to come in and see everybody, to be back in my routine. We were all talking about who became a parent over the summer, who’s getting married. Including myself; I’m getting married this spring! I’ve been at IS 61 since 1994, and I really do love the teachers in my building. From the custodial staff to the secretaries to the kitchen staff, we feel like we’re a big family.

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Maria Bastone

Going into high gear. As soon as I walk in, somebody needs something — a copy made or supplies — and the phones are already going in high gear. Parents were calling to ask what time the day starts and with questions about bus service. We still had children being registered. There were a lot of people — kids, parents, babies crying.

Taking care of everyone. There were no major issues; we were able to keep everybody moving. Even the couple of parents who were a little unhappy because they had to wait to get their children registered or their paperwork wasn’t exactly what we were looking for — we were still able to take care of them.

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