Working in an inner city district

When I got hired at my district I was a little concerned because I’d be working at what you’d consider an urban inner city school.  It has a high ratio of low socio-economic students and borders some “iffy” neighborhoods.  Living in a big city certainly means more crime.  That part made me nervous about moving here.  In the small town I came from there was a murder maybe every five or six years.  There are almost one or two a week here. But when I moved here, I found a neighborhood that I felt comfortable in.  The students at school where I teach are a little rough but a good number of them are great kids.  

We had a tragedy befall our school this weekend.  One of our students was shot in a drive-by shooting early Sunday morning.  He was only 13 years old.  I didn’t know the student.  He was fairly new to the school, but it is something you hope you never have to deal with.  The library became the grief headquarters today.  The district sent over several counselors to talk to students as needed.  Some of the students were truly broken up, but there were a lot of others that took advantage of the tragedy just to get out of class.  Many of them, however, wrote messages on a banner that I assume will be given to the family. 

On a positive note, I got quite a bit done today.  I was able to catalog several magazines and accomplished many things on my to-do list since we didn’t have Scrabble club today.  Matt brought me lunch and shelved books for me as well.  I also talked to the deputy superintendent who seemed very impressed by my Scrabble club.  I think I’m starting to make a name for myself in this district. 

Yesterday I created two new websites.  I found a very easy, but very nice online web creation program called weebly that I used to create my own library lesson page.  It’s going to be a work in progress for a while, but I hope to share it with others in a few weeks.  I also created a San Antonio Scrabble website for Matt. I mentioned that I was going to do it last year, but never found the time.  Once I found weebly, however, it was easier to do.    I’ll pay for my own domain name after payday in a few weeks.  Money is tight at the moment.  Luckily Matt will be moved in by the end of the month and I’ll start getting some money from him to help with the bills and such. 

Well, I’m going to eat some leftover pizza for dinner soon.  (Sausage, pepperoni, and onion) and then read for a bit. Maybe I’ll talk myself into doing a little more laundry.  Probably not, but there’s always hope.