As stressful as things can be working at a charter school, I am blessed to have always had positive interactions with the head honcho in charge, Principal Kimly.
I do feel in my two and a few months year of teaching here at Rise Kohyang Middle School, I have grown so much as a teacher, and it certainly wouldn’t have been possible without the leadership of the principal. She probably gets really annoyed at my sarcasm deep down inside, but I’m guessing she has gotten used to it by now.
Before she came, she was very much portrayed as a scary figure that would loom over our shoulders with large amounts of disapproval from my grade level chair. Having worked with her directly though, I do feel she has the best interests of the school at heart, and does have a clear vision of what she wants.
Under her, I have definitely grown in terms of management, building culture with students, and adapting to the systems at place at our school. I feel like I learned way more in my first year at Rise than I ever learned in my first year at Cram Middle School (in Las Vegas). In a way, as the kids are continuously challenged by study island, grades, and OTCU’s so too are the teachers challenged with learning the systems, evening commitments, and of course everything else in between.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like a day in her shoes. I can only imagine the stressfulness and difficulty of dealing with teachers, both competent and not. I can only imagine the burden of dealing with parents as well at the end of the day.
At the end of the day, the one thing that won me over in regards to Rise were the LEL’s, and the trips planned for students of a lower socio-economic status. I hope when some of the disciplinary issues at our school are fixed that our school will be a beacon of happiness for all students. And though I might not be at Rise forever, I am grateful and forever indebted to all I have learned under the service of the biggest mentor of them all, my Principal.
