Starting a new

About me:
I am a science educator and school administrator. I am currently learning about Web 2.0 tools and creating PLC's. I am also trying to encourage my teachers to being working with our Ning site. You can find me on Twitter, Skype, Plurk and LinkedIn.

My wife and I are expecting our first child in September and we are both very excited. I am sure that pictures will be posted to beat out the paparazzi. :)

This is going to be my first blog: Summer Vacation

I became an administrator during this past school year. I started the year with 1 section of Honors Chemistry and at the semester break I no longer had a class to teach. While I miss the fun and excitement of being in the classroom, I did know that I was not able to give my usual 110% to my kids; that disappointed me.

With the transition to the office, I was signed a 211 day contract. Literally, I was supposed to work 211 days, as opposed to the 180+ days of the teaching contract. If I followed that to the letter of the law, I would have been finished on May 23. The usual interpretation is that 211 day employees would from July 15 - June 15 (on or about).

So, I continued to do the work that needed to be done. For my "month off" from work, I was in at least 80% of my days off. Things that I accomplished in this time: worked with a committee to hire our new school principal, who everyone on the committee was very pleased to get, participated in writing a grant for close to $500k, examined the proposed enrollment of every student in Chemistry and Physics to make sure that pre-requisites were being followed and the that proper credits had been earned, worked on our Advisory program curriculum, supervised summer curriculum projects as well as various and sundry other activities that needed my attention.

Some of the "fun activities" I did get to do: Painted the ceiling in the nursery to be, took my 7 month pregnant wife to Atlanta for a wedding (on our 3rd anniversary, with all of my in-laws, in the middle of the PeachTree Trot (the worlds largest 10k) and Atlanta's Gay pride celebration), learned more about some Professional Learning Communities (Ning, EduBlogger, etc.), took the GRE, applied to a Doctoral Program with Illinois State University (and still waiting to hear about it!) and my ABSOLUTE favorite, reading with my wife in our baby book every night when she gets home.

All in all, although I worked through my vacation and got to enjoy the heat, humidity, and various communities of Atlanta, it wasn't so bad.

I look forward to blogging more and all of the excitement in the school year to come.