No Monday Morning Movie Review today, dear readers.  Today is the first day of the 2025-2026 academic year at yours portly’s school.  I spent last week prepping for today—making copies, compiling music, arranging my classroom, etc.—and we are off to the races!

I’m very fortunate to have a similar schedule to last year’s:  two sections of World History, and one each of my High School and Middle School Music Ensembles.  My schedule is heavily weight towards afternoon classes, but I’ll have ample planning time in the mornings.

Because of the nature of my position, I have some technical and audiovisual responsibilities in addition to my teaching, so having morning planning time is great.  Every Monday we have Morning Meeting, which requires at least a couple of microphones.  Every Thursday is Chapel, which requires the aforementioned microphones as well as a projector and screen, on which is projected our prayers and a response reading.  I also put out a podium for both of these events.

During the fall semester, we also have pep rallies on most Fridays that our football team plays at home.  One of my Ensemble classes will play for some of these pep rallies, which gives the kids something concrete to work towards in the early part of the school year.  Putting together the equipment for these brief performances takes a good bit of time and effort, so it will be nice to have some extra time most Friday mornings to get that done.

The downside is that once (and sometimes twice) a week I’ll have no planning in the afternoons.  It’s not terrible, but it is pretty exhausting to teach straight through the afternoon without any downtime.  We don’t have a break period or the like during the afternoon, so it really is just running from one class to the next.

That said, the trade-off is well worth it:  most mornings I only have one class (my Middle School Music Ensemble, which I much prefer having in the morning as opposed to the afternoons—middle schoolers start getting squirrely after lunch), and at least one morning a week (and sometimes two mornings a week) I have no classes all morning.

My plan is to use that time to work on music for my students and to tweak lesson plans for World History.  That should also give me plenty of time for grading.

All in all, I am excited for this school year.  It was tough getting back into the groove last week, but I’m thankful for that week of teacher workdays and registration to force me back onto my school sleep schedule.

Here’s to another year of mind molding!

—TPP