I have been researching summer reading websites in hopes that I could find something inspiring, new and cool to get me up and rolling since I now have to completely redesign the district SR webpages. I have been sorely disappointed so far. Every site I have come upon is deadly dull, and some are so poorly designed I didn't want to look any further than the front page. Many of them that were mashed into district sites used pdfs heavily, and there was no real way to search easily for the info you needed. Lots of unecessary scrolling on some also. The district-mashed sites were as a whole far deadlier than the whole-page sites ... and that's saying something IMHO. I did find an experimental summer reading book blog in Washington state that looked like a cool possibility. Have to bring up with CR.
Questions to resolve: how to make it more interactive, what do kids expect to get out of it, what do parents need to get out of it, how to design for the needs given the page limitations I have to deal with (since I now have to cram all this into a much narrower space and design it around the district frame, colors and backdrop).
I am pretty pissed that I have to do this all over again since I think the original site worked quite well for everyone, and was at least interesting to look at while you found what you needed. An once again I don't get credit for doing this, either through getting paid for my time or getting credit towards my ceu requirements. I should have another conversation with CR about that.
Eeyore blew off one of our teachers, and when reminded of what she had agreed to do, replied "Oh well." Twice. Aside from being beyond unprofessional, this is the kind of nonsense that will make staff see us as unreliable, unfriendly and unnecessary -- exactly what we are supposed to be working to remedy in terms of climate. Have no idea whether I am supposed to address that directly or not. There has also been some creative avoidance of the division directive from CR, and that's irritating.
On the good side, I ordered the chairs for the MC after doing the dumb blonde act over the phone for Calca downtown and getting the play-by-play of exactly what to have as documentation of the purchase for reimbursement. Those should come in a few weeks. Got an estimate from Home Depot for rug options (about $4500). Went table hunting with my drama queen, and she behaved quite well. Found some excellent possibilities for tables for the MC, some quite inexpensive at the Lillian August warehouse. Got the manager's name and will call her to discuss tax-exempt option and how to work check from school. Getting Eeyore to go see any of this will be difficult at best I think, which will lead to another I do it and she bitches situation. In her own words, "Oh well."
Fixed what was a major issue in one of our departments, which Owl had ignored according to the other staff involved. Very odd. Finishing the fix will take some parts and pieces ordering, but that shouldn't be an issue.
Kanga's been a little bent lately, mostly over Tigger issues (all valid, will eventually go away but are quite annoying and sometimes patently unfair). Have to bring up with AOFL to see if resolution is a possibility for any of them. This should be interesting this week as K will be out sick for most if not all of this week, so we'll see if T can get her act together enough to be reasonably reliable.
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