Closing Down For The Summer

The last day of school for teachers was Monday, June 6.  Even though school was officially “out for summer”, there was still work to be done by staff.  A contractor had been hired to paint the entire school, inside & outside, and the carpets in the high school classrooms were being replaced with hard flooring.  The staff immediately knew what needed to be done when the principal made the announcement at the last staff meeting.  “Everything has to come down and all the furniture needs to be moved.”

            

I spent the weekend going through my classroom, throwing out unclaimed classwork & tests, and moving furniture off the carpet.  All the musical instruments were moved to the library.  I was able to commandeer a loading cart and fill it with textbooks & novels.  I placed the cart in the storage room for the summer.  All the storage rooms in the school would be filled with resources from the classrooms by the end of Monday.  I removed all the posters & staples in my room.  Any resources I deemed important were taken home. 

My room was bare.  Well, more like 85%.  The carpet doesn’t cover the entire room, enabling me to move everything onto the small piece of hardwood flooring.  When all the work was done, I looked around the mostly-empty classroom and realized . . . more work was waiting for me upon my return in August.  Everything would have to be placed back the way it was.  But now wasn’t the time to worry about that.

The entire staff assembled in the downstairs Home Ec Room for the year-end potluck.  My contribution was a large Delissio pizza.  JF made a birthday cake for the staff members who are “Summer Babies”.  The principal did a short debrief of the past year and an Inuk teacher said a prayer.  People lined up with plates in their hands and helped themselves to the wide variety of foods.

Me cutting tuktu.  Maybe I should have
looked at the camera.

I started a different line.  There was frozen tuktu (caribou) meat sitting on a large piece of cardboard on the floor.  A large ulu (knife) was resting beside it.  I went over and began cutting pieces.  The raw meat was really tasty.  I went over to the other line when it was smaller.

We were all full at the end of the potluck.  I knew I wouldn’t be eating dinner that night.  Leftovers were taken home.

I spent the rest of the day packing for my flight.  I was leaving bright & early on the morning of June 7.

I will be coming back to a newly painted school in August.  The Nanisivik Port Facility project should be further along because the workers arrived when I was leaving.  And the new health centre will also be closer to completion.  I will be taking a break from my blogging duties for the next little while.  See you all in August!