Sylvia Buttler is principal at H.G. Olsen Elementary School. It’s Monday morning and the fifth graders begin the morning pledges, menu, and birthdays and then it’s time for my announcements.

“Teachers, we will have a short faculty meeting on Wednesday after school in the science lab. I just need to go over a couple of things.”

On Monday morning I really did have only two things on my meeting agenda. By the end of the day there were five things for the meeting agenda. I checked my e-mails late Monday afternoon and realized that I hadn’t yet named my English language arts textbook adoption committee. Okay, now there are six things on the agenda.

On Tuesday morning, several staff members stopped by to ask what kind of Christmas get-together we would have for the elementary staff, so I put that on the agenda as well. Now we are up to seven items for discussion.

Wow! I almost forgot about the PLC Rubric for CSCOPE for the teachers to score – number eight and the list keeps growing. I need to make sure the third through fifth grade teachers have gotten their benchmark tests to Mrs. Moore so she can get the new bubble sheets ready for the new electronic scanner that will store the data on each student as they are scanned. That will be just a quick number nine on the list.

Number 10 was just an update for the staff about the new playground equipment that will be ordered soon. A few suggestions were made, but not time to let everyone look at the catalog.

A short discussion about UIL and the upcoming competition dates on Thursday and Friday this week was a really quick number 11. At the end of the day on Tuesday there were just 11 items to cover, but I can still get it done by 4:15. I know I can!

Number 12 was a reminder for teachers to give me a brief paragraph of the PAEF field trips to forward to the PAEF board.

I received a really nice e-mail that Mrs. Ramsden sent, thanking everyone for their support for hand washing, cleanliness and watchful eyes for sick kiddos during this flu season. I wanted to share something positive with the staff. Okay, so, there will be 13 things, but I can go really fast on this one.

Wednesday morning came and I was still adding to my agenda. Mrs. Findley emailed me and said we had a guest speaker coming to the faculty meeting to talk about assisting us with teaching the scientific method. I said we would have him present at the beginning of the meeting because the short meeting was now going to be pretty long. I spoke to campus care and asked if they could extend their care until 4:30 so we could get everything covered. Instead of number 14, this moves to one, and all items shift down a notch.

Last, but not least, number 15: I got a phone call from KOUL 103.7 radio station saying that Mrs. Brennan had been nominated for teacher of the week and she had been chosen. They said they would come out Monday, Dec. 7, to bring her flowers, a plaque and cupcakes for her class. I had to release the kinder teachers so I could tell everyone else that we would have a short assembly at 10:30 a.m. on Monday by KOUL. It was supposed to be “just a short meeting.”

Whew! 4:29 p.m. Done!