Writing Prompt #4

As I sat staring at the computer screen this morning, wishing it was Friday and trying to think of something to write about and the mind was blank I remembered the writing prompts I found a few weeks ago. So today is Prompt #4 ~ I feel good about what I accomplished today because ____________.

I’m changing it up a bit because if I answered truthfully it would end up being something like: I feel good about what I accomplished today because I only woke up once to visit the little girls’ room and four times to check the time. I’ve only been up since 5:04, awake off/on since about 4:10a!

I feel good about what I accomplished yesterday, 4/14 because I was able to process 56 TEAL’s! I was only able to do that because I finally gave in and allowed one of my co-workers to help me…so very hard to do. Processing TEALs is not difficult it is just time consuming. There are two parts to every TEAL – Part 1 is verifying the student’s birth date, student # and if the school psychologist entered three points of information in myStudent (the program we use for our student records). If anything is missing or incorrect it then includes sending an email to the school psychologist and waiting for the corrections to be made. After Part 1 is complete and correct, Part 2 includes downloading and uploading the report into the correct section of the student’s permanent digital file. Both parts are time consuming, not hard but time consuming. My co-worker, Y, wanted something to do to give her brain a break from her many daily & regular tasks and after many times hearing her say “let me help you” I finally said OKAY.

Yes, I’m kind of stubborn like that. The TEALs are my responsibility and it’s hard to ask for help. Yet in my heart I knew a little help would go a long way in knocking out one of the many stacks of TEALs that needed processing. So I explained what steps needing to be done and let her run with it.

One of the TEAL projects (there are two different types of TEALs) is processing the Saturday gifted TEALs. Our school psychologists give approximately 500 Gifted evaluations in 4 months of Saturday testing! And they are processed just a bit differently, so they are kept separate until they are filed in the current school year. Because of and with Y’s help I was able to process 56 TEALs to be ready for filing. I guess there are three parts to the TEAL’s – after all the data is entered correctly they get filed by birth year and last name. 56 TEALs in one day is more than I have ever processed in one day…prior to yesterday my record had been 22!!

I can’t say Thank You enough for her help. Not only did it help the stacks go down on my desk it gave me a burst of energy knowing something was accomplished that had been hanging over my head. By the way, no one ever says “why aren’t those TEALs done?” I’m the one that puts the pressure on me to get them processed. No one ever asks me “what have you done all day?”

I am my own best critic about the TEALs being stacked on my desk. In the deep recesses of my head I sometimes look at my desk and think “what a cluttered mess!!!” And then I go down the road of what would I say to XXX if she/he had lots of files stacked on their desk ~ I would extend them grace, sharing empathy with them about the workload and the never-ending parts of their job. Umm…maybe I need to give myself that same grace and hug.

But back to the writing prompt…I do feel good about all the work that got accomplished yesterday and I feel good that I allowed myself to accept help instead of being stubborn. I was reminded of something that Pastor Charles told me many years ago, when someone offers to help and you (me) refuse their help, I am robbing them of a blessing. Just like I love to help others, I need to let others help me too. Thank you Y for blessing me and helping me yesterday – the help was appreciated and I appreciate you!!

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In case you are wondering about the answer to “how many TEALs have I processed since the beginning of the 24~25 School Year Contest thru March 31?” the guesses were as low as 133 and as high as 3,645 – the answer is 1,157 TEAL’s. I wonder how many I will process for the whole 24~25 school year?