Teacher Check-in - 9/24

I am completely overwhelmed.   

It was a PD Day yesterday for us and I just couldn't do it ... I booked a sick day and slept most of the day.   

I'll be working all weekend because I have to get IPP's completed, ELL benchmarks entered into the system and DIBEL evaluations entered into a spreadsheet.   

This on top of having a new Learning Leader/Team Member who basically has no life and is expecting too much from me and my teaching partner ... we teach grade 7 Humanities and have done for years ... he has not ... he is making us crazy and angry!    

But my students are great!    .  Last year, my classes were complete Gong Show's ... this is a total turnaround ... these kids are so much more willing to learn and have very few behaviour issues     

I'm on a modified calendar so I have a week off in October ... can't wait!    

I’m getting by. I’ve decided that I will have a good year and so far I am. Our new freshman are so delightful! Last year’s were a nightmare, so that alone makes it easier. The sophomores seemed to have matured a little so that’s also good. I’m drowning in paperwork (special educator) but everyone is because we’re short staffed and have 2 on provisional licenses. I’m doing my best and that’s all I can do and I’m good with it.

Hopefully I can maintain this! LOL

I realized a week or so ago that the “part-time” schedule I had set for myself was not sustainable. I told my principal I want to cut back to having 3-5 only for the fall, and I’ll teach K-2 in the spring. She is now snippy with me and wanting to nickel and dime how I’m paid for my time.

Whatever. We’ll figure it out.

The older kids are super excited about playing guitar and that’s going to be a lot of fun. 3rd grade is out of their minds with excitement about getting their recorders. So that’s all good.

I've just finished my first "semester" of 6 weeks with my continuation kids. Everyone passed except for 1 who never came to school and never did their work. AND my principal was so happy with everyone. We've turned the school around from what it was before with kids wandering in and out whenever they wanted and doing whatever they wanted (including drugs on campus) to kids IN classrooms, doing work, being actually TAUGHT by a person and not the computer. We had ice cream to celebrate the end of the grading period. This coming week we're having a "mexican bbq that's not like a white person BBQ and you better not bring coleslaw with RAISINS" (this was said to me by a student- LOL) with a flat top grill, beans, rice, tortilla's, cake (I'm making a chocolate chip kahlua cake) and cookies (I'm also making coco-mint snaps), ice cream, soda, chips, salsa, so much good food! The kids are all excited. We'll take the last period of the day (lunch is at 11:35 and we get out at 1:35) and just exist and have fun playing frisbee and soccer.

I got new kids this past monday and oh the group dynamics! OMG! I went from having a very manageable math class to a class that is difficult to keep on task. Only 3 kids were added but the 3 who were added! Wow! One doesn't want to do anything in a "classroom" and wants to do it all online which we are not allowing. If the class is offered on campus, they are expected to do it in a classroom and not on edgenuity. I think they might be coming around slowly. Yesterday I had quite a few kids gone on a field trip and others who chose not to come to school so it was a class of 6 instead of 14 and the not wanting to do school kid was there and participated and wasn't an ass. It was nice. I have 9 in Chemistry and 14 in Integrated 1 math and supervise 15 for edgenuity electives.

I was really resistant to this change of schools and grades but it's been the change I didn't know I needed. I was feeling burnt out, not really invested in my job. Now, I love my job. Love my kids even the ones who try to be unlovable. I don't dread the behaviors I may have during the day. My principal ROCKS and gives props all the time when warranted. I think I've heard that I'm doing a great job more times this year than I did my ENTIRE first 23 years in the classroom! He's very real with the kids and no nonsense in dealing with behavior from the kids.

Although I'm not a regular teacher, just a sub (I know, I know... not "just" a sub, lol... ), I'll check in anyway because I can say a lot about how the regular teachers are dealing with things. With difficulty.   

I have subbed a LOT so far this year, way more than I had in past years at this point in the school year. There are NO SUBS! It's really bad. And my county has a new sub coordinator who WILL NOT communicate with us. grrrr.... it's basic radio silence since the beginning of the school year. Either she's completely overwhelmed or she just doesn't care. 

One of my favorite teachers, who was a PTA mom back when I was also (our kids are stair step -- her dd as the oldest, then my ds, then her ds, then my dd as youngest, lol. Anyway, she's teaching 3rd grade now. Her ds has some serious surgery coming up and he's in Boston so she's going to have to go up there for a couple of weeks. She was SO worried about getting a sub until she could find out if I was available. I already had one half-day job within the time frame but I just canceled that and she put me in for her long job. I figure that it's much easier for someone from school to fill in for a half-day (or they'll just split the class and give the kids to the other two 3rd grades, one of which will be me, which would be pretty funny) than it would be to deal with a two-week absence. The other 3rd grade teacher (who I've known forever, and who actually had both of my kids back when they were in 3rd) told me that the one who will be out cried when I said I was available to cover for her. This is why I sub, and why I sub in only one school... To help out teachers who are already SO stressed with everything. Now she knows that at the very least with me I'll show up on time, I'll cover everything in her lesson plans, I'll love her kids, and when she gets back to school her classroom and her kids will still be in one piece.  

I subbed in a 2nd grade a couple of weeks ago and for the first time in a loooooong time I had to call the office to have a kid removed from the class. A SPED resource person was supposed to show up to take him but she never did. I turned my back for two seconds and he bashed a kid over the head with a yardstick, barely missing her eye.   I can deal with a lot of behaviors but hurting other children is not one of them. To their credit another SPED resource showed up almost immediately to take him away. Of course it is in their best interests to keep me happy, given that sub shortage I mentioned. haha. But seriously, any kid who hurts another kid should be taken out of the classroom. 

Anyway, it's all good. Unlike you regular teachers I can decide to stay home for a few days to recover. You all have to get up the next day and do it all over again.

You have 6 grading periods a year too?  We call them hexmesters.  What do you teach?  I’m continuation Hs math and science.

We just finished week 7 and I finally got to teach all day. The first 6 weeks were filled with testing. NSGRA, Acadience, Fastbridge screeners in math and reading, IOWA, sight words, and phonics levels. Now we were given GLOSS and IKAN, but have 3 weeks to complete those. Everything except Fastbridge and IOWA are administered one-on-one and take f.o.r.e.v.e.r to finish.

I have a sweet class this year, but we had a team member go out on maternity leave three weeks earlier than expected and they can’t find a sub. So the other five of us have absorbed her class. That changed the atmosphere of my class.

I have a new student starting Monday. At least they gave me a heads-up so I don’t have the deer in the headlights look when they walk her to my room.

Our administration is very supportive and appreciative of what we accomplish in the classrooms. I feel blessed to work in this school, but I have 3 more years after this and I can retire. I plan to do that and find another less stressful job.

We've been in school just over 2 weeks.

We ran out of paper and teachers resorted to buying their own, admin blamed us.
Then we ran out of toner in EVERY printer in the building.
One copier for the entire high school.

And that is just a small amount of the cluster that has started our school year.

Good lord. Who does the ordering at your school? Or was it a budget issue?

Our office manager retired and our counseling secretary did too.
I think admin had no idea they needed to order paper and instead of owning it blamed us, locked up the paper they did get, and made us use colored paper (which then they realized it was more expensive). It was/is a total shit show.

elaine , in high school I took off  for Yom Kippur and it was counted as a warranted absence. I was furious and back then didn't have a voice. I protested and I was even the student rep to the school board. Still, they wouldn't mark it as excused. I hope that you can change things in your district.