Perhaps It Was A Miss Communication...

The above is the way that Mrs. Office Manager actually spelled miscommunication in a recent email...

But that's not what I wanted to share today, although that was funny...A few weeks ago, we gave this reading test to our kids called the Degree of Reading Power, or DRP. Now, there is always a parent letter that informs the parents of their child's results. It is a two-sided piece of paper with the results on one side, and a list of suggested books on the other. It has always been this way.

So I didn't think twice when I got an email earlier this week from Ms. Education Assistant, informing us that parent DRP info was in our mailbox. Parent, the email said. Info for the parent. So, it is understood, then, that we are to send it home. Therefore, yesterday, I handed them out. Each page goes to a specific kid, since it has their DRP results. So I was reading off names, and the student would come get their handout, and line up at the door, since it was the end of the day. When I finished handing them out, only half my class was lined up. Half was still standing at their desks, waiting patiently.

"I didn't call you?" I asked. They shook their heads no. "Well," I continued, "for some reason, I must have only gotten the letters for half of you. I'll have to find out where the rest are. Line up!" They did, and I excused them.

Today, even though it is Saturday, I had to check my school email. I had an email from the aunt of one of my kids. She told me that on the back of her niece's DRP handout was the information for another student. Slowly it dawned on me that that was why only half of my class lined up-the other half was on the back side of the papers I handed out!

My first thought was, OMG, I screwed up! I must have read the email wrong, and it wasn't for parents but for me! I panicked, and searched for the original email. I couldn't find it, so I emailed another teacher at home. "Didn't that email from Ms. Education Specialist tell us to send the DRP info home with kids? I only had half my students papers, but a parent emailed me saying she had another student's info on the back! Did I screw up?"

Ms. Other Teacher emailed back saying, "No, Ms. Education Assisstant screwed up. I handed them out, too, but a student saw that there was another student's info on the back, so I collected them back. I'm sorry I didn't tell you..."

So I was happy that I hadn't screwed up, but that someone else did. As I thought about for a second, I realized the person who screwed up was the person who copied them off. They should not have been copied off back to back the way they were done. It should have been, obviously, one page per student. Someone was only thinking how to save paper, I bet, and not how this was used.

I sent an email to Mr. Principal then, alerting him to the situation. I told him what I guessed had happened, and that whoever copied off the DRP parent info had really made a grave error. Plus, I had sent mine home. Now student's private testing results were in other families hands. I reminded Mr. Principal, too, that I would be out for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and so I wouldn't be able to talk to the students and get them back. I suggested that either Ms. Education Assisstant or Mr. Principal himself go to my class on Monday to get back the letters. Then, I hope, he deals with whomever copied off this info.

But perhaps it was all just a miss communication.

Do You Even Hear What You Are Saying?

Someday when I write a book, there will be a whole section devoted to conferences and the sometimes-sweet, sometimes-incredibly unbelievable things parents say and do...Read on...

*Parent: This is the worst report card Cindy has ever gotten. Last year she got 4's in reading.

Me: Really? 4's? But she only got a 2 on the state reading test last year. Didn't that seem odd to you then? Didn't it seem like there was a disconnect somewhere between the grades she was given and her performance on a state test?

Parent: Yes, it did seem odd. But she got 4's. And why did you give her a 2 in Class Participation?

Me: She never raises her hand to answer questions or to participate in discussions. She'll only give an answer or input if I call on her.

Parent: Well, you know what she's going through right now, don't you? I mean, if that were me, I wouldn't be raising my hand either. She needs to feel safe, secure, and accepted.

Me: Yes, I understand. But I cannot give her a score for what I wish she was doing...My scores need to reflect exactly what I'm seeing in class.

By the way, the next day I looked at Cindy's reading scores from last year. I didn't see any 4's. I did see 2's and 3's. That's pretty much what I gave her as well...

*I had Bobby's conference. I totally love Bobby! He is a kind, caring, and very smart boy. Bobby will go places. Last fall, I did his goal setting conference with Bobby and his dad, a very handsome, polite man who impressed me by how much he loved and respected his son. This time, mom came...

As mom and Bobby walked into the classroom, Bobby said, "Hi, Mrs. Teacher!" and gave me a big hug. I said to Bobby's mom, "Bobby is such a sweet kid!" Bobby's mom replied that she thought a little too much sweet and sugar, and that she was trying to get him to eat more vegetables and less sugar. Now Bobby is a bigger kid, but he is also very tall, and will grow out of the slightly pudgy stage he is in now and will be a handsome boy like his dad. His mom, however, is a squat round thing. It was like the pot calling the kettle black. But she continued to amaze me with her insensitive comments.

Mom: Bobby says that there are kids here at this school with problems.

Me: Excuse me?

Mom: Yea, kids in wheelchairs and stuff? They go here to school?

Me: Yes, we have a program for special needs children at this school, and they are often included into certain parts of the school day with the other classrooms.

Mom: Well, what is wrong with them? I mean, is it their mind, or their body?

Me: I don't really know. Some of both, I'd guess.

Mom: But why are they here? Isn't that a problem?

Me: They are here because this is a public school, and every child is entitled to an education. Aren't you lucky that as a parent you have smart, healthy children and don't have the challenges that the parents of these kids have...

Mom: Well, yes...

Incredible...And this is a Hispanic family. Obviously they immigrated to this country at some point for a better life. You'd think that they are often the targets of some predjudiced comments or attitudes, and that they would be more sensitive.

*Unbelieveably, I had a conference with a parent that did not like me. I really am not used to that at all. I think getting along with parents is one of my strengths, and I have diffused many a frustrated, questioning, unhappy parent. But this one did not go well. I was surprised by the hatred I felt from the mom for a moment.

They had just moved here last summer from a state in the south where Peter was in the gifted program. Now, I had forgotten that Mr. Principal had told me that Peter had qualified for the gifted program in our district, but since it would mean that Peter would have to go to a different elementary school than his younger siblings, mom just enrolled him here. I think they put him into my class as I had taught a gifted program for years in my former district. But Peter has not been doing great work in class. His work is fine 5th grade work, but not outstanding. Even for math, and he has a different teacher for math, he only got 3's on his unit assessments.

I think my mistake was too quickly bringing this up. I should have eased into the topic of Peter not performing at the level as I'd expect from a gifted kid...She got really defensive, and all of the sudden it was probably my fault, she said, for not challening him. Because if Peter is not challenged, he won't rise to the occasion. Then she told me she hadn't even seen his report card. I told her I had sent all of the report cards home last week, and had posted on my website as well that report cards went home. Obviously, Peter hadn't shown her his report card. I handed her a copy I had from the office. She was livid at all the 3's. Plus, I had given him a 1 in one area of reading, because he hadn't turned in any of his monthly reading logs.

"Why didn't you send me a note or an email if he wasn't getting his assignments in? And I've never even seen these reading logs...Why didn't you tell me about them in the fall? Now the year is half over and I just now learn about this? Why didn't you contatct me???" And on and on and on.

I sat there. Stunned. The mom was almost to tears, and frankly, so was I. I had no idea how to diffuse this situation. So, I did what I can do well, and it worked. I apologized. "You are right. I'm sorry."

You know, sometimes people just want an apology. I could see the anger begin to disappear immediately. I continued, "I had several conversations with Peter about the fact that he wasn't turning in his reading logs. I was hoping that as a fifth grader he would take responsibility with it. But when he didn't, I should have sent you an email (I don't think I even had her email, but that was not the point to discuss right then...) and I'm sorry."

She then began to dump on me all of her struggles as a single mom with three boys. She mentioned her mom and a niece that does a lot of care of the boys, so I can figure that she must have moved here because she got divorced and she needed her family to help. She works long hours at a Money Tee. She's college educated and working on her master's degree. She's stressed to the max. And Peter isn't feeling like he is making any friends.

"He isn't? That doesn't seem right," I said. "This is the nicest, friendliest class I've ever had!" His mom continued to tell me how Peter hasn't found that buddy he can relate to. He feels that "everyone is rich but him." Kind of a funny statement when half my class is on free and reduced meals, but you know, parents on free and reduced meals still buy their kids expensive toys. Maybe the money they save on school lunches helps...

Anyway, this friendship idea then quickly became the focus of the rest of our conference. It turns out that Peter did have one sleepover with another student in my class who goes to Peter's church. The student, interestingly enough, is my autistic boy (who really has Aspergers, I think, as he is a pretty highly functioning kid...). "Peter had a sleepover with Scotty? How did that go?" I asked. I didn't want to say," Really? But Scotty's autistic...?"

Peter's mom said she thought it went well. I then asked if when I had Scotty's conference if I could mention to his mom that Peter would like to hang out with Scotty more, and she said sure.

Later when it was time for Scotty's conference, and they came in, the first thing I asked Scotty was, "Hey, I hear you have hung out with Peter before!"

"Yes, I did," Scotty replied.

"Well," I continued, "Peter would like to hang out with you some more if you'd like."

Scotty got a grin on his face. "You mean he wants to be my buddy?" Scotty said.

"Yup," I replied. "So when Peter gets back (he was out of town), you need to figure out a time to hang out."

"I will!" Scotty said. Scotty's mom smiled.

But I was worn out.

When Worlds Collide

George Costanza explained it quite clearly. There was Fun George, and there was Relationship George. Those two worlds could never collide, as one would then cease to exist.

So it was when I logged on to my email at home yesterday. In our district, we have a 4-day weekend this President's Day Weekend. We voted to not have a week off for mid-winter break in favor of getting out earlier for summer. Of course, the snow storm followed by the ice and wind storm took care of that. Now we will be getting out one day later then we did last year. But I digress.

Anyway, as I was saying, we were able to leave school at 1 pm yesterday, since we had conferenced all week and stayed late on Thursday night to conference with families where both parents work. We do this every year: The teachers put in a late night of conferencing from 4-7 pm, and then on Friday we leave as soon as the kids are gone. Yesterday, a good number of us left by 1:30, I'm sure, and the school quickly emptied after that.

So that brings us to last night. I log on to msn.com, and there is an email from a fellow teacher at my school. I opened it up, and she said, "Why is the school sending this email to our home?" She had forwarded the email, and I skimmed it. It looked like an email we always get before a break warning us to turn off all computers, etc. I replied that I did not know why. I then checked the To Addresses, and saw an interesting mix of school and home email addresses. Then I saw my home email address. I checked my junk mail, and there (appropriately, if you ask me...) was the email from our school. I pressed reply, and cc'd Mr. Principal, and asked why this email was sent to our home email addresses, because we were home and could do nothing about turning off anything that was left on.

Then I re-read the email, and it wasn't telling us what to turn off...Instead, it was informing us that the office staff had gone around into rooms switching off the power strips and unplugging them, because they think over 4 days this will drain a lot of electricity and will cost the district tons of money. The email said if we get to school and our computers don't turn on, to check the power strip before calling IT for help. In a way, I thought I could see why they sent it to our house...And then I got back to reality.

No, I thought. The office, including Mr. Principal, has NO RIGHT to invade my home life like this. I am on a break. I am not being paid. I am only paid for the days I work. Therefore, when I'm home for this break, I am not an employee. And I don't appreciate getting emails from my work place to my home place. These two worlds shouldn't collide.

So I sent Mr. Principal an email: Hey Mr. Principal, I'm guessing you were a Seinfeld fan...There was an episode where George was describing his two worlds: Fun George, and Relationship George. He didn't ever want those two worlds to collide.

I think that is what happened with this email. I can understand why it went home, I guess, but it wasn't life or death. All it did is force our "school world" onto our "private, off the contract world." It felt to many staff members as an invasion of their privacy...To be told "All Staff-Very Important...Please Read..." when we are at home on our non-paid break.

It should have gone to our staff emails. Many staff check their school emails on weekends, and would have seen it. Also on Wednesday regardless of the power strips, the lap tops would work. A sign at our mailboxes also would have sufficed.

Not sure there is anything at all in the contract about school contacting an employee at home while they are on a relaxing, away from the hassles of school break. But personally, unless it is life and death, I don't wish to be contacted by school on my personal at-home email.

Plus, today I was talking with another union person, who asked how the office got our home email addresses. I said I assumed we gave them when we filled out an emergency form. She said, then they should be used in emergency only, and this wasn't one.

I then sent an email out to my members, telling them that I was going to send an email to Mr. Principal (who I'm sure ordered the email sent to our homes) and the office staff telling them to not send anything from school to my home email UNLESS it was an emergency. My hope is the office/Mr. Principal gets flooded with emails like this.

Book Recommendation

I'd like to recommend the book Henry's Sisters by Kathy Lamb. It is just wonderful, and one of the best books I have ever read. It is a book I'll read over again and pass on (as long as I get it back) to my friends. So far I've loaned it to a gal I teach with and to my mom, and they both could not put it down. Great book.

Knock Me Over With a Feather!

Because of our school's fabulous test results on the state science test, and because the former "science guru" at our building left, I am now the new Science Guru. That means more work for me to do, but no extra money. One thing that I now have to do is to be the staff liason for the Science Fair. Our former science guru began the science fair about three years ago. Now it is my turn, with Mr. Principal wanting to revamp many aspects of it.

One thing Mr. Principal did was to send an electronic copy of a Science Fair packet he got from some other school district. He sent the link to me, to the other 5th grade teacher, and to some of the instructional people at our school. He told Mrs. Other 5th Grade Teacher and myself to look at the packet and tweak it for our use. Since I had always hated the packet we used that was created by Ms. Former Science Guru, I was eager to design the packet my way.

The first step was to go meticulously through the packet, and I made notes about parts I'd change. Later, Ms. Other 5th Grade Teacher and myself met after school one day to start making changes on formatting, wording, and everything we felt needed to be changed to make it really aligned with the state science standards for inquiry science. Still, in an hour's time we only got one small portion completed.

Then the snow hit, followed by an ice storm, and school was canceled for a good week. When we got back to school, having lost a lot of time to make changes to the packet, and the Science Fair date already set in March and looming on the horizon, I knew the packet needed to be finished. I ended up staying late after school and just worked through the rest of the packet. I was pretty proud of my work. I tweaked the examples for the different parts of the inquiry process (question, prediction, materials, procedure, variables, and conclusion) making them all refer to a hypothetical experiment (Does the type of music played have an effect on how much a plant will grow?). The best part was my conclusion example, where I made it say that Classical music had a better effect on plant growth than Rap music...But I digress.

Yesterday Mr. Principal sent out the completed packet to the whole staff, saying he had sent it already to the print shop, and he thanked me in the email for doing all the work to the packet. I was home yesterday because I went to a doctor about my sore elbow (and got a steroid shot-ouch), but I replied to him right away, as I had envisioned that there would be a packet for primary grades, and a packet for intermediate grades, so that it would be less overwhelming. Less paper and less cost, too. He replied back that yes, he did already send the packet off. He loved that packet, and it was worth every penny.

And here's the part that blew me away..."...worth every penny, just like you," he said...Sort of nice in a creepy sort of way, especially considering all the grief I give him with union stuff. At least when I ask him for a reference letter, I don't think he'll write negative things. So that is good. I'll take the creepy comments.