A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I have a student who's name is Charlie R. Charlie R. is a low-performing student. I noticed right away that he wasn't doing his nightly homework, so I sent an email to Charlie R.'s parents. No response. And Charlie R. still wouldn't do much work let alone homework. I emailed his last year teacher: Did Charlie R. have a problem doing his homework? What are the parents like? The response was that Charlie R. never did work, and that the parents never returned phone calls or emails, nor did they attend conferences. So, Charlie R. has parents who don't give a fig about school, then so why should Charlie? Obviously, Charlie is set up to fail from the start. But Charlie loves to draw. He is not especially talented. But he loves color, and whatever he draws, he works on for days adding to the picture until the whole space is colored. I think to myself that this is how I'm going to connect with him. Charlie R. goes to speech, thereby putting him into the Special Ed category, and if I can help him to show improvement, that will not only be good for him, but good for our school, which isn't doing well in the special ed category according to the state. The first clue I had that Charlie R. was going to buy into whatever I wanted him to do was during a lesson that I don't even remember the topic. It could have been math. It could have been writing. I don't remember. But I asked if there were any more questions, and Charlie R.s hand went up. I called on him. "You're really funny!" he said. I told him that good, maybe then he'd listen and learn something, and moved on. The next day I did a lesson with the kids about character in stories. We discussed how good authors use great description to give a visual of the characters. I used as an example the book Matilda by Roald Dahl. He is the master of character description. I put up the description of Mr. Wormwood, Matilda's father. We read it together, then I let the kids draw whatever they imagined Mr. Wormwood to be. Then they shared. The kids loved looking at eachother's drawings and laughing. We did the same with Mrs. Wormwood (just as funny) and with The Trunchbull. Later that day, Charlie R. comes up to me and hands me a picture of some man. I said, "Oh, look! It looks like Mr. Wormwood without the ratty mustache!" "No," said Charlie, "it's you!" I looked closer, and sure enough, those were my purple rimmed glasses. And that was indeed my denim jacket with a pocket. He had all the detail. Now I was glad there was no mustache! I thanked him profusely and stapled it up on the wall. I have never had a boy draw a picture of me before. Girls do. Boys never. Yesterday he came over to me and gazed at his picture of me he had drawn. Then he asked where this other picture was that he had drawn me. Luckily, it was laying right there. I told him that I was running out of space, and needed to figure out where to put all the pictures I was getting. "I guess all the kids must love me," I said. "Well, I know I do!" he exclaimed. Sweet, huh? I think I will be able to get somewhere with this kid this year.

Honesty, Is Such a Lonely Word

This is my third year with Mr. Principal. It is also his third year of being a principal, so he came to us as a "newbie," so to speak. We actually have quite a bit in common. He is my age and we graduated from high school the same year. Both of us saw Heart for our first concert. We both have about the same amount of education experience. I could get along fine with him if he wasn't such a bull-headed, attention-deficit-disorder, top-down administrator. When he first came to our school, he wanted to meet with me weekly as I'm the union building rep. He felt it would be a good way for me to keep him up to speed on staff issues and concerns. These meetings, as most any conversation with him (I forgot to add "egoist" to the list above)go, quickly became just me listening to how great he was for a half hour of my time. I didn't see any effectiveness in them. So last year when he talked about again meeting regularly, I sort-of didn't pursue it. And I got away with it. This year, he wanted to meet again, but twice a month and he wanted our other building rep included (OK-I do have a control problem, and I tend to be the "main" building rep. You and me but mostly me, you know...). So Ms. Other Rep and I looked at the weekly calendar, taking into consideration our twice monthly union meeting, and taking into consideration Mr. Principal's meetings, and finally settled on a day of the week that would work. We decided to let Mr. Principal choose the actual dates. He did, and we got rolling. On advice from another building rep, I put together a short agenda of things I wanted to discuss. Since I had had four issues to deal with before school even began, there were some things I wanted discussed right away. I sent my agenda to Mr. Principal and to Ms. Other Building Rep to add to if they chose. Mr. Principal did choose, and did add, but I said I wanted to talk about my issues first, since that's why we were meeting regularly. I got my way. So last Wednesday was our first "Union Communications" meeting. We got together after school. The first thing Mr. Principal began to do was to tell me I had to stop emailing our union president about issues without first coming to him. Mr. Principal said he couldn't understand why people didn't just come to him with their concerns. He said he thought that last year by the end of the year people were finally feeling comfortable enough to do that. Well, I didn't feel the need to explain nor apologize for any of my emails, nor did I share (and maybe I should have) that I know if I do not have the information from the union side about a particular situation, that Mr. Principal won't listen to me. I know this. But, I told him I also didn't really appreciate it when he sends my emails/questions/concerns out to the whole staff, sometimes to the district. Then I focused on the comment he made about wanting staff to be candid. "If you want me to be honest and candid, then I want you to know that I think staff morale is as low as I've ever seen it at this school," I said. He couldn't understand why that would be. So I began to list everthing that's been dumped on us this year, and the first month isn't even over: We're a state-designated "low-performing school," so this year and for three years we'll have people coming to watch us teach and tell us what we are not doing right. We now have a "Student Success Data Binder" where we will have to be keeping meticulous data on each kid. We have a sucky dismissal process where we have to take attendance in our bus line, thereby making dismissal last about 20 minutes beyond our required contact minutes (but I wasn't able to find this to be against contract, and I tried...). He began to justify each thing I had listed. He started with the state thing, telling me how that was all beyond his control. "I understand that one," I replied. "But what about dismissal? This has added a lot of time to the teacher's day, and no one is happy with it. This is your deal, so you have the control to change it." He did agree finally, and we began to brainstorm some ways to improve it. Now, we will form a small committe of teachers, because we know best, to make improvements to the dismissal procedure and make it less of a burden on teachers. I moved on to my second major concern. "We have gotten three different emails from three different sources, and the effect of the emails was to make staff feel scolded or tattled on," I said. I showed him the three emails. One came from him. Another came from Ms. Office Assistant. And the third email, which was the tattling email, came from a gal (a parent) who was hired last year part-time in a role that really puts her working with families and community (but her boundaries always seem to be blurred, and she seems to have her fingers in everything. Most staff do not like the fact that she is working at our school). Anyway, he took the emails, and seemed open to my side of the argument as to why the tone was not good for teacher morale. I felt like I was heard. Finally, we talked about the morning duty schedule, which our district is the only one in the area that makes teachers do duty rather than office people and paras. This had been an issue last year in the fall, so I took concerns to Mr. Principal, and he and I made a schedule that people could live with. One of the things teachers said quite loudly is that they wanted to have duty the same morning each week with their whole team. But this year when Mr. Principal put out the schedule, he didn't keep teams together. So everyone was mad. After much complaining before school even started, he dumped the schedule into my lap, telling staff to tell me what they wanted. Then I got all these requests in my email box, and I was on overload with just starting the year. I tabled it. I told Mr. Principal I couldn't even think about it until I got my year off to a good start. He said fine. However, Ms. Other Building Rep put together a new schedule, and it looked good. So at the end of our meeting last Wednesday, we tweaked what she had and then put it out to the teachers. Finally at 5 pm we were done. Our meeting had lasted over an hour. Normally I won't stay that long, but this time it was fine. We ended the meeting on a positive note. Then on Thursday (was it just one day later?) we got an email from Ms. Parent-Who-is-Now-An-Employee. The email was about our monthly committee meetings, that are one of our eight monthly meetings Mr. Principal is allowed to have. The email was to "clarify" this meeting, and how/when/where we could have this meeting, and that we were to use One Note for meeting notes. Basically, she was telling us our job. She is not our boss. She is not our principal. She is not even the assistant principal. It bugged me that she is telling us what to do in this way. And, how could Mr. Principal let her act as our boss, "clarifying" his expectations in that way? I forwarded that email to Mr. Principal. I told him that believe it or not, teachers whould have prefered to have received that information from him, and not Ms. Community Gal. I explained that coming from her it seemed that she was directing us, and that since it concerned his meetings, and that she wasn't our boss, that information should have come from him. I don't know if my email maybe embarrassed him, pointed out something he should have considered, or what. But his response back was what was my problem with Ms. Parent-Now-Employee, anyway? Because I was complaining about her emails, and earlier in the week I brought her up to him. So what was my problem? I replied that no, I did not have a personal vendetta with Ms. Parent-Now-Employee. I said I was just being honest, as I thought that that was what he wanted us to do. I said I had gotten the message that I was to be candid. Apparently, he only wants me to be candid when it doesn't make him look bad. And that's going to be tough.

A Meeting By Any Other Name is Still a Meeting Pt. II

So this year begins with Mr. Principal already having his two meetings per week in place on the calendar. He has moved our staff meeting from the morning to after school, irritating many teachers as it extends our day now to 4:30. We are supposed to be able to come late at 9:00, since we only get paid for 7.5 hours. But no elementary teacher can get ready for the day in a half hour since our kids begin at 9:30. So Tuesday has become a very long day. Anyway, last year Mr. Principal liked to have these weekly meetings he called "Pack Leadership." Since he wasn't paying us to attend, I encouraged teachers not to go. He was already at his maximum number of meetings. But teachers in his inner circle went, or teachers who were worried about their job went. I didn't go. And if he ever said to me specifically that he needed me to attend, I made sure I got paid for it. Anyway, I think the reality of the meeting is that it was poorly attended. Therefore, this year he has decided to make this a monthly meeting. Still no pay. No. Instead, he sent an email out to specific people (I was not sent the email) telling them he needed them to attend this monthly meeting that would be after school, and that they were to adjust the start time of their day so that their day was only the 7.5 hours we got paid for. He said that if he ever had to go beyond the 7.5 hours of their day he'd pay. Since I didn't get this email, I didn't know about it until a staff member came to me and asked what if no one on their team could attend the Pack Leadership meeting? I told her that no one had to feel like they HAD to attend another meeting of his. I told her that he was already at his meeting limit. At that moment I was heading out to a teacher union meeting, and I told my staff member that I'd ask about it. And so ask I did. The answers were exactly what I wanted. No, he can't request teachers to attend as he is already at his maximum number (this I knew to be the case). No, he can't even request specific teachers to be there, as it places teachers in an uncomfortable position of saying no to their boss (this didn't occur to me as I am never uncomfortable about saying no to this boss). No, he can't ask indivual teachers to "adjust" their start times of the day just to attend this meeting, since the meeting isn't part of the contracted eight per month (I didn't know this). Ms. Union President said that it was too bad I didn't have this whole request of his in writing. Oh, but I do, I said. He sent it out in an email. I shall send it to you. When I got home, I contacted the two teachers from the one team that couldn't send a rep to the meeting. Could you please send me that email from Mr. Principal about Pack Leadership? After I got the email, I forwarded it to Ms. Union President, and I asked her to cc me with any emails she sent Mr. Principal. The next morning I got to school and stopped by Mr. Principal's office. Knock, knock...Can I talk with you a minute, I asked. I then told him what had happened the day before, that a teacher had come to me asking me about the Pack Leadership meeting, and that I had asked further questions of Ms. Union President. I relayed the information she gave me the evening before, and said that she also would be contacting him. You can't request this meeting of teacher, Mr. Principal, because you are already at your maximum number of meetings. This would make the ninth meeting of the month. The contract says you can't go over eight. You can't expect any teachers to be there. Now, you could give Principal Effective Ed hours for the meetings (my district's stupid way of ensuring we do our work for extra money), but even then, it is a teacher's choice to go or not. Teachers don't have to do anything you offer for Principal Effective Ed, as you know. But you can't expect a teacher to go, and you can't ask them to adjust there start time, either. And frankly, no teacher wants to give up their time in the morning to willingly sit in a meeting in the afternoon. He knew I was right. So he sends this email out to the whole staff. It started off something like this: Mrs. Building Union Rep and I had a great discussion this morning, and she suggested that you all would like to be able to get Principal Effective Ed for the Pack Leadership meetings instead of adjusting your day....The email ended with him instructing the teachers to reply to the email if you planned on being your team's rep to the meeting. I laughed at his wording, since he never admitted that he couldn't do this meeting any other way. Then I replied all, reminding teachers that since it was being offered for Principal Effective Ed, they didn't have to go at all, or they didn't have to commit to every meeting. Then I sent an email out to just teachers, clarifying Mr. Principal's email. Gotta watch that guy.

A Meeting by Any Other Name is Still a Meeting

I woke too early today, so I might as well write another blog entry. I have a lot to write lately. And school has only been in session 2.5 weeks...Anyway, in my district, principals can have a maximum of eight meetings per month. Even in a month with five weeks; if a principal has a meeting twice a week, than during a five week month teachers get one week free. I love those months. A principal also cannot have meetings during conferences, nor can s/he have them the week prior to conferences. I love those weeks as well. And not all principals have eight meetings a week, apparently. I'd like to work at one of those schools. Because our principal has eight meetings a month and is always trying to figure out how to get more. So I have to watch him like a hawk. I'm getting quite good at it. Last year, he scheduled our staff meeting every Tuesday morning, and then another meeting every Thursday morning. He had a name for our Thursdays meetings, but in reality it was just another staff meeting. We basically had two staff meetings a week. He thinks everything he has to say to us is so vital we need to hear it in person and not via email. The year before, and all years prior since I've been at my school, we had a staff meeting once a week and a team meeting once a week. But last year we weren't give the second weekly meeting to meet as a team. At the beginning of last year we were told we'd just have to meet with our team on our own time. But get that meeting time on the calendar so we know when you are meeting with you team, we were told, so that anyone can come by to join your team. But that is a 3rd meeting a week, I said. You can't do that. You are already at your maximum number of required meetings. No, he responded. This is not an "official" meeting. Just get it on the calendar. If you are expecting it to be on the calendar, I said, then it is official. If you are expecting to be able to come to my room at a certain time on a certain day each week to see me meeting with my team, it is an official meeting. This debate went on for quite some time. I just continued to send emails to teachers, encouraging them to meet whenever they wanted to but to not get it on a calendar as requested, as Mr. Principal was out of compliance with the contract by requesting it. I think a few brown-nosers put their meeting on the calendar, but most did not. After awhile, I did not hear anything more about team meetings. When we got back from winter break and started things rolling once again, in now for the long haul, Mr. Principal again announced at our first staff meeting that he needed us to get our team meetings on the calendar. Immediately, I sent our union president an email. I told her I was tired of this same battle, that he was not listening to me, and that I needed her now to get out to our building to tell Mr. Principal that I was and always have been right about the team meetings. She did that. There was no more requests that year.

Way to Motivate!

The other day my principal came into my room during the day to give me the results from the state testing last May. As fourth graders, my current students tested in reading, math, and writing. The results from the testing as a whole were not really good. Anyway, the state sends the results to the school districts to distribute as they see fit, either by mail or to send out to schools to send home with kids. It gets quite costly to send them out by mail, so our district hands them out to students. So enter Mr. Principal. Mr. Principal hands me a huge stack and tells me to separate out the results for my students. As I am busily doing this, he proceeds to give the kids a "pep talk." He begins by asking them how many are thinking of college. Just about of fourth of my class raised their hand, I was surprised to see (I have my work cut out for me this year.). But, we are a 51% free and reduced school, so I know money is a poor subject for many families. But there are ways to make it work. Mr. Principal then dives into a speech about the state testing they did from last year, and how it was just a snapshot of where the were at that time, and how the important thing is to work hard to keep improving. This was good. Then came the uninspirational part. He tells the kids how expensive college is, giving as an example the fact that he is paying $12,000.00 a year for his older daughter to attend college. He then has to begin talking more about himself, something he loves to do. He tells the students that he is taking his Administrator's III (or something like that), and when he finishes he will have paid $70,000! So how did he ever think that this was something to motivate my class? Half of my class is on Free and Reduced lunch. Money is tough. It's hard to come by. And here he is, telling them how expensive college is? Doesn't he realize that many kids right then might think, "Well, that's out, then. Guess I'd better do something else..." The next day I decided I had better follow up on that discussion. I asked the class to remember what Mr. Principal had said the other day. I then told the kids that college was absolutely something any one of them could do if they wanted. I talked about studying hard. I talked about scholorships. I said they could work part time while they went to college. I talked about starting (and sometimes finishing) at a community college. I told them that with a college degree, there was nothing that they couldn't do! I hope I motivate quite a few of my kids this year, in spite of Mr. Principal.

Typical...You Just Gotta Laugh!

Yesterday, after being in school for 2.5 weeks and wondering when our kids who qualified for extra educational support services were going to start getting pulled, we got this email: "You are receiving this email because you have students in your classes that are either placed in Language!, or going to be tested for possible placement in Language! We are 99.9% confident that the kids being tested are going to qualify for Language! services. The attachment shows all the kids and the times they attend. • All of Ms. ELL Teacher’s kids are being tested next week for Language!. They qualify for placement based on their most current DIBELS (and their MSP scores for 5th graders). • The Ms. Intervention Specialist kids that have (test) after their name qualify for placement and need to take the Placement Test. Most likely they will qualify and will stay in Language! with me. The kids that have (will be exited) after their names will finish Language! in the next few weeks and will move out of the Language program, most likely, and back into the classroom as Tier 2 kids. The kids that have (could be exited) will be in Language! for the next few weeks as we finish Book A, and, depending on their end of book assessments, could be exited from the program. I won’t know until we finish the end of book assessments. • The Ms. Special Ed Teacher kids are in the Language! program at the times listed. We will start on Monday! Please notice not all kids are out of CORE for the entire CORE time. As the classroom teacher, it is your responsibility to differentiate instruction daily, especially on Fridays when the Language! students are NOT pulled out for Language!. We are here to offer support w/ materials and ideas, just let us know if you need anything!" So, that was a lot of information to digest, and all of us classroom teachers did just that. But then only ten minutes later came an update to that email: "...An update, just for Wednesday, September 19th: Students in Ms. ELL Teacher or Ms. Intervention Specialist’s morning Language! groups will not be pulled on Wednesday. Sorry for the early cancelation, but this is so that we can support two of our teachers as they go out to observe master teachers at another school – it’s a great opportunity for them! Thanks for understanding..." So we are starting, bet then some groups are stopping, pay attention, teachers, and then we are starting again...Good Grief! I think I will really lose my mind this year. But I thought it was hysterical to see the update only 10 minutes later. I just laugh and think, "Now that will go into my blog!" You gotta laugh, you know? I just can't make this stuff up.

Help! I Need Somebody...

So I have this autistic boy. Nice kid, but nothing like I've ever dealt with before. He talks really loudly and is always making noises that distract others. He never does anything I ask kids to do; I assumed he couldn't handle regular work. But he's not incapable. He's got smarts. So today I got his pull-out schedule, and saw that he'd really only be out of my class on a regular basis for about an hour a day. What? Nice kid aside, I had been hoping to share the pleasure of his company with someone else for a larger portion of the day. I stared in disbelief at this schedule, but it didn't magically change. My next move was to email Mrs. Special Education teacher. Mrs. Special Ed Teacher is a nice enough gal, but she got her teaching start through Teach For America, a program that puts college kids who didn't major in education into education positions, thus taking away teaching positions from college graduates who actually obtained an education degree. Teaching unions are against this program. She's also in Mr. Principal's "In" group, so I'm suspicious of her. Other than that she seems ok. She's young, not yet 30, newly married, and a fit soccer player. "Really? Is this a joke?" I inquired via email, as professionally as I could. But yes, it was true. "Then who will support me with Bobby?" I continued to press. Well, Mrs. Special Education Teacher said, we can get together and talk about how to modify lessons for Bobby. Ok, I said. We decided to meet after school. Fast forward to after school. I was in my room, expecting Mrs. Special Education Teacher to show up at any moment to show me how to modify math lessons for Bobby. I was busy working on labeling student files so I could finally get organized. I was busily working, cutting 1" by 2" labels and writing student names on them, and fixing up my student file box so that I could finally file away the various math and reading beginning of the year assessments. My goal next week is to get the students working on their goals. The must each set a math, reading, and writing goal, and I need to get started on that. From time to time I glanced up at the clock, wondering where Mrs. Special Ed Teacher was. I had pulled out math things and had them laying on Bobby's desk, waiting to hear how I was to modify things for Bobby. Finally, about an hour after school got out, my phone rings. It's Mrs. Special Ed Teacher. "Were we still getting together?" she inquired. "Yes," I replied. "I've just been here working, waiting for you to come over." She seemed sort of surprised that I expected her to come to my room instead of me coming to her room. But ok, she said, I'll be over right away, because I want to go over to The Rock to help celebrate Ms. Para Educator's bithday. She hung up, and I couldn't help but fume. Of course you will come to my classrooom, I thought. I'm clear across the campus from you. I'm the one who has all the math stuff here in my room. There is no way I'm carting all the math books all the way over in my tennis-elbow arms, when it's much easier for you to get your little toned, soccer-player butt over here. But I didn't say that.

Be Careful What You Write!

At the beginning of the year I do this activity in science to teach about writing a clear, consice procedure. I pair the kids up, show them a bag of bread, peanut butter, a jar of jam, and a knife. Together with their partner, they have to write me the step by step directions for making a peanut butter and jam sandwich. Then, I follow their directions to see what exactly I end up making. It's pretty fun, and at first most kids don't even tell me to take the lid off the jars or take the bread out of the bag, so I'm unable to make the sandwich. After I finish trying to make sandwiches with little success, I let the partners try writing the procedure again. The second time usually results in pretty successful sandwiches. Kids love it, especially when I follow directions to a T and end up with a messy result. Anyway, that's the activity my kids have been working on this week. Now, I have three kids in my class who had me last year in my 4/5 split. I knew that those kids would know exactly how specific they needed to be in their directions to make a sandwich. I had paired up those kids, and waited to do them the very last. Out of about 12 partner pairs, only one pair was successful with a "normal" looking sandwich. Then I took Mary's directions. Mary was quite excited. Mary and Sam had know exactly what to do, and they knew they got it right. I put their set of directions under the camera for all to see. Mary and Sam were very specific, and had 14 steps to their procedure. Everyone was impressed, and Mary and Sam were quite smug. Their first step said, "Take your hand and grab the jar of peanut butter and twist the lid off." Most all steps began with, "Take your hand and..." I had a good time with that one. They were a bit too specific, but hey, I knew what to do with their directions, and that was the point. I followed their directions exactly, and ended up with a wonderfully made peanut butter and jam sandwich. Then I got to step 14. I started to read it out loud, and then burst out laughing! Step 14 said, "Now call out, 'I'm finsihed!' and eat your sandwich!" So I called out, "I am finished!" and I ate the sandwich I had just made...

Little Miss S

So school has begun for us. Last week I worked pretty much all week. Monday and Tuesday were staff inservice days. Monday started at 8 am and ended at 3:30. I then worked in my room until 8:30 pm, as the next day was a "Meet and Greet" event frm 4-7 pm, and I wanted everythng to be up on my walls with my desks in place. At the Meet and Greet, I met Miss S. Miss S. and her family are not only new to the school, but they are new to the country. They are from the Netherlands, and are here for a year for the father's job. They came just one month ago. When I first looked at my class list, I saw Miss S.'s name, and assumed it was Middle Eastern. It is long as begins with an S and ends with a "jn." There are a a few vowels in there somewhere as well. On the first day of school my goal was to learn how to say her name, but by the end of the day I was still calling her, "Miss S." Well Miss S. is having a hard time. On the first day of school, her mom came into the room with her. I greeted them warmly, and called the girl "Miss S." She smiled, and her mom told me that they had all begun calling her Miss S. at home. So I knew it would be ok to continue that moniker. Since I have 28 kids this year, I quickly became quite busy trying to help everyone get settled. I also have an autistic boy, and another boy on the Asperger's Spectrum. The autistic boy's mom also was hanging out trying to talk to me. I know they are all concerned, but I've got 28 to deal with RIGHT AWAY, and have no time for their tidbits of wisdom in how to deal with their child. Miss S.'s mom came up to me at one point and told me how nervous Miss S. was. I said something about totally understanding that. Still she didn't leave. A bit later she came up again, telling my how nervous Miss S. was, and that she was afraid I'd ask her a question in class and she wouldn't understand me. Well, let me tell you that Miss S.'s English was really quite good, so I wasn't too worried. But I looked over at Miss S. as I was trying to take attendance and she was in tears. Mom came up to me a third time, and I told mom that Miss. S. would probably be much better once she left. She knew I was right, and eventually did leave. She stayed in my class for a half hour... Miss S. continued to cry. I think she can't read english, and I didn't want to question her about it right then to make things worse. So one of the first things the kids had to do was to choose a book of my shelf to read, and I had her just choose from my picture book backet or magazine basket. Miss S. cried while she chose. She cried while she looked at the magazine and cried while she colored. Finally, at about 11 am, one and a half hours after school had begun, we began an activity where each kid had to write four clues about himself or herself on an index card. I called Miss S. over to my small groups table, and had her tell me the clues while I wrote them down. Let me tell you that she seemed to have no trouble understanding what it was she was to tell me. I told her so, too. I told her that she was going to do just fine. And she didn't cry the rest of the day. Then came the second day of school. When the bell rang for school to begin, I went out to pick up my large class of 28 children. As I came out, one of our paraeducators came over to me. "Miss S. is in the office crying," she told me. OK. I took the kids into class and started my day. After about a half hour Mrs. Librarian brought a tearful Miss S. back to my room. I hugged Miss S., told her I was so glad to see her, and told her to get settled because we were going to learn a game. I then taught the kids how to play Nim, a strategy game. It's easy to learn, and we played two games me against the class. I won the first game and lost the second one on purpose. I knew she understood how to play. It's simple. So I then had the kids partner up to play each other. Miss S. came up to me crying, saying she wanted to go to Mrs. Librarian. I told her she had to play one game first, so one of my boys asked to play with her, and she agreed. I watched them, and she seemed to be doing fine. I didn't think she'd still go to see Mrs. Librarian, but sure enough, after she played one game, up she came to me. So I had her sign out, take the pass, and go. Later, a PTA mom came into my room. She waited patiently until I could talk with her. "I just want you to know that Miss S. is helping with lunch in the MPR," she told me. "She was in the library helping Mrs. Librarian. Now she's helping her little sister's class at lunch." I decided that was a good thing for her to do, and started to think about working out a daily time that Miss S. could go to her little sister's class to help out. Soon though Miss S. came back. It was right before our lunch, and Miss S. was crying. I told her we had to go to lunch. She said she wasn't hungry. I said I was sorry about that, but it was my lunch time too, and she had to go to the MPR with the class, so line up. She did, and we went over to lunch. Miss S. continued to cry. In the lunchroom I introduced her to Mrs. Lunch Lady and to Mrs. Office Helper, and then gave Miss S. a hug and left. When the kids came in from recess, Miss S. wasn't crying, and didn't cry the rest of the day. What will next week be like?

Still Hate New Format

I still hate this new blog format. I don't know how to make paragraphs, so my posts are just one big blob. A blob blog. People must hate trying to read it. I even emailed for help, I thought, but didn't hear back. So sorry.

I Had Your Order All the Time!

As I said earlier, my staff loves me. Probably most of them, anyway...So, also before school even started, I got a message of Facebook from one of the teachers at my school. The message said, "Did you see the e-mail about the office staff whining about stuff being brought back to the workroom in a mess. I'm sure one of them went to Mr. Principal and complained and now we all get bitched at. If I whine about my job will he do a whole staff e-mail and tell people to be nice. Welcome back. I'm already depressed...." So, I went onto my school email account (which we were told later at our inservice that whenever we access school accounts on our home computer, our info becomes their knowledge? WTF?) to check the email in question. It did indeed border on a scolding, as if we were children and Mr. Principal was our father. Not outright, but borderline. Considering that last year we did receive several scolding emails, though, it was close enough to a scolding to tick teachers off. So I did a reply email: Wow! You mean our workroom is all stocked and ready to go? Good to know! Because I went into the workroom last week to find plain tagboard that I requested last June, and couldn't find any. But being the flexible person I am, I went on to Plan B to find other ways to cut out all letters of our traits to put up in the room as we are required to do. Unfortunately, Plan B meant that I couldn't do the beginning of the year activity with my kids that I usually do..." This email reply of course got me lots of positive replies from staff members, either to me directly, or to the whole staff complaining as well about the poorly stocked workroom. Mr. Prinicpal also replied to me directly, saying "The workroom isn't finished being stocked yet! Ms. Office Helper will finish Monday! =)" My reply to him: Well, good, but since school starts Thursday, Monday is really too late for me to wait for tag. I already cut out all eight traits and have put them up in my room." But here is the funniest part of this whole thing! Wednesday, the day before school started, was a teacher work day. A teacher could work in his or her room for 7.5 hours and get paid for it, or if they preferred the could come in anytime after August 15 to put in the 7.5 hours. Most teachers do both, thereby donating much of their time. I was not exception, particularly since I had totally packed up my class in June so had to completely unpack this year. I probably put in 20 hours in setting up my room. It took 4.5 hours alone just to unpack my personal collection of kid books and get them reorganized on shelves... So, there I was on Wednesday, the day before the first day of school, walking out of the staff workroom with chatting with another teacher (another old brunette...wish she had moved out to my wing...). Our office manager, who I believe was the one who I had put my plain tag order to back in June, came around the corner. "Oh, Ms. 5th Grade Teacher! I have the tag you ordered." I stared at her blankly for a minute, trying to comprehend what she was saying. "I didn't order any tag," I replied. "I ordered it for you, like you asked me," she said. "I have it for you in the office!" "Oh," I said. "Well, last week when I didn't see it in the workroom, I made a Plan B and used different tag." Mrs. Office Manager said, "I didn't put it in the workroom. It is in the office just for you! I always order it specially just for you!" Again, I thought, "WTF??" But I gave her a kiss on her lying head, because I believe she did not order it for me until she saw my reply about not finding it in the workroom. The fact that she thought that the DAY BEFORE THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL I could get all eight traights cut out and stapled up in my room, which involves much climbing up and down on a ladder, shows that she just has no clue. But I thanked her, knowing she ordered the tag at the last minute, and most likely it had just come in. "Put it in the workroom," I said. "Someone will want it." That lady will never admit to mistakes.

Back in the Saddle Again

First of all, you have to understand that I'm unhappy to be returning to the same district where I have been teaching the past 7 years. I applied to two districts last spring; I know that isn't very many, but I was so sure I'd get a job at one of them. One of the districts I applied to was my former school district, and what with my experience and success the past few years with a more diverse community, I thought for sure they'd want to hire me back, especially at one of the three more diverse and challenging elementaries. The other district I applied to is about the same ecomonic community as the one I am currently teaching in, they just pay better, are a smaller district, and offer some of the same things my former district offered, such as total TRI pay (sorry for the teacher lingo) as well as weekly late starts for teams to plan. And no morning duty. God. I hate morning duty. More on that later... Anyway, so last year after school ended, I spent two and a half days packing up my room completely. I wanted to be ready at a moment's notice to load up and go to a new school. How depressing it has been to return to my same pathetically old building and room and unpack everything that took me so long to pack up in June. It feels like I'm a failure. I'm bummed to be back at my school, and worse, the only other teacher in my wing that was my age moved to another school in my district. The replacement they hired is a sweet, young, blond gal. In my wing are thre young blonds. Hmmm...No one my age. I'm the old brunette. But even though I was not happy to return to my school, many teachers came up to me on my first day back, giving me hugs and saying they were happy I was back. Why? They like me as a union rep! So I'm glad someone's happy. So before school even started I was already getting unhappy emails from teachers about things Mr. Principal was doing. 1. Mr. Principal sent a welcome back letter to staff. In the letter he said that we were welcome to return to school to set up our room any time after August 20. However, in our contract, it is stated that we can return any time after August 15. Because of how the days of the week fell, that was only the difference of two work days, but still. He can't ignore the contract. Several emails later, and he was told this by KEA. He blamed this on the custodial staff, who weren't quite done with all of the classroom carpets. So, how is this our problem? It is not. Also, what did they do all summer long if the carpets are ready less than two weeks before school is to begin? But score one for teachers who got to go in before 8/20. 2. Our first two days of Staff Inservice were August 27th and 28th, as our first day of school was August 30th (I think it is criminal to begin school while it is still August). In our Welcome Back email, Mr. Principal said that our days would start at 8 am. Now, our regular contracted day begins at 8:30 am, because the student day begins at 9:30 am. Mr. Principal has tried to do this before where he will put a start time for an inservice day a half hour earlier than normal. While most staff don't care, those with small kids and regular child care issues do. I got many unhappy emails again from staff, saying an 8 am start presented a hardship. I sent an email to Mr. Principal asking why we were beginning at 8 am instead of 8:0 am. The response I got was that the district had set the times. So I then emailed Ms. Union President to ask if this was true. Her response was not satisfying; apparently the union had made a deal with the district to provide some training one afternoon to teachers who couldn't or wouldn't attend a summer training. In return, the district said that on the day you had the afternoon training, the day would start at 8 am. It wasn't communicated to union reps like it should have been. Still, it sounded like just that one day, not both, should begin at 8 am. So I emailed Mr. Principal again, inquiring further about our start time the first day. He said I could take a poll from teachers, which I did. Most teachers did not care about the start time, but there were more who specifically said that they prefered an 8:30 am start to an 8 am start. Did Mr. Principal change it? No, he did not. He said there wasn't time. So, score one for Mr. Principal.