Freshmen leaving

This post was a vent that I wrote a couple months ago about the drama at our school about the freshmen leaving the high school. I have "drank the kool aid" I guess and reconciled the fact that this is going to happen. But this is why I didn't post much...this was very much on my mind the whole year. And it is sad...the frustration and the uncertinty took away my time to be a good teacher. Sometimes, I think administrations don't realize that the comfort level of their staff is sometimes the best resource they can have...

Anyway...this was my year....

The week back to school from Spring Break has been hard. With the time change and actually having to get up in the morning, I am dragging. However, this week has been very good. But there is always drama. Drama. Drama. Drama.

One of the reasons this year has been tough is that our school board decided to move freshmen to the middle school. They decided this out of the blue and the teachers did not see the change coming. I don't think the principals saw the change coming. At first, I was so what. Then I started thinking.

One teacher from each core area would have to move to the middle school. That solution would be the most fair and most logical.

I am not middle school material.

And my paranoia started to attack. What if I had to go to middle school? What if part of my classes were at the middle school and the other part were out the high school (about a mile and half apart)? What if they just fire or not renew one of the high school teacher's contracts in each core area?

Which was a real possibility we soon learned. Soon, we started hearing rumors that the middle school split up all the classes, freshmen included, and did not need to add any more staff. Our principal told us no, that is not the way is was going to work. All our jobs were safe. But, increasing, the middle school teachers would tell us that they were "all set" and needed no extra staff to move to their school.

The whole situation reached a climax when the district scheduled a professional professional day to solve all issues. Also, on that day all the administrators of the school (principals, etc) left town to go to a meeting in Austin.

So all the English teachers from kindergarten to the 12th grade met in the elementary school library. We will tasked with listing the problems/logistics of the move and solve them. Of course, our first thought was staffing. All the middle school teachers started insisting "they were all set" and needed no more teachers. Their principal told them to figure it out and they were all set.

Saintteacher brought up the question are any of them certified to teach 9th grade. None of them were. But one lady spoke up immediately and insisted she could teach 9th grade while getting certified. I really don't know how to describe this woman. I thought she was defensive and defending her future job and really counted on teaching 9th grade. The other high school English teachers thought she was scared and put on the spot. (Is there a difference in connotation in those two different sentences? I feel there is. Mine take was she was just rude and arrogant. Their take was that she was scared and not backed up by her colleagues.) We asked if they were prepared to teach pre AP and our curriculum to get them ready for the AYP determining test when they were sophomores. All that came out of the middle school teachers was that they were "all set."

Oldteacher says that in Texas an uncertified teacher cannot teach a course when there are certified teachers available. She basically says they can't do this. Of course, no administrators around to answer our questions. At the high school, we do not know our teaching assignments until a week before we teach. The decision of assignments is up to the principals and usually the teachers have little say in their assignments or schedule. Obviously, that's not the way it works at the middle school.

For a while, as the high school and the middle school was going back and forth, (the elementary school was very quiet and a couple elementary school teachers were doing some serious texting) I seriously thought I was going to have to mud wrestle for my job. We kept asking questions and the middle school kept saying they were "all set."

At my table, my business background sense is seriously pricking. I felt extremely uncomfortable and told the other high school teachers is that you never let the the employees determine staffing needs. That is a manager/administrator responsibility. I said this does not feel right and we do not have information to make these decisions. The tension was really bad in the room between the middle school and us.

I have to really give credit to the leader of the English department (who is an elementary teacher.) She stopped the whole thing. I think she really didn't want the blood all over the elementary school library. We just decided we didn't have enough information and this just wasn't our job to decide staffing.

We all went back to our campuses, not relieved, but even more unsettled.

A week later, our principals made all the staffing decisions.

Newbie Teacher was chosen to be sent to the middle school. This makes sense since she teaches freshmen. Of course, she doesn't like middle school any more than I do. She told the principals this. The disturbing thing (and totally out of character) is that one of the principal kept calling the move a "promotion." Newbie teacher did not fall for this.

A couple of days later, the superintendent comes in my classroom during prep time. He goes, nonchalantly, "I hear you are leaving us."

(Excuse the language.) I lost my shit in my head, but I kept it cool. Inside, I am FREAKING. I know I NEVER EVER said to ANYONE I wanted to leave.

I just was like confused and said no I don't want to leave. I asked him his source. He said the administators.

I said my first year was great, last year was tough, and this year was great, except for the politics. He thought about that one for a while.

He just said that he was hoping I wouldn't leave because I was very valued by the school district.

He left the room and I waited until I could talk coherently. And slowly got very angry. But I kept my attitude as calm as I could.....

....and went searching for a principal. Outside the principal's office, the superintendent approached me again. He said, "Oh, it wasn't you. It was New Teacher."

Didn't apologize. Didn't elaborate. Went back to his other conversation.

I honestly cannot fathom this whole situation and administration's attitute in this whole ordeal. I love my job. This is honestly the best job I have ever had. I have a lot of freedom in my teaching and the students honestly (even with all my whining) are awesome and most are respectful. Just apathic. But what teenager isn't?

I can't sum up the situation. I don't what to leave, but I am so tired of politics. I did not sign up to reorganize schools. I have never seen a department of any business I have ever worked in act like the middle school.

Supposely, this change is for the benefit of the students. I can't honestly see any benefit to the students. Yes, freshmen need to be isolated from the rest of the population of students. However, we can just house them in a wing of the high school. This whole business will have to cost the school the fortune. Keeping the freshmen at the high school would seriously save the district a ton of money in hard times.

Last Day of School!!!

The last day of school (with students) was today.

The last day of school for the past two years was always very very sad for me. The first year I was scared I wouldn't find enough things to stay busy over the summer. And the second year, the school room just looked so sad and I wanted to turn around and start something totally new.

Not this year.

I'm still sad and the room looked real sad when I left at noon today. But I'm sitting here happy to have a couple months off. Not that I not going to do any work, but the pressure is way off.

1. I know I haven't blogged so much this year. Probably because I was going though a lot of issues with my school. I don't think I mentioned this because the whole issue rubbed me totally the wrong way. The district gurus decided to move the freshmen students back to middle school. Which means high school teachers have to move to the middle school. And I spent all my blogging time praying it would not be me.

2. I showed parts of the Bill Mahr documentary "Religulous" to my Juniors. They hated it, in a good way. They were extremely offended by it. It's funny...the most hard drinking, most hyprocritcal students seemed most offended by it.

One of my students, and please someone pass this on to Bill, was very confused by the fact the Bill Mahr was happy to stop going to church when he was 15-16. I was a little wary of showing this bit to the students because Mr. Mahr mentioned the fact that anything that let him masterbate more, he was all for. My student was very confused by this. She asked "Wouldn't he meet more girls in church? I mean, really, where else are you supposed to meet girls? Then he wouldn't have to masterbate so much."

There you go, Mr. Mahr, this is why you never married.

3. The late policy worked pretty good. As long as you stayed after school for detention you were able to turn in late work. Many athletes took advantage of it. All was well except for....

4. Cheaters. I caught 3 girls in my 6th period cheating a couple weeks ago. I called their parents and told them that the late policy does not apply to them. My late policy is a privledge not a right.

Well, part of the crappy part of today was that one of the girls hauled her mother in to argue the point. The student said it was not her fault because the other girls ("her friends") stole the paper from her and copied it. I do let students pass out graded papers and perhaps I need to stop that practice, but I don't believe her for one second. I said I would pick better friends. She replied that that wasn't her problem.

Then, a week later, I caught her cheating again. Both times she got a zero. Her argument was the first time wasn't her fault because her friends stole the paper from her.

While we were discussing this in the office with her mother, the girl started verbally abusing me. Just screaming at me. Which she has pretty much done all year. (One time she called me a racist.) The principal, who was coming to help me, heard her. The girl got a pretty good talking to about how to speak to people.

I gave her the grade for the first cheat. It only raised her grade 2 percentage points. I had already dropped the two lowest homework grades and one test grade (which I do for everybody.) But the girl is in National Honor Society and I'm sorry, but she really needs to pick her friends better.

5. The mom could not speak any English. Last year, this would not be a problem. We had a wicked good call lady who would translate and get back to you whenever you call. She got promoted.

The new lady I really do not like. She never calls parents like I ask.

You know that scene in "Lost in Translation" when the Japanese guy says that great long speech to Bill Murray and the translator says 3 words in translation? That is how I feel. I can understand part of a conversation in Spanish. Plus you have to listen to what I am saying also. This is what the new call lady does.

7. All this leads to the discussions I have been reading about assigning grades to formative assignments. Daily work/homework grades are supposed to be 40% of students grades. I usually give 100% for doing the work and learning. Participation points, I guess. However, should I stop this? Isn't it unfair to the student to not give them anything for their work? Will they actually do it? Keep in mind I never give worksheets or busy work to students for class work or homework. I don't know ... I just need to think about it futher.

I would like to do more standard based grading. However, I am confused how I would put it in the gradebook. And our administration frowns on incompletes.

8. People asked how did my laptop start on fire. Well, it hadn't been working so I set it aside at home. You know the little part where there is a grid and the fan is inside. That was facing the door.

West Texas gets wicked dust storms. And we had a doozy the weekend before I took it in to be fixed. I think sand/dust/dirt got in the fan.

So the computer lady came to my room to fix it and plugs it into the charger. She does this in the middle of my 1st period class. I look up from helping a student to see flames coming out of the side of the computer.

I did not scream or yell. Of this, I am very proud. I walked calmly over. I pointed at the flames licking the sides of the laptop she was holding. She quickly unplugged the charger. She blames the charger. I blame the dust.

9. Over at Sioban Curious, she had an interesting reaction to a blog post about grading. She listed the reasons she wasn't going to grade your paper. I laughed at loud because ....well....I know. But some of the comments!!!!

The one lady who called her a callous B*&&&h ....well, you have never walked in our shoes. Nothing infuriates me more than going over how to do an assignment, how to format it, give them a frickin' checklist of what I am going to grade and nothing is done.

If I assign a literary analysis paper, I expect a literary analysis paper. If I wanted a summary of the book, I would da asked!

And as for formatting issues...folks, seriously, it is called MLA formatting. 99% of high schools require it. We, English teachers, do not make it up!

AND, if you have a printer at home, why does it only have purple ink? Wouldn't black ink be a smarter choice? Are you planning on turning in a resume with purple ink? Do you really think you would get the job?

AND, do you really want to read 80 papers in purple ink, on paper or on a screen? Help us out here!!!

10. And did I mention....IT IS SUMMER! I said a lot of "NO"s to get this time off.