Accountability

The Team came back from Fall Break, rested, rejuvenated, and refreshed, only to notice that, one week into the new grading period, our kiddos were doing pretty much nothing. They weren't doing homework and even some of them couldn't manage to turn in in-class assignments.

My homework turn in percentage the past few years has been really high. For one, I assign it on Monday and it's due on Friday. I usually give the students a choice on which assignments they want to do (I'll list four, they do two). The homework itself is practice for what we've done in class, but if they have questions on it, I do have homework helpers that they can use during am homeroom, pm homeroom, or check out to take home - some of my special education students get the helpers stapled into their agendas or emailed home to their parents. It essentially gives the answers to the homework, so even if a kid is completely clueless, if he or she copies down the correct information, at least it was in front of them for that one time. (That idea isn't original - it came from an NMSA conference I went to a few years ago.) However, even with choices, even with four days to do the assignments, and even with the answers right there in front of them, they didn't bother to turn any work in - this is a huge change from previous years when I had nearly all my kids turning in work.

I wasn't alone. All the teachers in the seventh grade have the same problem, and even some of the eighth graders are exhibiting vast degrees of laziness. One of the eighth grade teams has implemented a homework clinic during lunch where the kids who owed work had to eat in a teacher's classroom and work on their homework at the same time. This seems to work pretty well as the kids started turning in work, rather than miss their social time, and at the same time their test scores and grades started to improve (especially in Math.)

Our Mr. Math was at another school last year that really targeted these kids who turn out to be, for the most part, our at-risk population. We took a little of what he did at his old school, a little what the 8th graders were doing, and came up with the Friday Homework Clinic.

By Monday afternoon, the teachers on my team have emailed me the names of all the kids with missing work for this grading period. I can cut and paste all this into an Excel spreadsheet (PowerSchool, our new grading program, makes this soooo easy), sort the kids by name, and have a print out of who owes what work.

On Tuesday morning I hand out to the kids a slip of paper with all their missing assignments listed. They have until Thursday afternoon to get this work made up and turned in, otherwise, they miss their first period elective class on Friday. Instead of doing art, or PE, or band, or computers, they are assigned to one of our rooms where they have to sit and work. We try to assign the kids to the teacher they need the most help with (for example if most of the work they owe is Math, Mr. Math gets them). This way they can get more individual attention. (I also make sure all my teammates have a copy of my Homework Helpers so that is available to help the kids as well).

The first week we did this, out of 120 kids, we had 88 who initially had to attend the clinic.

By Friday morning that number was down to about 68.

They were not happy. At all. However, they did turn in a lot of work. For some kids this was the first work we'd seen out of them all year. When I went home and graded papers this weekend, I couldn't believe how many students had managed to not only turn in their missing assignments, but managed to pull their grades up as well.

The Principal, by the way, absolutely loves that we're doing this. I got her blessing before we started. As she says, we have absolutely got to get these kids growing academically, and if it means having high expectations and accountability, so be it.

This week our number of kids missing assignments is 73. Of that number, about 20 of them are kids who owe one assignment and can, quite honestly, get that turned in before the Thursday deadline. That would give us about 53. That's still a high number, but better than the week before. It may take a few weeks for some of them to realize that we're serious.

At it costs us is a bit of time, and losing one planning period (we get two) to help work with these kids.

It's worth it.

It's over

As of 8 o'clock this morning, Christmas break was over.

Because we had to go in for an in-service.

You can only imagine the whining, complaining, and groaning that this caused. The kids come back on Monday, after having two full weeks off, but we had to go in today.

However...it wasn't all that bad. We had a presentation on rigor and relevance, new initiatives by The District, and some other stuff that was actually worth the time. Thank goodness because if it had been one of those workshops that we've all sat through where you think a needle in the eye would be an improvement, the staff may have actually revolted.

The best part, however, was that Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Robin and I did not have to attend the afternoon sessions because we had made other plans, with the full blessing and approval of The Prinicpal, of course.

A month or so ago, Mrs. Eagle and I were at one of the monthly science teacher gatherings at the local university, something Mrs. Standard puts on so we can all get together and talk about fun new things like our standards changing, when we met up with some of our friends who also teach seventh grade science at two other middle schools in The District. We all began commiserating about how much we hate in-services and how much we'd rather just have time to meet and brainstorm and share good ideas. You know, collaborate? Not one of those forced collaboration meetings that they've tried before which end up being a complete waste of time because everyone has to be there and some people, no matter how much you push them, just will not work well with others. You can't force people to collaborate. Part of the secret to good collaboration is having people who trust each other enough to share ideas and who actually enjoy each other.

And we got to thinking. And Mrs. Eagle and I went to The Principal and asked her if we could have our other seventh grade science friends come over and we'd do some top-notch collaboration - sharing our Big Deal State Test review activities, share some of our good labs and activities that work, and so forth and so on.

And, because The Principal is a visionary and actually believes in the whole idea of collaboration, she said, "go for it".

So while everyone else was doing who knows what, we had three other teachers in my room and we worked together to come up with some good ideas for the next semester. It was awesome. We all walked away with great ideas that are proven in the classroom and that we can use to help our kids.

And we all agreed that we'd like to get together at least once again this semester to touch base and share any new information that we've picked up.

Now that, my friends, is a good in-service!

Finding time to sleep...

Last weekend our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Buckeye, came down from Ohio to visit, go to a civil war conference, and attend a hockey game. It was wonderful seeing them, catching up on stuff, and generally enjoying ourselves. Mrs. Buckeye and I were out shopping for a bit and got to talking about things and she mentioned an on-line "spat" she had with someone on one of her listserves who kept bagging on teachers because "they leave every day at 2:30 and don't really work." Bless her heart, she stood up for us.

But it got me to thinking.

Which can be a very dangerous thing.

And I started to wonder just how much time I really do spend as a teacher. So I decided to spend a few days keeping a tally, because I don't recall the last time I left at 2:30.

Friday:

Arrive at school at 6:15 - put together daily PowerPoint Agenda, make sure all supplies are set out and ready, check mail box, go through mail from the day before (just how many forms do we need to send out every week?) and get Mrs. Language caught up on the day before as she was out sick (and brought me a steak biscuit from Hardee's to thank me for doing her lessons, bless her heart).

7:05 - 7:30 - Homeroom. It's Green Day at school, which means candy grams and all sorts of silly stuff. Kids are wild. Take attendance, check agendas, fix a locker, get make-up work for kids who've been absent.

7:30 - 8:25 - First Period. Have kids turn in homework, science dictionaries, and finish element projects. Help kids with computer issues, glue stick issues, scissor issues, and boyfriend/girlfriend issues.

8:25-8:30 - Run to the bathroom

8:30 - 9:25 - Second Period. See First Period Above

9:25-9:30 - Watch hallways for potential problems. More and more kids with green hair due to PTO fundraiser where kids can pay to have their hair sprayed green or gelled.

9:30 - 10:25 - Third Period. My Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself. Two kids turn in behavior notes for horseplay. See First Period above.

10:25 - 10:30 - Watch hall again. More kids with green hair and now, green tattoos on faces.

10:30 - 11:05 - Fourth Period. See First Period Above.

11:05 - 11:40 - Line kids up for lunch, walk them down once they get settled, eat my lunch, check mailbox, go to bathroom, pick up kids, walk back to class.

11:40 - 12:05 - Finish Fourth Period.

12:10 - 1:05 - Fifth Period - See First Period Above. Hand out a behavior note to a kid who is flicking other kids' ears and who can't, for the life of him, keep his hands to himself. "I don't know," is his answer to everything. Show Flicker his file with previous behavior notes and emails to mom in it. Inform Flicker that next incident will most likely be a referral.

1:05 - 1:50 - 6th period planning!!! And for once, no parent meeting!!! Run to bathroom. Get mail. Meet with Mrs. Eagle and do our plans for next week. Realize that we forgot to type up a vocabulary test which I will do over the weekend. Electronically drop the plans to Mr. Enforcer, and make copies for our binders. Make copies of unit test, both regular and modified. Send email to Mrs. Sweet, letting her know we have a test scheduled for Wed and it would be great if she was available to read to our special ed kids. Return mobile computer labs to lab room.

1:50 -2:05 Kids are sent back to homerooms to get their report cards stapled into their agendas. Much wailing and worrying about what the results will be when the report cards arrive home. Some are happy, others are not so thrilled.

2:05 -4:50- Kids are dismissed! Grade workbooks from kids who've been absent. Grade homework. Put grades in computer. Export grades to website where parents can see what their darlings are doing (or not doing). Write and send my weekly parent email. Update my website and add my homework and messages to grades website. Clean whiteboards, and one of the tables which has had interesting graffiti on it lately. Comet and bleach works pretty well, but I'm going to try to catch the offender...I have my suspicions. Water plants. Look at clock and realize I need to get home.

Saturday - 1:15 - 3:00 - Grade element projects

5:15 - 8:00 - Grade the remaining element projects. Goal was to have all projects graded before hockey game, but alas, that did not happen. Put together picture cards of lab equipment and measurement tools to use in a review game.

Sunday - 12:15 - 2:15 Mrs. Eagle arrives. We put together a purchase requisition for supplies needed in order to do our review for Our Very Big Government Mandated Tests. Go over the cards I made the night before to make sure they're what we're looking for. Work on fine-tuning our lessons for the next few weeks. Discuss the fact that we can't believe we're down to the last nine weeks of the year. Go over some of my NSTA magazines with some ideas on weather projects we may try if we can get money to pay for supplies

Hum...that's it. I suppose it's a good thing that I don't have any kids of my own to worry about and that Mr. Bluebird works most weekends out of town. I couldn't imagine how I'd get it all done with people underfoot.

Now I know there are teachers that leave the second the bell rings - I work with some of them. If I did that I wouldn't feel like I'm doing the best job I can for my kids. My kids need me to be prepared, they need me to be organized, and they need me to give them prompt feedback on their assignments (I rarely take more than a day to get something graded).

I just wish some people would respect that.

Ah, the sound of binder rings in the morning

We went back to school this past Thursday (nothing like easing everyone in with a very short week), and the kids were actually pretty well behaved. I've noticed for the past few years that Santa does something really weird over the holidays - it's as if he gives all my good kids the crazies (aka hormones) and they become nuts, and then the kids that were nuts before get something (a dose of maturity?) and they do a lot better. Interestingly enough, I didn't see any big changes in the kids, outside of some new clothes and a lot of haircuts, but time will tell.

We celebrated the New Year by cleaning out the science portion of our binders.

Binder are a Very Big Thing in our district. And getting to clean out the binders is a Very Big Thing to our students.

The binders, and the fact that Every Single Seventh Grader in the entire district is required to carry one , is an outgrowth of a program called AVID (Advancement through Individal Determination), which has been very successful in our high schools. (For more information on Avid, go here). In our high schools, AVID is actually a designated class that helps kids with organizational skills and study skills in the hopes to move these middle-of-the road kids into a higher achievement level. It's a really successful program and I've had a number of former students credit it for turning them around. Many AVID students end up going to college, something many of them may not have even considered before they entered the program.

So, a few years ago, The District decided to take some of the AVID concepts and implement them into the middle schools, with seventh grade being the focus. Our team piloted the program last year and now everyone's doing it. We did have the AVID teachers from the local high schools come down and show us what they do, and then we modified it based on the reality of seventh graders (and what we discovered last year). Face it, there are some things they are just not developmentally ready for.

The big feature of the program is The Binder. Every kid has a binder which holds EVERYTHING. No more "I left my Science folder in my locker." These binders go with the kids everywhere. There is a section for each subject, and subsections within each subject - class notes & handouts, graded & returned work, and homework. Everything is filed on top, so in theory, if a kid finished his homework, opens his binder and puts it on the very top of the science/homework section, there should be no problem locating the homework to turn it in the following day. The binder also contains paper, their agenda, a pencil pouch which holds pencils and highlighters, and class and team rules, information, etc. The agenda itself has to be filled out in a specifc way with a line for Classwork (what we did that day), and another one for Homework, which are then highlighted with different colored highlighters. Notes are taken in the Cornell Note format although those of us in the Science Department tend to use our foldable notes instead as it works better for our content (and that's another post and another day).

In short, there's a huge emphasis on organization with this program. And, truth be told, it has a lot of merit but it's been incredibly difficult to work with the kids on their binders when we don't have a dedicated class for it like the high schools do. All of which may be one of the reasons why we go to a dedicated advisory next year, but I digress.

Cleaning out their binders (which, by the way, is something the high school kids apparently never get to do) is something our kids love to do. There's something about throwing away old test and notes and homework that gives them satisfaction. I feel the same way about going through my closet and getting rid of things I never wear. I did, however, have them staple all their foldable notes together and turn them in. I file these away and then hand them back out when we review for Our Very Big Government Mandated Test. They clicked those binder rings open and closed, shuffled their papers, sorted them out, stapled and turned in.

So, I got to wondering...any of you out there use the AVID program? Comments?