...why, when I have classes of 17 and 19, that I keep getting new kids scheduled into my class of (now) 33.
Just wondering.....
Showing posts with label scheduling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scheduling. Show all posts
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
When Good Kids Choose Rotten Friends
We had a meeting this week with a parent that we were, in all honesty, not really looking forward to meeting. Her daughter is one of the absolutely most annoying kids I have this year. It's hard, honestly, to come up with anything nice to say about a kid who has such an unpleasant personality (and we had heard rumors that the apple didn't fall far from the tree), so we weren't exactly wanting to meet mom.
However. Mom really needed to get in to see us (I even put that in the comments section on the report card) because she has a kid who should be an A B student and who has, in nearly all her classes, a solid F. Not just a basic F, but a real bad, nearly hard to recover from F. Passing is 70%...she has a 54% average for me. We're talking 26 missing assignments last semester. Referrals for constant tardies. Backtalk. She Will Not Shut Up. Other kids complain about her constant talking, note passing, and generally annoying behavior. So, she's in an isolation seat and spends most of the class period staring at me with absolute disgust.
Mom was concerned. Mom was getting some of the same rotten behavior at home. Mom couldn't understand how a kid could go from straight A's in elementary school and land with straight F's in middle school. We even had Mr. Enforcer there explaining to mom why we put her in the enrichment class (for kids who have shown they have the ability, but for whatever reason, won't work.)
Truthfully, it came down to her best friend. Snotty Girl has chosen the absolute worst friends she could possibly find. She hangs with the low achievers, the kids in trouble all the time, the kids who do absolutely no work - her best friend hasn't passed a single class since she hit middle school. And since she wants to fit in, because being smart isn't cool or popular, she acts just as stupid and ignorant as they do.
We mentioned this to Mom and she agreed. Mom wasn't wild about her friends either. So, we took a look at her schedule and decided to break up the little duo and separate her from The Best Friend. Mom basically said, "Do whatever it takes," (which was nice to hear for a change) and we brought Snotty Girl in and broke the news to her.
She was LIVID.
She was mad at us, mad at Mr. Enforcer, and FURIOUS at her mother.
We had her schedule changed by the time her electives were over and we put her in our classes that were heavily stacked with the nicer, smarter kids. In fact, she ended up in my favorite class, my "girl class" which has only 6 boys and 15 girls. It's a great class with high achievers and just really nice kids.
Snotty Girl sulked and pouted all day, even when I put her in a group and didn't stick her back in isolation (and she hasn't made a peep). She also asked if she could have a second chance and make up a missing assignment (I told her she had one day).
Her friend? She was mad and pouted all day as well. In fact, they're both still pouting. Her friend was SHOCKED - just SHOCKED - that Snotty Girl's mother actually let THEM CHANGE HER SCHEUDLE.
I guess I'm a them.
In any case, I think we did the right thing. If nothing else it quieted these two down for a bit and Snotty Girl actually turned in some work. Amazing.
However. Mom really needed to get in to see us (I even put that in the comments section on the report card) because she has a kid who should be an A B student and who has, in nearly all her classes, a solid F. Not just a basic F, but a real bad, nearly hard to recover from F. Passing is 70%...she has a 54% average for me. We're talking 26 missing assignments last semester. Referrals for constant tardies. Backtalk. She Will Not Shut Up. Other kids complain about her constant talking, note passing, and generally annoying behavior. So, she's in an isolation seat and spends most of the class period staring at me with absolute disgust.
Mom was concerned. Mom was getting some of the same rotten behavior at home. Mom couldn't understand how a kid could go from straight A's in elementary school and land with straight F's in middle school. We even had Mr. Enforcer there explaining to mom why we put her in the enrichment class (for kids who have shown they have the ability, but for whatever reason, won't work.)
Truthfully, it came down to her best friend. Snotty Girl has chosen the absolute worst friends she could possibly find. She hangs with the low achievers, the kids in trouble all the time, the kids who do absolutely no work - her best friend hasn't passed a single class since she hit middle school. And since she wants to fit in, because being smart isn't cool or popular, she acts just as stupid and ignorant as they do.
We mentioned this to Mom and she agreed. Mom wasn't wild about her friends either. So, we took a look at her schedule and decided to break up the little duo and separate her from The Best Friend. Mom basically said, "Do whatever it takes," (which was nice to hear for a change) and we brought Snotty Girl in and broke the news to her.
She was LIVID.
She was mad at us, mad at Mr. Enforcer, and FURIOUS at her mother.
We had her schedule changed by the time her electives were over and we put her in our classes that were heavily stacked with the nicer, smarter kids. In fact, she ended up in my favorite class, my "girl class" which has only 6 boys and 15 girls. It's a great class with high achievers and just really nice kids.
Snotty Girl sulked and pouted all day, even when I put her in a group and didn't stick her back in isolation (and she hasn't made a peep). She also asked if she could have a second chance and make up a missing assignment (I told her she had one day).
Her friend? She was mad and pouted all day as well. In fact, they're both still pouting. Her friend was SHOCKED - just SHOCKED - that Snotty Girl's mother actually let THEM CHANGE HER SCHEUDLE.
I guess I'm a them.
In any case, I think we did the right thing. If nothing else it quieted these two down for a bit and Snotty Girl actually turned in some work. Amazing.
Monday, August 11, 2008
It's a Good Thing I'm a Little Nuts Already
The saga of the exploding homeroom continues.
On Friday, 29 of 35 kids showed up. Whee!!! I had seats for everyone. It's not unusual to have a good chunk of kids not show up because a lot of them move over the summer and we may not have received a request for records yet from their new school. I was hoping, as you can imagine, that this number would stabilize.
This morning, three of my "missing" children appeared, so my number jumped to 32. I have, barely, 32 seats available. This means every single isolation island is being used, and those kids will need to have some spare chairs to pull up to a lab group when we do labs - there's no extra lab tables available to start with and there's no room to put when if I could find one. So, I sent a request to the head custodian to find me 4 plain chairs. Mrs. Social Studies, next door, had to get 3 more student desks. We are not alone. Chairs and desks are a hot commodity right now.
This afternoon I get an email informing me that a student was being transferred from Mrs. Eagle's team to my team. I knew the name right away - it's the younger brother of a kid I had a few years ago. His mom is very involved, but I actually kind of enjoyed her - if I ever needed a volunteer, she'd be there. She had told me a year ago she wanted her youngest on our team - however, the team her older son had isn't the same. I'm the only returning member from that era, and in fact, Mrs. Bunny's team has two of the teachers that were on our team that year. However, amazingly enough, her team's numbers are even higher than ours are, so I ended up with Little Brother.
Of course he ended up in my homeroom.
I informed Guidance Mom that he'd be sitting on the floor as things stood now. She's going to try to move another kid out of that class and into one of my others, and hopefully we'll keep that 32 number. As it stands, most of my classes are in the 28 range which is a pretty big group.
However, it beats sitting on the floor.
Our numbers this year are, well, unpredictable. The Principal informed that even before school started, we were running 100 kids over the prediction. I have no clue where they are coming from, but they're here and we're running out of chairs.
I have heard, however, that the 8th grade is rather empty, compared to sixth and seventh grade. Funny how things work out.
Speaking of 8th graders...I'm teaching an 8th grade Health Class this year which is going to be kind of fun, as long as my 8th graders don't get lost. I have 29 on my roster. When the bell rang for 7th period, only 7 had shown up. Something was wrong. I asked one of my kids from last year to show me his schedule and discovered that it had my name, my room number, and the title was "PE"...ah, health used to be part of the PE department and apparently that didn't get changed when they did the schedules. So, I had seven kids who read their schedules and came to the right room (and earned a Jolly Rancher for not being a goober), and 22 who, most likely, ended up wandering lose in the gym.
I got a hold of the Guidance Goddess to see if she could radio the gym teachers and send me my missing kids. About ten minutes later one of the coaches showed up with the missing sheep, and was on her way to drop off Mrs. Eagle's missing sheep (she only had 4 find her room!)
You know, I quit watching soap operas when I began teaching...it's just way more entertaining.
On Friday, 29 of 35 kids showed up. Whee!!! I had seats for everyone. It's not unusual to have a good chunk of kids not show up because a lot of them move over the summer and we may not have received a request for records yet from their new school. I was hoping, as you can imagine, that this number would stabilize.
This morning, three of my "missing" children appeared, so my number jumped to 32. I have, barely, 32 seats available. This means every single isolation island is being used, and those kids will need to have some spare chairs to pull up to a lab group when we do labs - there's no extra lab tables available to start with and there's no room to put when if I could find one. So, I sent a request to the head custodian to find me 4 plain chairs. Mrs. Social Studies, next door, had to get 3 more student desks. We are not alone. Chairs and desks are a hot commodity right now.
This afternoon I get an email informing me that a student was being transferred from Mrs. Eagle's team to my team. I knew the name right away - it's the younger brother of a kid I had a few years ago. His mom is very involved, but I actually kind of enjoyed her - if I ever needed a volunteer, she'd be there. She had told me a year ago she wanted her youngest on our team - however, the team her older son had isn't the same. I'm the only returning member from that era, and in fact, Mrs. Bunny's team has two of the teachers that were on our team that year. However, amazingly enough, her team's numbers are even higher than ours are, so I ended up with Little Brother.
Of course he ended up in my homeroom.
I informed Guidance Mom that he'd be sitting on the floor as things stood now. She's going to try to move another kid out of that class and into one of my others, and hopefully we'll keep that 32 number. As it stands, most of my classes are in the 28 range which is a pretty big group.
However, it beats sitting on the floor.
Our numbers this year are, well, unpredictable. The Principal informed that even before school started, we were running 100 kids over the prediction. I have no clue where they are coming from, but they're here and we're running out of chairs.
I have heard, however, that the 8th grade is rather empty, compared to sixth and seventh grade. Funny how things work out.
Speaking of 8th graders...I'm teaching an 8th grade Health Class this year which is going to be kind of fun, as long as my 8th graders don't get lost. I have 29 on my roster. When the bell rang for 7th period, only 7 had shown up. Something was wrong. I asked one of my kids from last year to show me his schedule and discovered that it had my name, my room number, and the title was "PE"...ah, health used to be part of the PE department and apparently that didn't get changed when they did the schedules. So, I had seven kids who read their schedules and came to the right room (and earned a Jolly Rancher for not being a goober), and 22 who, most likely, ended up wandering lose in the gym.
I got a hold of the Guidance Goddess to see if she could radio the gym teachers and send me my missing kids. About ten minutes later one of the coaches showed up with the missing sheep, and was on her way to drop off Mrs. Eagle's missing sheep (she only had 4 find her room!)
You know, I quit watching soap operas when I began teaching...it's just way more entertaining.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Excuse Me While I Catch My Breath...
We've had a huge change at The School this year with an implementation of a new schedule.
There were several reasons behind the change. To start with, the State has implemented a requirement that all middle school students receive 90 minutes of physical activity a week. This means that more kids need to be taking gym, but at the same time we didn't want them to lose out on their arts, computers, and other classes that are necessary as well. In addition, those of us who've slogged it out trying to do the GPA (Greater Potential for Achievement) binders without time dedicated to it were really hoping we'd get a modified study hall or advisory so we could work with the kids on their binders, study skills and what not. Trust me, if you don't work daily with middle school kids on organizational skills, they just aren't going to get organized.
So The Principal, Guidance Goober, and a few others went to a conference on scheduling and came up with a really kick-butt schedule. We moved from six periods a day to seven, with no split lunch, and 25 minutes of organizational and skills training. We also ended up with a personal planning time and a team/department planning time every day.
Split lunch, by the way, was this creation from the depths of hell where you taught about 20-25 minutes of your fourth period class, then went to lunch, only to have them return to finish up the remaining 30 minutes or so of class. This meant labs were interrupted, tests were interrupted, and you lost time just getting the little ninnies back on track. We despised it.
In order to accomplish this seven period schedule, we went from a 55 minute class period down to a 45 minute class period. This means that Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Robin and I, when we have our meeting every Thursday to do our plans - yes, we finally have actual time blocked out and set aside to collaborate! - are sitting there asking each other, "so, how are we going to cut out ten minutes every day?" We're cutting out some things (no more journals, we're adding writing into our tests and no more day long test reviews which didn't help anyway), and speeding up other things. The end result is that so far, we feel like we're on warp speed getting through the day. Amazingly enough, after three weeks we haven't slipped too far off the pacing guide, so I guess we're getting it done.
Honestly, I love this schedule...I just wished it allowed me time to breathe!
There were several reasons behind the change. To start with, the State has implemented a requirement that all middle school students receive 90 minutes of physical activity a week. This means that more kids need to be taking gym, but at the same time we didn't want them to lose out on their arts, computers, and other classes that are necessary as well. In addition, those of us who've slogged it out trying to do the GPA (Greater Potential for Achievement) binders without time dedicated to it were really hoping we'd get a modified study hall or advisory so we could work with the kids on their binders, study skills and what not. Trust me, if you don't work daily with middle school kids on organizational skills, they just aren't going to get organized.
So The Principal, Guidance Goober, and a few others went to a conference on scheduling and came up with a really kick-butt schedule. We moved from six periods a day to seven, with no split lunch, and 25 minutes of organizational and skills training. We also ended up with a personal planning time and a team/department planning time every day.
Split lunch, by the way, was this creation from the depths of hell where you taught about 20-25 minutes of your fourth period class, then went to lunch, only to have them return to finish up the remaining 30 minutes or so of class. This meant labs were interrupted, tests were interrupted, and you lost time just getting the little ninnies back on track. We despised it.
In order to accomplish this seven period schedule, we went from a 55 minute class period down to a 45 minute class period. This means that Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Robin and I, when we have our meeting every Thursday to do our plans - yes, we finally have actual time blocked out and set aside to collaborate! - are sitting there asking each other, "so, how are we going to cut out ten minutes every day?" We're cutting out some things (no more journals, we're adding writing into our tests and no more day long test reviews which didn't help anyway), and speeding up other things. The end result is that so far, we feel like we're on warp speed getting through the day. Amazingly enough, after three weeks we haven't slipped too far off the pacing guide, so I guess we're getting it done.
Honestly, I love this schedule...I just wished it allowed me time to breathe!
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