Ah Spring

You have to love Spring in The South.  The daffodils...the greening of the grass...the Redbud trees and Bradford Pears in bloom.

And of course, we can't forget the tornadoes.

We had a warm weekend - actually hit 82 degrees which is pretty warm for this time of year, and a cold front was headed our way.  It was 70 when I got up this morning, and windy, so I knew we were in for a busy day in terms of weather.

And oh my, was it busy.

We got all the way through lunch without anything much than dark, ominous clouds, heavy rain and wind.

It wasn't until 5th period that The Principal came across the loud speaker, told us we were under a tornado warning, and requested that everyone get alongside the interior walls on the floor until further notice.  My fifth period is usually pretty good, so they lined up along the walls like they were told and I sat there on the floor and tried to conduct class the best I could.  We are, after all, in the midst of reviewing for The Very Big Deal Government Mandated Test, and I need every second of instruction time I can get.  So, although we were all on the floor, I did manage to go through a PowerPoint on body systems, did an activity on levels of organization, and, since we hadn't handed out their review books, read to them from their review book about diffusion.  It wasn't ideal, but I still got material covered, the kids were kept quiet (sort of) and we managed to make it through the end of the tornado warning.

I may add that the Enforcer, he who is in charge of safety and security, did away with the blaring tornado warning siren.  That thing going off for twenty minutes was enough to drive anyone mad.  Not only was it noisy and aggravating, but it made it fairly impossible to hear what was going on outside (I have no windows so I can't see anything.)  Trust me, if there's a tornado coming, I seriously want to hear about it before it smacks us.

The warning ended, we wrapped up class and headed into sixth period.

Where we had another warning, ended up on the floor, and I did my "teaching from the floor" lessons yet again.

And we had another one seventh period as well.  By then I had done more teaching from my spot on the floor against the wall than I had actually standing on my feet this day. This one was a little louder outside, the lights flickered a bit, but we made it through this last warning with flying colors.

Three different periods, three different tornado warnings.

Ah spring!

A few years ago I picked up my first sudoku puzzle book and was instantly hooked.  I've always liked puzzles anyway, although I never was quite like my mother-in-law who would do crossword puzzles in ink pen.  Sudoku was more my speed.  It was something I could pick up and work on for a few minutes, then set it down, and return to it hours, or even days later.

So, my husband, being the dear that he is, bought me a sudoku puzzle book featuring 601 puzzles.  I really enjoy working on these in the morning, when the sun is coming into my living room, and I'm enjoying a cup of coffee.  It's a nice, quiet, brain-boosting way to start the day.

As of today, I have completed each and every one of the 601 puzzles.

Yeah me!

But not to worry...I have a few other books ready to go, although I'll miss this one.  The binding had long ago given up and pieces of the book have fallen out (held intact with rubber bands).  It was well-used, well-loved, and well-worn!

Spring Break, or the Era of Yard Work

Spring Break has arrived!

Truth be told, I would have preferred to use a bit of spring break to make up our snow days, but here it is, intact, and as luck would have it, really darn nice in terms of weather. (Although I know better.  I remember one spring break where we went from 85 to 18 in one day.)

Actually the week before break was amazingly warm and spring-like, to the point that the kids were wild (ah, the sap rises and so do the hormones).  They were excited about break, excited about warm weather, and excited about just about anything aside from doing work.  They also were all wacked out about the time change and couldn't quite seem to get with the program this week.

A few highlights...and lowlights.

We had our reward party on Friday for the kids who didn't have a single discipline referral for the previous nine weeks.  Basically it was a dance with prizes and food and fun stuff during their 2nd related arts period.  One of my darlings got into a tussle with another kid at the REWARD party and managed to end up in ISS (and who knows what else).  The irony of kids getting in a fight at a party for being good just kills me.

Dennis the Menace has returned and he's like a new kid.  Granted, Mom has him on meds now and he's already learned that he'll be expelled if he screws up, but honestly, I think there's more to it than that.  He's matured.  He even looks a little different - the greasy hair and acne of a kid who's just been slapped upside the head by Puberty - and he's a lot more calm.  He doesn't get pulled into other kids' drama, does his work, follows directions, and is polite and well-mannered and just wonderful.  All the teachers on the Team have noticed it and have commented as much to The Principal and to Dennis' mom.

Anyhow, he's been here for about a month (and hasn't had a single write up for ANYTHING) and when the names of kids who couldn't go to the reward party were released, he wasn't on it - which meant he could go. The problem is, he thought he shouldn't be allowed to go because, after all, he had been in alternative school for part of the nine weeks and had had a write-up while there, so as far as he was concerned, he couldn't go.

He's in my homeroom, and sits right in front, so we'd talked a bit and I said I'd find out for sure if he could go or not.  Because, this kid, out of all of them deserved to go.  So basically, I went to The Principal and said I thought he deserved to go...and she agreed.

The best part of my day on Friday was telling Dennis that he could go to the party.  You would have thought I'd given him a winning lottery ticket.  His face lit up and he was so happy.  And this is the best part - he came back from the party and thanked me for seeing that he could go.  (You have got to be kidding...a kid thanking a teacher?  How rare is that!?)  He told me about the whole thing, what he bought with his reward dollars, the music, and just how much fun it was.

Made my day.

So, for Spring Break I am not doing anything remotely exciting.  I went and got Daddy Bird, spent a day at his place cleaning up, and now he's here at our place for a couple of weeks.  He can drive (doctor said he could) but I don't think any of us want him driving long distances yet.  However, the pacemaker seems to be ticking along just fine and he's doing a great job supervising my yard work.

I have tons of yard work to do, it being spring and all.  The list will blow your mind.  Today was pruning roses day and digging up a rose bush that hasn't bloomed for a few years (you give me nothing but thorns and I'm getting rid of you).  I have shrubs to trim back, yard to feed, winter debris to get rid of,  early spring veggies to plant, and on and on.  I don't know if I'll get it all done, but I'll try.

And then there's taxes to do.

But at least I can sleep in.

Just Ticking Away

Sorry folks, I've been away from the blog for a bit to deal with Daddy Bird and his ticker.  Regular readers may remember that he had a TIA (mini-stroke) last fall.  Well, to make a long story short, he was having blood pressure issues (too high) he blacked out while driving for just a second or two, ended up in a ditch, and instead of going to the doctor for a look at the blood pressure, ended back up in the regional stroke center (about 3 hours from me).  Turns out the heart was ticking along at 40 beats per minute when it should be at 70.  (Hence the blacking out while driving).  They put in a pacemaker and the difference has been amazing.  He's less winded, has more energy, and feels a lot better.

So, I missed three days of school.

Which meant my kids had a sub for three days (I managed to get one that knew the kids although they can't stand her).

The kids were rotten.  Completely rude and rotten.

While I was gone, the Team members were good at emailing and filling me in the nutty things that were going on while I was gone.

Like three of our girls were texting in class and ended up in in school suspension.

Three of our boys - all BIG boys - got in a scuffle in Mr. Math's room by calling each other "fat".  These are the fattest kids on the team and the fact that they're calling each other fat is, well, just beyond ridiculous.

Another boy apparently, at lunch, stuck his hands down his pants, played a bit with the family jewels, and then proceeded to rub his hands on two other (much smaller) students. Mrs. Social Studies was grossed out by this when it was reported to her that she wasn't even sure she know how to write up the referral.  Fortunately The Principal was nearby and informed her that it fell under "lewd and lascivious" behavior and that "unfortunately it's been happening quite a lot lately."

Disgusting.

My Seventh Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself had an issue when our Drama Girl (this one is something else - she invents drama like nobody's business) apparently reacted when one of the boys made a comment (who knows what) and had a complete and total meltdown in class.  Crying, screaming, sobbing, so forth and so on.  My poor sub managed to get her to the hallway where Mrs. Social Studies saw her, called guidance and they took her away.

So, in short, life is normal.

Seventh graders, however, are not.

I Won't Make the Majors with this Batting Average

Three parent meetings.

Three cancellations.

But hey, at least they called/emailed...about 5 minutes before the meeting.

With this batting average, I won't ever make the Majors.

Update 3/15/11 - Had a parent meeting today (scheduled by the parent).  Can you guess what happened?  Yup, another no-show.  I am now 0 for 4.

Buttons

During class the other day Silly Boy, one of my homeroom kiddos who is one of the silliest kids I know, got all worked up because he'd lost a button off of his shirt.

Go figure.

The kids were busy working on a group activity about Newton's Laws when Silly Boy came up and asked me what to do with the button that had popped off his flannel shirt.

"Well, take it home and sew it on," I suggested.  "Or have your mom do it."

"I don't know how to sew, and I'll probably lose it before I get home," he admitted.  At least he's honest.  This is a kid who loses his locker several times a week because he can't remember to bring his books to class.

"You don't know how to sew on a button?" I asked, figuring that was one of those life skills that everyone pretty  much knew how to do, sort of like boiling water.  Granted, Silly Boy is, after all, a boy so maybe he missed the "how to use a needle and thread" lesson somewhere in life.

Which got me to thinking.  Maybe he's not alone.

So, while I went to my desk and whipped out my "housewife" (you Civil War buffs will know what I'm talking about but it's a reproduction sewing kit that soldiers would use to do their own mending - me, I use it to fix things at school) I stopped the kids for a minute and asked them if any of them knew how to sew on a button.

My jaw about dropped.  Out of 23 kids, two raised their hands.

"Seriously?" I said.  "You don't know how to sew on a button?  What do you do when you lose one?"

The answers varied from "I dunno", to "Give it to mom/grandma/older sister" to "Don't wear it anymore".

Oh dear.  Even the girls, many of them in Girl Scouts at some point in their lives, didn't know how to sew on a button.  They were, I might add, just fascinated as they watched me sew the button back on Silly Boy's shirt (with him still in it, squirmy little twerp that he was).   Most of my kids don't come from money and the fact that they can't do basic clothing repairs just blows my mind.

So I'm thinking...the last week of school, when we're wrapping up the year, I just may get a bunch of buttons, fabric scraps, and needles and thread and teach these kids one of those basic life skills - sewing on a button.

When Kids Are In Charge

I really like my kids, for the most part, this year.  (Okay, I hate my Seventh Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself but there are kids in there I like - it's just the combination of kids which make me crazy).

Their parents, on the other hand, are making me insane.

Case in point.  We have a kid I'll call Absent Boy, because, you guessed it, he's absent all the time.  He misses every test.  He misses every benchmark.  He's usually gone on Fridays and often times he's gone on Mondays.  When he comes back he's healthy as a horse, nary a sniffle or a sore throat in sight.  In short, he basically tells his mom when he wants to come to school and she lets him get away with it.   He was absent yesterday, the day we had our two hour delay, and when one of the teachers asked him why, he said, "Well, there was a two hour delay and we didn't know if they'd cancel, and mom didn't know how she'd get me to school, so I didn't come". (Did this lady never hear of a bus?)

Absent Kid has a whopping 37% in my class and he's pretty much doing the same in all his other classes.  He's a bright kid, when you can get something out of him, which isn't often.  He is on an IEP as a special education student, but seriously, he does well on the things he does.  He is capable.  As a sped kid he can turn in late work (never does) and in my class he gets a homework helper which basically is an answer key to help him do his homework.  All he has to do is copy it and turn it in.  But he doesn't.  He has, in fact, informed his sped case manager and the enrichment teacher that he's not bothering to do much in seventh grade since he'll get passed anyway because he's on an IEP.   He won't even turn in things we do in class.

We have tried to get his mother to come in for a meeting.  She'll agree to a meeting, then five minutes before she is to show up, she'll call and cancel.  Today, yet again, she pulled this stunt. So we have yet to get her in here (she also apparently doesn't show up at IEP meetings either.)

This kid is running the house.  If we wanted any more evidence of this, Mr. Math ran into Absent Mom (how appropriate) and Absent Boy at a local fast food join yesterday.  Absent Boy didn't see Mr. Math at first and was running around being a brat and talking back to his mom.  She told him he couldn't have something and he went off and slapped her in the face!  And. She. Did. Nothing.

Apparently this is her coping mechanism...to do nothing.  The kid talks back...she does nothing.  He fails his classes...she does nothing.  He whines and complains and wants to stay home from school...she does nothing.

But I'm the one being held accountable.

Just Can't Win With the Weather

So after the winter we've had (and I'm not sure it's all done yet), we've actually managed to go two full weeks of school without a snow day.  I know, pretty amazing, eh?  And, truth be told, it's been almost spring-like.

However, spring-like warm weather can often bring spring-like bad storms.  Nothing like a warm front and a cold front banging up against each other and producing thunderstorms and those lovely little things known as tornadoes.  We've already had the tornado sirens go off twice in the past week and it's still February.  Fortunately these have happened while we were at home, not during school, so it simply means hustling all the felines into the basement and  hunkering down until the storm passes (praying the whole time that we don't have any damage).  I must admit that the felines are not happy with these little interludes and spend most of the time in their kennels (so we don't have to chase them all over the basement during the storm) glaring at us with That Look of Complete Disdain that only cats can give.

Anyhow, all the weather sources were predicting A Really Bad Line of Storms coming through our areastarting last night and going into today.  Oh fun.  Usually that means little sleep between the storm, the sirens and the cats bouncing all over the place.  However, the sirens went off yesterday (while Mrs. Eagle and I were returning from Girls Night at the Hockey Game) and I missed that fun.  It settled down a bit and didn't get bad again until around 5:00 am this morning.

And then it just let loose.  Thunder, lightning and buckets of rain, not to mention lots and lots of wind (no tornado warnings, however, Thank Goodness.)  So I'm sitting there drinking my coffee and watching the weather as large yellow, green and orange blobs sailed through the map right over our town when the phone rang.

At 5:15 am.  What the heck?

It was, surprisingly enough, the School District.  Apparently they took a look outside, took a look at the radar and decided a two-hour delay was a good thing.  Good decision.  It was a mess,  a rainy, stormy, windy mess.  (Oh, and the temperature was 70 when I woke up, was 58 an hour later, and now is 38.)

Now, a two-hour delay means the kids have a delay but all the employees report at their normal time.  I didn't have to much trouble getting in, but a few teachers who live in some of the more rural areas, really had some issues.  The rivers in town are rising (almost as bad as last' year's 100 Year Flood, but thankfully, not quite) and it was raining so hard that the streets were having trouble draining.

But we made it through.  The good news is this counts for a full day.  The bad news is I'm hoping and praying that I get everything taught that I need to before The Very Big Deal Government Mandated Tests in April and I'm not feeling really confident about it.

The Sharpie Wars

So today I was walking around my classroom during third period (my first period of the day) when I noticed that my students looked like a bunch of dirty ragamuffins.

There were black smudges on their faces, necks, arms, hands, and just about any bit of exposed skin.  Weird.  Most of these kids are in my homeroom and I didn't recall them looking like this earlier in the day.  It wasn't until I walked around the room while the kids were working on their activity, that I found my answer.  Jock Boy, a jolly good-natured kid ever there ever was one, had an entire arm covered with writing, smudges, and who knows what.

"So what's with the tats?" I asked him, pointing to his arms.

"Oh that?  That's just Sharpie," he said.  "Cool, huh?"

"Uh, not exactly," I said.  "You know it's not allowed in the Student Code of Conduct, right?"

He looked crestfallen.  "It's not?"

"It's not," I said.  "So, let's get cleaned up tonight and not do it again, okay?"  He agreed with a smile and went on with his work.  And as I continued to walk around I realized that what at first looked like dirt was actually Sharpie smudges.  I didn't pursue it beyond the quick conversation with Jock Boy (which all the kids eavesdropped on) but continued with my class.

And then my fourth period walked in looking just as bad.  And then my fifth period, same story.  So at lunch, the time when all of the teachers on The Team get together, eat lunch,  and check in with what was up with the kids, I found out that all of us were seeing these Sharpie smudges on our students.   As Mrs. Reading said, "It's a bit hard to focus on a kid's question when there's a big black line going across their face."

After lunch Mrs. Social Studies and I pulled aside one of our kids that we could more or less trust and get the truth out of and asked her about the Sharpie smudges.

Apparently the kids, on the way back from the gym and their other electives, were having "Sharpie wars," in the hallway.  Basically they were taking Sharpies and drawing lines on each other as the mass of seventh grade humanity made it back to the core part of The School (where there is more supervision and they can't do anything that stupid without getting caught.)

Oh.  Good.  Gracious.

I'm used to Seventh Grade Stupid Stuff, but jeepers, it's only February!  This kind of stupid stuff really shouldn't show up until after spring break!  If this is a sign of the spring to come, it's going to be a long, long time until school is out.

Making a Splash

This was only the second full five-day week we've had since December 6th.

And it seemed like a really long week.  The kids are out of it and not motivated to do any work at all.  I almost feel like I'm back in the first weeks of school where we have to go over everything again and remind them how to "do school", since it's been so long since we've actually had any kind of routine.

But Mrs. Eagle and I have found a new way to de-stress after school.  We go to The Pool.

Our City Fathers, in all their wisdom, pissed off nearly the entire city by deciding to convert the community pool across from our school into a year-round aquatic center with the addition of an inflatable domed cover.   You should have seen the nasty letters to the editor in the local paper about "how dare they put that aquatic center over in that part of town" (meaning the part where the poor folks live).  That whole ruckus really annoyed most of us who work at The School because they were talking about Our Kids.  Yeah, we know the Neighborhood isn't the best, and our kids are nearly all on free and reduced lunch, and yeah, we have gang problems and all sorts of issues, but is that any reason to deny them a covered pool because hey, we pay taxes over here in the 'Hood too!

So there.

So, they spent a couple of months working on the pool (because it snowed every other freaking day for the past two months) and it finally opened up a couple of weeks ago to much fan-fare and some really amazingly cold water.  (It apparently takes a long time for a really big 500 meter pool to heat up.)  And the Guidance Goober who is on a health kick (but who inhales peanut M&M's like no body's business and single-handedly keeps all the local coffee vendors in business) walked across the parking lot and asked if he could make a deal with the pool management.  See, we had all these teachers Just Across The Parking Lot, and it would be really nice if they'd let us go together and buy family passes instead of making us all spend the big bucks and get the individual passes.

And the pool people said, "No problem!" and about ten of us are now "family" and have a much cheaper pool pass.  We're actually considering getting t-shirts made up that read "The School Swim Club" or something equally stupid.

So, Mrs. Eagle and I have been going over to The Pool nearly every day after school.  They offer water aerobics classes for $2 and we've done a few of those, plus we sometimes just go over to swim laps.  But the best part is just the way that floating in the water makes some of the tension just ease away.  (By the way, water aerobics is one heck of a work out - but it sure doesn't bother my knee like regular aerobics used to do.)  I haven't been swimming since my own years in middle school so it's been quite a change of routine.

Every day there seems to be more and more people coming in to enjoy the pool and this week we've started to see some of our kids come in after school.  

Which is interesting.

Because the kids almost seem embarrassed to see - GASP! - Their Teachers at the pool.  It's a good thing that both Mrs. Eagle and I have reached the age where We Just Don't Care, and so neither one of us really gives a flip that the kids are seeing us in a swimsuit (which covers everything because we are of a certain age and our shape is well, round).  Mrs. Sped next door to me, who is a fitness freak and a regular swimmer made the comment that she thinks it's good that the kids do see us at the pool engaging in healthy fitness activities.  She has a point.

So it's nice to see the kids coming over and using the pool.  It's a great way for them to get some exercise (and they aren't sitting in front of a video game console).  They swim, they splash, they jump off the diving board, and they're having a great time.  They're not running the streets, they aren't causing trouble, and they are having fun.

Really, isn't that what exercise should be about?

Hello...and Goodbye

The Guidance Diva the other day made a very astute comment..."They can throw billions of dollars at schools for education but it won't do a bit of good until they fix what's going on out there."  "Out There," being the neighborhood, the culture where education isn't respected or desired, the culture where working isn't a goal because drawing a welfare check pays better, a culture invested with drugs, gangs, abuse, and alcoholism.  A culture where parents aren't being parents.

And where they hang up on the teacher who is trying to call them about their kid.  (Yup, happened again today).

In any case, it never ceases to amaze me how people don't seem to have a clue about the types of kids we see every day and how amazingly screwed up their lives are, mainly due to the grown ups in their lives who aren't acting like grown ups.

Case in point.

We got a new kid this week (part of the seventh grade infestation) who came from outside our county.  Seemed like a nice kid (although we had to have a conversation about sagging).  Didn't say anything, got to work, said "Yes, Ma'am" and all that.  No problems with him at all.

The second day he was here, Mr. Enforcer strolled into Mrs. Reading's class and asked to have him pointed out.  Apparently some of his records were catching up with him, and Mr. Enforcer wanted to be able to recognize this kid should his name cross his desk.

This is not a good sign.

The next morning New Kid was absent from my homeroom.  Mrs. Reading came in after the kids went to their elective classes and told me that The Principal had ran into her in the hallway and mentioned that the New Kid wasn't going to be coming back.  Apparently more of his records had arrived the day before and The Enforcer brought them to The Principal's attention.

And what they saw apparently scared the living daylights out of both of them.  As The Principal put it, "It made me sick to read."

Again, not a good sign.

So he's gone.  No one is really saying much, but he was a kid in foster care.  The Principal took one look at his file and realized that this kid had emotional issues and problems too big (and too scary) to keep him in school with our student population.  She called the foster parents (who had no clue about any of this apparently which is just wrong) and informed them that due to his issues that she was going to get him placed in a nearby school that serves severely emotionally disturbed students.  I hope she succeeds in this and that he gets the counseling and care he needs.

But really it all comes down to this.  The kid is twelve.  Twelve!  And his life is already so screwed up by the grown ups in his life that he's considered a threat to the normal school population.  He has been, according to The Enforcer, "completely let down on every level by every grown up in his life."

I wish people who had no business or desire to be parents just stopped breeding.

The Seventh Grade Infestation

This past fall, due to declining enrollment, the seventh grade went from three full teams to two teams, and then some eighth grade teachers picked up a seventh grade class to help lower the class sizes.  The eighth grade had two full teams and a "mini-team", and the sixth grade had three full teams.

Except by November it was apparent that there were eighth grade teachers with class sizes in the teens while we in seventh grade were trying to maintain some semblance of control over class sizes in the 30's.   Fortunately our Admins saw that this wasn't good, so the eighth grade teachers teaching one seventh grade class, were upped to teaching two of them (along with three eighth grade classes).

And the numbers of seventh graders just keeps climbing.  

We got an email from the Guidance Goddess early this week informing us that not two, not three, not four, but seven seventh graders were going to be enrolling and she'd appreciate it if we could let her know what classes we'd like to put them in.  At this point, with special ed considerations and block scheduling for reading and language arts, it is nearly impossible to have a good schedule.  Regardless of what we do, the big classes keep getting bigger.  I pretty much said I didn't care where they put them as long as they weren't in my homeroom or third period.

Can you guess where two of them ended up?  My homeroom and third period.  

Sigh.

Both seventh grade teams are nearly out of lockers to give to the new kids, so I asked Mr. Enforcer if we were still going to have two seventh grade teams, was there a possibility of moving some of the school's unused lockers down into the seventh grade area.  He said he didn't know what we were doing for staffing next year, but he'd definitely consider it.  

We now have more seventh graders than we had last year (and five fewer teachers).  We have more seventh graders than eighth graders, and are five kids below the number of sixth graders.  The seventh grade teachers are cranky.  Seventh grade is a bad year for most kids - absolutely perfectly normal wonderful kids become dysfunctional goobers in seventh grade (and then, usually, outgrow it by eighth grade).  It is The Year From Hell.  Seventh graders have the most failures, the most discipline referrals, the most problems.  So we're putting them in cramped classes with other kids who are losing their minds due to hormonal overload.  I swear it's like a long car trip with a van-load of kids who can't get along.

I'm with Guidance Goddess...I want a sign on the marquee that says "Seventh Grade is Closed."

Another Snow Day and a Wonderful Tool

We haven't been back to school since we dismissed early on Monday.  That storm came in and dumped 3.5" of heavy white stuff.  The roads were a mess (as usual) and although they were much better by Tuesday, the National Weather Service was forecasting another round of winter weather starting Wednesday morning, so they canceled school for Wednesday as well.  It started snowing at my house around 10:00 am, and finished around 8:00 pm after dumping another 4" of the white stuff.  Again, the roads were a disaster.  To make it even more fun, the nighttime temperature dropped to -6 - and this in an area where our average temperature is 50 degrees! So today, Thursday is another snow day and who knows what Friday will bring?  Hard to say.

So, we've really lost two weeks of instruction already and I've been getting a bit stir crazy.

However.  Thanks to a Tech Geek at our district I have been test driving a new tool to use to keep my kids in the learning game even while they're home for a snow day. A few weeks ago the Tech Geek was out in our building working with some teachers and I asked her if there was anything she knew of that I could use to connect with my kids during a snow day - a social networking type site, a chat site, whatever.

She recommended Edmodo.

I'm going to sound like a commercial here, so apologies ahead of time, but this application just rocks!  It's a social networking site that is teacher directed.  I signed up, gave my kids the code to sign up for my class, and so far I have about 50 kids signed up and a number of parents as well (parents can get a code to monitor their child which is a fantastic idea!) It looks a lot like Facebook, but the one thing is the kids can't talk with each other, they can only talk to the group as a whole or to the teacher.

I have posted extra credit, I've linked to Brainpops, I've put in missing work for absent kids, and I even posted a video lesson this morning (my first video!).  The kids who are absent absolutely love it, and they actually are turning in work (that's a huge problem for us - kids who are absent tend not to make up their work).  I can send direct messages to kids ("while we are out on a snow day, please finish your writing prompt.") and to individual classes and to the group as a whole as well as to parents.

If you haven't had a chance to check out Edmodo, take a minute and do so.  I can assure you that this will definitely be something I start at the beginning of the year next year.

Snow! Snow! Snow! or Why Bus Drivers Deserve Our Thanks and Respect

So the National Weather Service called for rain starting last night, turning to snow around noon today, and an accumulation of maybe 1-3 inches.

And they sorta got it just a bit wrong.

It was raining and 36 degrees when I got to The School this morning.  We went through 1st, 2nd, 3rd, no word of early dismissal which was a bit worrisome since Mrs. Social Studies had peeked out her back door and noticed that it had already turned to snow.  (We have no windows in our part of the building).  Halfway through 4th period The Principal came over the loud speaker and told us all to stop what we were doing and check our email.  Apparently we were going to dismiss two hours early, and we had a slight adjustment to the lunch schedule.  By the time we walked the kids down to the cafeteria, and past the bank of glass doors that go into the gym area, we could see that it was not only snowing, but snowing hard and everything was just covered.  This didn't look good.

We got the kids fed, went back to class and taught until around 12:10 when all the buses showed up and we dismissed the kids.  The good news is I got 3 periods taught.  The bad news is that it was a mess when the buses left.

I stayed behind, as part of the snow crew, for a while along with Mrs. Eagle.  We were supposed to be going to another middle school to see how their pilot STEM program was being implemented tomorrow, and worked on the sub plans for that only to get an email RIGHT AS WE FINISHED THE PLANS, telling us that the visit was canceled.  As I told Mrs. Eagle, if we didn't do the plans, we'd be going.  If we did them, we knew they'd cancel.  Oh well.

After about an hour we went up to check and see what the bus status was.  The whole idea behind us staying was in case a bus had to return or a kid didn't get picked up.  By then, it was a complete and total mess outside.  One of our teachers who lives in the county west of us decided that trying to get home was not a good idea, and had made arrangements to stay with another teacher who lives within walking distance.  She had called her daughter and they were reporting school buses sliding off the roads and people having to get 4-wheel drive vehicles out to the buses to get the kids off and home.  Not a pretty picture.  The Principal was on the phone trying to figure out if all our buses had made it safe and couldn't get a decent answer.  It didn't sound good.

She finally put her phone down and told those of us who didn't live within a few blocks to get home before it got even worse, and to text when we were home safely.  You didn't have to tell me twice.  By the time Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Social Studies and I walked out to our cars, I had at least 3" of snow on mine and you couldn't hardly see the baseball fields behind the school.  It was wet, slushy, and coming down thick.

My 12 minute drive home took about three times as long, but for once people weren't being morons.  They were going slower, not tailgating (that drives me nuts) and I didn't see any wrecks on my way home.  That, however, was around 2:00 pm.  Since then we've had report of buses sliding off the road, some elementary schools just told the parents to come get their kids, and nothing but a huge big mess.  The local on-line paper reported that parents were swamping the district office with calls because the buses were late.   Another local news source is reporting over 80 wrecks.

I feel for these bus drivers.  It's not an easy job on a good day, but then having to deal with slushy slick roads, and poor visibility...they deserve a lot of credit for getting our kids home safe.  And I bet they won't get a cent of overtime for this.

And we're out for tomorrow.  The 1-3" is now looking like 4-8".  I'm beginning to think we may actually go to school again in March since there's another storm scheduled for Wednesday.

All I Ask is For a Little Effort

Sigh.

We finally - finally - had five whole days in a row this week and weren't interrupted by weather, holidays, or zombies running in the streets.  It felt wonderful to get back into the flow of things and to finally get our genetics unit covered.

I finished grading all the tests on Thursday evening and entered the grades in PowerSchool.  I was hoping that I'd see some good results because, firstly, we've been covering this unit for over a month although it has been interrupted a lot.  Secondly, the classes that are test-driving the notebooks were allowed to use their notebooks during the test and the other classes could use their notes.

The results were, in a word, ugly.

Many students completely bombed the vocabulary test because they absolutely refuse to learn the words we use in science.  Genetics has a lot of key words that if you don't know what they mean, you won't be able to answer the test questions.  Homozygous, heterozygous, genotype, phenotype, allele, and so on.  We went over, and over, and over these words and did project after project using these words, but when it came down to their test, they absolutely croaked.  What made it worse, is that in order to answer the Punnett Sqaure questions, they had to know the difference between these words or they'd just mess it up beyond belief.  What annoyed me even more is even with all the time we spend going over how to answer a test question (underline key words being one huge strategy), only ONE STUDENT even did that when it came to the Punnett Square word problems.  So, not only did they not know the vocabulary (after nearly six weeks) but they didn't even bother to underline the important features of the questions.

They just failed miserably.  And half the test we did in class, so all they had to do was pull out their notes and simply copy them.  Very few kids had their notes out for their test, and even some of the notebook kids never once opened their notebooks.

So they tanked.

On an aside, for those of you who were wondering, Wiggly Boy did a bit better.  He didn't pass, but he didn't fail nearly as bad as some of the others.  And he was the one who prompted a discussion we had about personal responsibility on Friday when he told the class, "Well, I didn't bother to study at all so it was my fault I failed."

As I told them, I can't follow them home and make sure they do their homework.  I can't follow them home to make sure they study.  That's their parents' job.  And if their parents aren't doing their job, then they're just going to have to sit back and realize that they have the tools at their disposal to be successful if they only had the personal responsibility to use them.  It is up to them.  If they think they're worth success, then that's what they need to work for.  I believe every one of them can be successful, but they're going to have to start working towards that goal.

We have a much shorter unit (and hopefully no more snow days) so we'll see if they do any better this time.  Some of them, perhaps, have learned that using your notes, when Mrs. Bluebird says you can, is not a waste of time.

But I truly am at my wits' end on what it takes to get these kids - and their parents - to care as much about their learning as I do.

Wiggling and a Writing

I haven't posted much because, truth be told, I'm tired of hearing myself whine about snow days so I can only imagine how you all feel.

For the record...we have not gone a complete, full, five-day week since the week of December 6th.  We're hoping that we'll make 5 days this week because we've already lost every holiday scheduled, and we're so far behind on our scope and sequence that I'm not even going to bother looking at it.

So there.

It's been a absolute monster trying to get our genetics unit finished.  We just love teaching this unit - it's so much fun, and there's so many cool things you can do.  However, it's not fun teaching a unit when it keeps getting chopped up by days out of school.  I feel like I can't get into my groove, and the kids seem to be getting things piecemeal.  It's frustrating.

So anyway, we finally - FINALLY - got our unit test in today.  As a rule I hardly ever give a test on Monday, but we are so far behind we really didn't have a choice.  As soon as I finish this, I'm going to start grading them (yeah!).

I'm kind of curious as to how one of my students - Wiggly Boy - did.  Because we tried something different today when it came to taking his test.

Wiggly Boy is tiny, and cute, and a lot of fun, and enthusiastic, and just a neat kid - but he can't pass a test - any test - to save his life.  From class observations and discussion, he knows the material fairly well, but he just blows it big time when it comes to tests (and the subject doesn't matter).  One thing, however, that The Team noticed, is that Wiggly Boy likes to stand a lot.  He would much rather stand than sit in a seat, so I got the idea, why not have him stand at my teacher station while he takes his test?

I approached him with the idea, and he was willing to give it a try, so that's what we did.

So he stood there, and took his test...he did all the good test-taking strategies I've taught him, but since he was standing, we added in his natural bouncy enthusiasm.  (I think he needs his own soundtrack, personally.)  Even if he didn't do better (and that remains to be seen) he seemed a bit more focused, and certainly had fun.

And honestly, when's the last time a kid had fun taking a test.

The Last to Leave

Will this winter never end?

The weather forecasters have been going crazy over the past week forecasting snow and ice and every miserable thing a cloudy sky can produce for today.  Great.  We've already had to use one holiday up to make up a snow day and the last thing we want to do is use up another.  When I went to bed last night the storm was supposed to hit around 3:00 pm, so we were all hoping that we could get in a day of school before the Great White Death began to hit.

No cancellation call this morning, so off to school we went.

Only to be told by the kids getting off the buses that the bus drivers had informed them that we were going to be dismissing early.

Great.  Nothing like having them bouncing off the walls with excitement before 7:15 in the morning.  I think every teacher in that building was about ready to find a bus driver and wring his/her's neck.  Good luck trying to get any learning out of our kids today.

Of course, we didn't get the word until every kid in the building knew about it.  But finally, we were told that yes, we were going to have a half day and get the kids out of there by 10:45.  The storm was apparently going to hit around noon, and we needed to get all the high school and middle school kids dropped off and then the buses would pick up and deliver the elementary kids.

But first we had to feed them.

For seventh grade and sixth grade, the day wasn't bad.  Seventh has 1st and 2nd period planning, sixth has 3rd and 4th period, but eighth grade - they didn't get any planning today as their planning is 6th and 7th period.   The idea was that the sixth grade would have lunch first, then us, then eighth, and we'd have them all fed by 10:30.  To speed up the food service, the kids would be eating in their classrooms.

I actually had kids in my room making up their benchmark tests during 1st period, 2nd period was free (although I spent it with Mrs. Eagle making up a different lesson plan than we'd planned since we'd only see two of our five classes today), and then third period we'd take them to lunch, and 4th we'd have an actual class.

It really did go a lot smoother than I thought it would.  My third period, the group that had to eat lunch in the classroom, did pretty well and actually once they'd finished eating, they got out their workbooks and began working on a meiosis assignment (which will be extra credit, but I sure as heck didn't tell them that).  Fourth period was a bit hard to get going as they knew they'd be leaving shortly, but they didn't do too bad either.

Thank goodness I didn't have to deal with my Seventh Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself.

Mrs. Eagle, Mr. Math and I are part of the "Snow Team", the group of teachers that stay back for an hour or so until the last bus has delivered the last kid and the last parent has picked up their child.  It's a volunteer thing, but basically if you live nearby the school, don't have any kids of your own to pick up, and can drive in the snow, they kind of like it if you stay.  The idea is we want someone at The School in case a kid(s) doesn't get picked up or a bus has to return.  It wasn't snowing yet when the buses rolled, so we didn't really have anything to do but go back to our rooms to work on whatever.  (Mrs. Eagle and I ate our packed lunches and worked on our notebooks for next week).  It's actually not a bad thing because it does give you some quiet time to work in your room - I love that opportunity.

And goodness, after 12 years in Ohio, I can drive in snow.  Don't like to do it, but I can.

And now, that I'm home, it's snowing like mad.  And tomorrow?  Who knows?  The high is only going to be 23 degrees.

And it looks more and more like we're going to have to add 30 minutes to our day to make up the time.

Ick.

A Mom With the Right Attitude

Last year when the school board came out with our inclement weather make-up plan, it involved using our winter holidays (MLK Day, Presidents Day and Good Friday) to make up the school we missed due to weather, over the measly three days we are allotted.

No one raised a fuss.  Not a peep.  And, keep in mind, the school board meetings are open to the public and the school board is elected by the public so there was plenty of opportunity for the public to have some input.  If they cared enough...

But oh my, when it actually came to implementing the plan (with MLK Day the first day we used), you would have thought that some big vast conspiracy was afloat.  (For the record, we had to make up days last year, but we didn't go over our limit until after MLK Day so we didn't have to use it as a make-up day.  We did use President's Day and Good Friday and no one squawked.)

We had a lot of absent kids, but, for the most part, very few kids who had notes stating that they were at some of the regional MLK celebrations.  Most of our kids were absent because (a) the parent is so clueless they didn't get the phone call/email/read the paper/watch the news to figure out we were going to school and the kids sure as hell weren't going to tell them of (b) they had plans made for the three day weekend already and most of them didn't involve any sort of MLK celebration.

So, the kids that were there were, for the most part, completely accepted the fact that we were making up a snow day, buckled down and got to work and didn't whine.

Drama Boy, a boy I had last year and who is now in 8th grade, was apparently whining a big about going to school to Mrs. Sandpiper's room next door.  He wasn't happy he was in school on MLK day.

"So, what did your mother say about it?" Mrs. Sandpiper asked.  We both have always liked Drama Boy's mom because she's pretty much no-nonsense when it comes to school and Drama Boy's drama.

"She said that if Martin Luther King were alive today, he'd want me in school getting my education," Drama Boy replied.  "And you can't argue with that."

No you can't.  Perhaps that would be a better way to celebrate the day - put a focus on getting an education and being the best person you can be.

Back at Last!

Finally!  Finally, we made it back to school, the high school kids were able to finish their exams and we'll be able to start the second semester tomorrow...8 days late.

I was beginning to wonder if we'd make it because just about every other county around us canceled and had another snow day (and many are cancelling already for tomorrow as well) but we went ahead and went.   I won't make any criticisms regarding the roads - I live in town where the roads aren't as hilly or twisty and they tend to get cleared and plowed before the county roads do.  For all I know, there's county roads under two inches of ice.  But we went ahead and had school (thank goodness), and we'll be making up our extra snow day on Monday, MLK day.

However.

One thing that has always perplexed me is how rarely we use delays.  When I taught Up North we used delays all the time.  The district would announce a two hour delay, which gave everyone a chance to see better in the daylight, and if the roads were still dangerous, they'd cancel for the day.  However, a lot of times that two hour delay was all the time we needed for the roads to begin to clear up, especially on a sunny day where the morning sun could begin the job of melting.  True, our classes were shorter, but we weren't having to make up so many snow days.

Down here, at least in my district, delays are rare.  And what's even stranger (and this just makes absolutely no freaking sense to me at all) is that even if we are on a delay, faculty and staff sill have to report at the regular time.  Which is two hours before the kids come in, assuming we're on a delay.  So, if the roads are too bad for buses, how come they aren't too bad for employees?  After all, supposedly, the whole issue is safety - we don't run buses when the roads are unsafe.  So why should the school employees get out on these dangerous roads to get to school?  And then, if it was eventually decided that we needed to go ahead and cancel school, (because the roads are unsafe) we then have to dismiss all the employees that went ahead and showed up and send them back out on dangerous roads.

Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Ideally?  Everyone reports two hours late...and that way, if it's decided that a cancellation is in order, there's no one to send back home.  And if the delay is all we need, we'd get in our scheduled day.

But hey, no one asks for my opinion.  I just give it.

Yet Another Snow Day

Our 4th Snow Day...which means we go to school on MLK day rather than have it off.

I am getting tired of not being in school.  True, I have plenty to do, but I'm getting bored with my own company at this point.

Hopefully we'll go tomorrow.  Please.

The Semester that Will Not End

Prior to the Christmas break, we had two snow days.  Two snow days right at the end of the semester when we were all finalizing grades and the high school students were taking their final exams.

So, it was decided by The Powers That Decide Such Things that when we returned this past Wednesday, the High School students would review for their exams (because we know they aren't mature enough to study for them over their break) then they would take them on Friday and today.  As a result, it was decided to extend our 2nd nine week grading period by one week so that everyone in the district would be on the same calendar.  Grades were held off for a week, and report cards delayed.

For those of us in the middle school it was more an administrative pain in the butt than anything else.  The kids were annoyed because they didn't get to go to their new elective classes (things like art, music, computers, etc).  We had kids going around with paper schedules because we couldn't make schedule changes in PowerSchool.  Just more of a pain than anything.  And in the midst of all this, we've got Benchmark testing coming up and all the silly scheduling nightmares that entails.

So today, Monday, the day the semester was going to finally freaking end as the High School kids would be taking their exams....it snowed.

And we had a snow day.  Our third (and last - from now on we use up holidays).

So the semester is not over.  Still.

They are predicting more snow and ice to come in tonight (oh joy) so we may be closed tomorrow as well.  As it stands we are now just about the only county in the region that is showing as open for tomorrow.  We shall see.

But as of now it feels like this semester will never, ever end.

For Those Who Inquired - Science Notebooks and Weber Grills

I love it when you guys leave comments!

First off, Jessie left a comment asking about my science notebooks.  First off, I'm not an expert.  At all.  In fact, I've done science notebooks for a whopping two days.  However, I'll lead you to some of my resources.  First off is Dinah Zike's book "Dinah Zike's Notebook Foldables for Spirals, Binders & Composition Books"  We have used her foldable techniques for years and one thing Mrs. Eagle and I did not want to get rid of were foldables - we saw this book at the NSTA conference in December, and attended one of the conference workshops that her organization put on about doing science notebooks.  That workshop may have been the best one I've attended in ages.  Now we know how to keep doing foldables and at the same time, utilize notebooks.

Mrs. Eagle also went to an in-service (I was supposed to go but my father was in the hospital) where another teacher in our district shared his notebook ideas.  There are lots of teachers out there who do them.  If you are a member of NSTA, you can go on their website and find a lot of things.  Also, Google them like mad.  You come across a lot of resources that way.  And of course, one of my favorite bloggers, But Wait! There's More!, does a lot with notebooks so you may want to check out her site.  (And if you aren't interested in notebooks, check out her site anyway).

As for the Weber Grill...My mother refuses to get my husband books for Christmas.  She feels, rightly so, that we have run out of room at our house for books so she won't buy any for him.  He loves to cook out, and really needed a decent, larger grill.  So, she got him a grill for Christmas...

Okay, let me back up and explain why it's a Weber grill.  A few years ago, Mother Dear was transporting her grill to a BBQ her GOP ladies were putting on at a blackberry farm.  She had the grill in the back of her little pickup and took a turn a bit too fast (for a grill) and looked in the rear view mirror just in time to see her nearly new Weber grill go sailing out of the bed of her truck and bounce down the street.  She was sure she had just ruined her grill and was not happy.  Anyhow, she stopped, went back, picked up her grill only to discover that not only was it still in two pieces (grill and lid) but they weren't even dinged or dented.  The lid still fit perfectly on the grill!  We've pretty much decided after that experience that Weber grills were the best made around.

Okay, so Mr. Bluebird gets a grill for Christmas and it was sitting there in a big box in my living room.  For about 3 days.  I kept hoping he'd get a clue and either assemble it himself, or something.  However, I'm the one in the family with most of the tools, so one morning I decided to go ahead and put the thing together myself. If not, it probably would still be in my living room.  It was remarkably easy.  I had it together in about half and hour, and had it put out on the deck (complete with cover) by the time Mr. Bluebird rolled out of bed.

I also am good at fixing toilets.

We're back....

So I didn't post much (at all) during my Christmas break, mainly because I didn't have that much to post about (honestly how exciting is it to hear me talk about how my dad and I went to every place you can purchase a tool of some kind within a radius of about 20 miles? Or how I managed to assemble a Weber grill?  Or how I still woke up at 5:00 every morning but managed to take a nap?  And how many bowl games I managed to watch?).  We had a delightful time off, I did very little school work, went and saw the latest Harry Potter movie, read, knitted, napped and enjoyed my time away from the classroom.  Hanging out with Hubby, Dad and the felines was a great deal of fun.

But today, we're back.  Actually teachers came back yesterday and did in-service most of the day (which was actually interesting and informative) and Mrs. Eagle and I managed to get everything copied and prepared for the rest of our heredity and genetics unit.  Whoo-hoo!  Love to be prepared.  Considering that we couldn't even remember if we'd done lesson plans before we left for break (we did), that's a plus.

We gained (so far) a new student, a sixth grader who's being promoted into seventh who is a good student, a polite young man and an absolute delight.  What a relief.  I'm used to getting kids that no one wants.

The other good news is we lost one.  Yes, Very Mean Bully Boy, came back today to officially withdraw.  He will still be doing his 30 days in alternative school but when that's done, he'll be in another school across town.  Let's give mom credit for moving him out of that horrid gang-and-thug-infested apartment complex down the road and shifting them across town to a better neck of the woods.  However, they are both in for a rude awakening because the folks at the school across town aren't used to dealing with thugs like VMBB and and he's certainly not used to them.  He is, however, no longer my problem and I can enjoy doing hall duty without worrying about who his latest victim is going to be.

The kids, by the way, were relieved.  It was like a different atmosphere today.

And today, Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Hummingbird and I debuted for a few of our classes the New Science Notebooks!!

The good news is we didn't fall flat on our faces.

We've been kicking around the idea of doing science notebooks for a year or so, but really didn't get too motivated until we went to the NSTA conference and hit up some workshops on them.  We decided to go ahead and "test drive" them for two of our classes, our 3rd (lots of sped kids) and our 5th (lots of bright kids) and see how they go.  The Principal found the money in the budget to buy composition books for the kids and we also got a few new pairs of scissors, as well as some liquid glue (glue sticks, we were told, don't work as well).    The idea is to work out the kinks this year, then go ahead and start the year off with them next year.

The kids seemed to like them except for a few who see a composition book and assume they'll be doing nothing but writing in them.  Oh well.  We'll see how it goes.

The other good thing?  I only had 4 kids forget their locker combinations - that's pretty darn good!

A Big Sigh of Relief

The Team did receive a wonderful gift today from The Enforcer when he sent Very Mean Bully Boy to alternative school.

We were ecstatic.

However, not nearly as ecstatic as the  kids on the team.

Very Mean Bully Boy is incredibly smart (seriously, he could earn straight A's if he so much as tried) but is so busy being mean and hateful that he's usually failing all his classes.  The more I observe this kid (and believe me, during hall duty we're watching him like a hawk because he cannot walk down a hall without tripping, kicking, or hitting someone) the more I've come to the conclusion that his goal in life is to inflict pain and humiliation on others.  He does not come from a home with positive role models - he idolizes the uncle he is named after who happens to be in prison for first degree murder.  What he really needs is a lot of therapy to get rid of his anger, and some really positive male role models, but he's pretty much exhausted our resources.

And what bothers me the most about him is how he's a threat to the other kids.  The tipping point finally came this past week when my sub reported he'd hit a girl in class coming back from a fire drill (and I had witnesses that, for once, we willing to talk), he pushed another girl down in music class, he threatened another girl at lunch, and he hit another girl in math.  And that was a typical week for him.  He's been suspended, in ISS, you name it, but he finally hit the number (and we had an opening) and off to alternative school he'll go.  

For a while, at least, my other kids can walk to the drinking fountain without fear of getting hit or tripped, and my seventh period may actually become somewhat productive (it's hard to teach when you're trying to keep a war from breaking out between Very Mean Bully Boy and Everyone Else.)

Sad to say, but not a single kid in the building will miss him.  Hopefully someone, somewhere, can connect with this kid.  But I'm starting to wonder.

Time for a Nap

Despite the best efforts of Mother Nature, we did finally make it back to school on Wednesday.  Thank goodness.  We only have three snow days and none of us (well, except for the kids) wanted to use them all up before Christmas Break.  We did, however, have to leave an hour early on Wednesday due to an impending ice storm, but Thursday and today were pretty normal.

As normal as you can be for the last few days of school before two full weeks of freedom.

Mrs. Eagle and I (and every other teacher in the building) had to make some major adjustments to our lesson plans.  Two assignments that I'd planned to have due this week, won't be due until the week we get back in January.  That means that I'm more or less done with grades.

And man, does that have my kids freaked out.

All of a sudden it dawned on many of them that they didn't have the grades they wanted (but certainly the ones they earned) and they were running around in a panic trying to figure out how they could pull their grades up in under a day.

This just kills me.

Oh well, live and learn, I suppose.

The last half day (today) was actually one of the nicest and calmest half days we've ever had.  And, amazingly, most of my kids actually came to school.  We started off with the faculty vs. students volleyball game where the faculty, for the tenth year in the row, won.  (This just cracks me up - we're old.  We're decripit.  And we play one day a year.  And we still beat them.)

After that my kids had voted on watching The Sandlot, so we watched that, I popped popcorn, and for the most part, they were quiet and entertained.  We did have a break, courtesy of the PE department, where the kids went to the gym to run around for half and hour so teachers could have a break, and that was wonderful.

Now, time off to rest, knit, enjoy family and yes, even get together with Mrs. Eagle to work on some of our units for the remainder of the year.

I am Humbled

I have absolutely no clue who nominated this blog for Best Teacher Edublog 2010, but I am humbled.  Thank you.

Wow.

Who'd a thunk it?

Day Off, Part Two

We are on our second snow day today.

We only get three per year, so that means we have one left.

And it's not looking good for Wednesday.

And technically, it's not even Winter!

If we go over our allotted three before break (which officially starts for teachers the moment we wave those buses goodbye at around 11:00 am on Friday morning), then we will have to use December 20th and 21st to make up the days.  No one is looking forward to that.

Those of us here in My Beloved South are experiencing some very Northern-like weather.  According to the local news, this is the coldest December since 1942.  Really.  I can believe it.  I woke up yesterday morning to find it a whopping 7 degrees outside.  I think it may have reached 20 degrees by yesterday afternoon, and it certainly wasn't warm enough to get rid of all the ice on some of our twisty rural roads (which is why we're closed again today.)  Today it was 11 degrees when I woke up.  And on Wednesday they're calling for ice, wintry mix, and freezing rain.

Oh yay.

I hope we don't have another repeat of last year.

Hoping Grandma is Wrong

Years ago, my Grandmother R (the one who, along with my mom, taught me to knit) once told me that you wanted to pay attention to the date of the first snowfall of the year.  She said that the date would tell you how many snow storms you would have for that season.  For example, if it snowed on the 7th of November, you would have 7 storms that year.

I seriously hope that this is one of those old wives tales that really has absolutely no basis in reality.

Our first snowfall of the season was on November 27th.  That in itself is weird because we hardly ever get snow here until January.  (Or least we haven't since I moved to My Beloved South eight years ago.)

But, according to Grandma, that means we're having 27 storms this season.

And we just had the second.  And now we're out for a snow day for tomorrow.  (I am not happy - we only get three a year and this isn't the week we really need one.  We need to save them up for those dark and gloomy days in January and February when we really need a mental health day.)

I am so hoping that this year isn't a repeat of last year when it comes to missing school.

Something to Cheer About?

Mrs. Eagle and I attended the NSTA conference in Nashville last weekend and had a wonderful time, picked up some fantastic ideas (as usual) and bought some really cool stuff.

On an aside, this was held at the Opryland Hotel which in May had something like 15' of water in it from the flooding.  It just opened about two weeks prior to the conference so we were eager to see how it had been repaired.  Oh.  My.  You would NEVER know that the building had been damaged so badly.  There was absolutely no sign of it.  The place was amazing!

In any case, one of the really cool things I bought was a Dr. Seuss book, Oh Say Can You Seed?  Okay, it's actually not written or drawn by the late Dr. Seuss, but his family has authorized the use of his characters for educational publications done in the Seuss style.  This book is all about flowering plants and since we were just finishing up our unit on flowering plants, I just had to have it.  It's nice when you can find neat things that actually align with your standards.  And this book is really well done from the science standpoint.

So, back at school, we finished up our review for our on Tuesday and I had time to read this book to them.  I used the document reader so they could see all the pictures up on the screen, and took the last few minutes of class to give the kids a dose of Dr. Seuss.

It always amazes me how seventh graders will become deadly silent and completely absorbed when you read to them.  I've often wondered if I'd get the same results if I was reading cereal boxes.  They still love picture books.  And they love being read to.  So I read to them and you could have heard a pin drop.

Amazing.  I must do this more often.

However, the funniest, and most surprising response was from my sixth period class.    I read the book, finished the last page, and closed it.

And they applauded.

I am not kidding.

They applauded.

It was the weirdest thing.  And truth be told, it made us all laugh.  And they said how much they enjoyed it.

But seriously, as a teacher, when was the first (or last time) you ever got a round of applause for what we do each and every day?

Amazing.

The Numbers Game

Last spring we were told that our enrollment numbers were declining, and that we were losing a number of positions at The School.  The seventh grade took the biggest hit, going from three teams to two teams.  The eighth grade went to two teams, plus a mini-team (including teachers who taught one section of 7th grade "overflow" kids).  And the sixth grade stayed at three teams because sixth graders have such a hard time dealing with the change to middle school in the first place that the thought was to give them some smaller classes to ease the transition.

So, instead of about 90-100 students like I've had the past few years, I now had 120 or so.  If you've been a regular reader of this blog, you know that the numbers game this year has been a mess.   We have some awful unbalanced classes.  However, some of the side effects of only having two teams, and larger classes, weren't really expected.  I didn't realize how much more time I would spend just doing things like grading and keeping up with my gradebook (and not blogging).  Thirty extra kids doesn't seem like a lot when they're spread over five class periods.  But it was when I got home and realized that all I did was grade student work all night long that it really hit home. The other problem was that separating kids by moving their schedules around was almost impossible.  Between the special ed classes, the advanced classes, block scheduling for English/Language Arts, and who knows what else, we had real issues when it came to trying to move kids apart who have no business being together.  With three teams it was a lot easier to just relocate a kid to another team.  This year we have so many kids cross-teamed that we were joking that we wouldn't be able to have teams for Field Day as we're all one big 7th grade team.

And of course, with bigger classes, you have more behavior issues.  The noise level can be incredible at times (just having them come in from the hallway before the bell rings is amazingly loud when there's 30+ of them in one small room).  In addition, they are so crowded together that I feel like I'm on a long road trip with a bunch of kids who've been stuck in the car too long with each other.  They're crammed together, crowded, and tempers flare.  They are cranky.  The seventh grade teachers are cranky.  Mrs. Eagle and I actually asked The Principal a few weeks ago if there was some light at the end of the tunnel or would we be stuck with two teams next year.  She said she wasn't sure at this point in time.

So Mrs. Eagle and I were stunned, to say the least, when The Enforcer said he wanted to get with us (and Mr. and Mrs. Social Studies) to talk about moving kids out of our science and social studies classes into another section taught by eighth grade teachers.  Apparently, what has been going on is that every time a new kid enrolls, that kid happens to be a seventh grader.  So, gradually over the past few months, the seventh grade has been getting bigger and bigger, and the eighth grade has been getting smaller.  In fact, many of the eighth grade teachers had classes of 14-18 kids while we were looking at 28-30 kids.  So we were able to get together with Mr. Enforcer and Guidance Mom and give her a list of kids who we could move to the new section being taught by Mrs. Hummingbird (who was thrilled to get another seventh grade class as she isn't as happy teaching 8th grade content).

We basically picked kids who had schedules that were easy to tweak, and a couple of kids who needed a fresh start with some new kids (Brilliant Boy, being one).   We did make one request that the schedule changes not take place until today, as progress reports went out yesterday and we wanted to be able to print the progress reports up with as little drama as possible.  (In PowerSchool when a kid moves from one class to another, the grades do not go with him/her - the grade report from the old class has to be printed out and then manually entered into the new class - which can be a real pain).  No problem, guidance would see that the schedule changes go into effect on December 1st.

Except PowerSchool didn't see it that way.  So, although it said that none of this was supposed to happen until December 1, the kids had already been moved around from all our rosters on November 30th (actually around 10:00 pm on November 29th which was when Mr. Math noticed it).  Talk about a nightmare.   We had about 40 minutes to print out progress reports, and then print out individual class reports for science and social studies for the kids that moved around, and get everything all lined up so we could send the progress reports home along with a letter from The Principal explaining why the kids were being moved.  

Argh.

Most of the kids that moved didn't seem all that concerned about the change.  Brilliant Boy, of course, assumed that he was being moved to advanced science and social studies (which does not exist in seventh grade) because it was being taught by and 8th grade teacher in the 8th grade hall.  Whatever.  If that's what he wants to believe, fine.

What we did notice was that today, with our new smaller classes, it was like a different world.  My sixth period which was crowded and full of a lot of high maintenance kids who needed to be in isolation seats (every one is occupied) was a lot of fun today.  The kids noticed right away that Brilliant Boy and Catalyst Boy were gone.  And they were thrilled.  They all know that these two stir up the most trouble in a classroom, and not having them around was like a breath of fresh air.  You could almost feel the relief.  They worked well, they were quiet (for them) and we all had a great time.  They were also able to spread out a bit more and not be crowded at their lab tables.  They really enjoyed that little increase in personal space.

Hopefully this trend will continue.  Especially for the next two days.  Because I'm going to be out at the NSTA conference and a sub will be in the room.

We will see.

Thankfullness

I'm thankful for my parents and my husband, all of whom are in good health.  Thankfully Daddy Bird has recovered completely from his mini-stroke of a few months ago.

I'm thankful that I have, for the most part, really good kids this year.

I'm thankful I have a job I love, in a building I love, with a staff I love.

I'm thankful that Goth Girl came back to visit and although she took time off to have a baby (at 16), she is finishing up high school, plans to graduate, and is applying to college to study nursing.

I'm thankful that Stoopid Boy, who I have always adored, will be going to college to major in music and plans to be a youth minister.  For those of you who followed Stoopid Boy's antics over his middle school years, you'll realize that he'll make one amazing youth minister because he's "been there, done that."

I'm thankful for great friends like Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Bunny, and Mrs. Social Studies.

I'm thankful that I get lots of snuggles, headbutts, purrs, and loving from my feline children.

And I'm thankful for my readers.  You guys rock.

And that's just a start....

Was This The Week that the Seventh Grade Went Insane?

According to The Enforcer, the bottom has dropped out of the Seventh Grade.

It started on Wednesday.  

It didn't get much better on Thursday.  Mrs. Eagle had two boys get in a fight in front of school (busted up by a parent who brought the two offenders into the front office while we were at a faculty meeting).  A few more seventh graders were suspended and put into in-school-suspension as a continuation of the "pulling down the pants" incident in the locker room.  Stroll Boy got in trouble at lunch and was still raging mad by the time he landed in my room, threw his books across the room, slammed his chair into the table, pouted and refused to take his test.  I bounced him to The Enforcer's Office for that stunt.  (Need to make another call to The Hood to get The Big Dude From the Hood back down for a visit, I believe.)

Today wasn't much better.  Again, we had boys messing around throwing binders at each other (and then getting mad at each other because it's not funny when it's YOUR binder) so that got some action.  Another gets called up to the front office for a chewing out by his mother because he hasn't turned in a single assignment this year, comes back to class - mad - and slams his chair into the table, throws his books around,  pouts, sulks, refuses to take his test (does this sound familiar?) and off to Guidance he goes.  

But my favorite was the kid who decided to take off his pants in the middle of class.

Seriously.  At least I hope that's what he was doing.

To backtrack, Pants Boy is a big kid.  In fact, he could pass for a high schooler, but he's really not all that mature.  (We have a large collection of boys who just melt down and act like 8-year-olds when they get in trouble - this is one of them.)  In any case, before class he asks to go see the Guidance Dude.  I tell him that's fine, I'll put in a guidance referral and when the Guidance Dude is free, he'll call for him.  (This is an in-house program one of our more techy teachers developed for us to track guidance issues - it's wonderful.)  Pants Boy takes his test and then asks if he can go see Guidance Dude.  I explain - again - that we don't know if Guidance Dude is free, so he'll have to wait until he calls for him.  He doesn't look happy, and goes back to his seat to read his book.

Now, I have a clear view of him from where my teacher station is, and a few minutes later, after walking around the room, checking on the kids as they're taking their tests, I come back to my computer to check something, look up and see Pants Boy trying to wiggle out of his pants!

His belt is undone and hanging down, his shirt is untucked, his pants are unzipped, and his hands are moving and he's squirming a bit.  At this point, I'm hoping that all he's doing is trying to get out of his pants and he's not working on getting in some private entertainment before the bell rings!  

"What on earth are you doing?" I snap at him, loudly, and he stops and looks up

"I have shorts on!" he responds.

Shorts?  Undershorts?  Basketball shorts?  I don't care what freaking shorts he has on, YOU DO NOT TAKE YOUR PANTS OFF IN SCIENCE CLASS!

By now, the kids are all looking at him, their mouths agape, and some of them are so embarrassed that they're ducking down behind their privacy folders, rapidly working on their tests.  I go over to Pants Boy who is still sitting there with his pants all undone and hiss at him that he better get himself arranged, pull his pants up and get himself put together or I'd make things even worse for him.  

Of course that got a write-up, although it took me a few minutes to figure out how to categorize it on the Administrative Referral form.  Dress Code?  (We must wear pants to school.)  Disobedience?  Well, I never had a class rule that said "must wear pants".  I finally decided on lewd and lascivious conduct, because, after all, YOU DO NOT TAKE YOUR PANTS OFF IN SCIENCE CLASS!

I swear, I need a sign for my class room that has these four words:  WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

You Can't Make This Stuff Up...Really

This was one of those days that you sit back and realize that you could tell people about your day and they wouldn't believe you.

Today was the day that the seventh grade apparently decided to lose their minds.

It started at bright and early when some of the boys in the locker room decided that pulling down gym shorts (and exposing the Full Monty) was a laugh riot, until one of the victims didn't find it so funny, and a brawl ensued.  

Then there was the girl fight down in Mrs. Eagle's area.

And then we had some of Mrs. Eagle's boys harassing one of her girls, taking her books, taking these books into the boy's bathroom and laughing hysterically as they pretended to have, shall we say, carnal knowledge of the text book?

See?  People just don't believe me!  Really!  This is the brain of the seventh grader!!

My favorite, however, was one of my darlings who didn't like the fact he was getting suspended.  Let me backtrack a bit.  This kid, who we will call Dennis the Menace because he's the cutest little freckle-faced darling ever, but don't let that fool you, was a horror last year in sixth grade.  You mention his name to some of the sweetest, most patient sixth grade teachers we have and their eyes narrow and steam comes out of their ears.  He spent most of last year in alternative school, being homeschooled, back to public school, back to alternative school, off to live with relatives in another state, expelled, sent back to us, and he lands back in our building with a record that would scare the most hardened administrator.  He spent thirty days in alternative school, and arrived back with us.  I actually haven't had him in class much because he managed to get in a fight, got sent to ISS, lost his mind in ISS (standing on tables, cursing, spitwads, you name it), got suspended for two days, came back, had to finish up his time in ISS, and today was back to his old habits of causing a rukus, throwing things, etc, and he got suspended again.

However.

This time when he was brought in to guidance so they could do the suspension paperwork, he lost it, threw his books across the office, then took off running and screaming at the top of his lungs throughout the building.

Really.

You seriously can't make this stuff up.

Oh, and I'm held responsible for their test scores...just thought I'd remind ya'll.

(And to all the folks that will post comments about why this kid is still in the classroom and not identified as emotionally disturbed...I wish I could tell you.  From what I can tell in his file, there's not a thing wrong with this kid except he just doesn't like to behave.  He can, when he wants to, be an angel.   Hard to say - and like I said, I haven't had him long enough to even get to know much about him.)

Thank a Veteran

As a school, we probably have one of the absolutely best Veteran's Day Assemblies I've ever seen.   Different teachers over the years have taken upon the role of putting this together, because it's something that we all value and look forward to.  When someone gets burned out there is always someone to take his or her place.  Perhaps it's because so many of our teachers and staff are veterans, or so many of our kids are military dependents, or the fact that many of us were just raised respecting veterans.   But we do it up right.

And this years assembly was the absolute best I've seen in eight years at The School.

Seriously.

It.  Was.  Amazing.

We had the band play.  We had the color guard from the High School Down the Road.  We honored our teachers, staff and bus drivers who are veterans.  We had the appropriate dignitaries (including some of the mucky-mucks from Downtown).  However, the most popular dignitaries were the six soldiers from our local military post (all combat veterans by now, and one walking with a cane) who recited the Soldier's Creed in unison.  Many of my homeroom kids were able to shake hands with them afterwards and were really delighted to report back that they had done so.

But the kicker was the kids themselves.

Over the past month or so some of our English teachers in both 7th and 8th grade have been working on a patriotism unit.   Considering how many of our kids have family members who have served overseas, or are currently serving, and the fact that we have two who have lost a close family member to combat (father and uncle), this is a really emotional subject for our kids.  One of the things that the kids brought up was that many of their peers didn't stand and honor the flag the way they thought they should during our morning Pledge of Allegiance.

That has now changed.  Because our kids asked everyone who they stood for when they stood for the Flag.

As part of the ceremony, the thirty plus kids from the 8th grade advanced English class came down from the stands with American flags and one by one they came across the stage with their flag.  And each one stopped, and spoke into the microphone.

"I stand for my grandfather."

"I stand for my uncle."

"I stand for my brother."

"I stand for my sister."

"I stand for my mom."

"I stand for my step-dad."

"I stand for my dad."

And the last kid for each grouping would add, "If you have a grandfather/father/mom, etc. who served in the military please stand with me and remain standing."

It didn't take long before the entire gym was on their feet.

And then the local Marine Corps representative played Taps.

There wasn't a dry eye in the house.  And that includes the kids.  

The kids are still talking about what an awesome assembly it was.  And parents who came have emailed expressing how moved and astonished they were at the assembly.  And today, when we said the Pledge, I looked around my room and noticed that they were standing straighter, they were focused on the Flag, and they were a bit louder when it came to the pledge.

The Principal, however, topped it off with her email. "The policy makers probably don't realize that we can't test or make a standard about some of the things we teach our kids.  Today, we've taught them alot about respect, and honor, and patriotism.  And that's what makes them good citizens.  And no one can measure that on a bubble test.  Keep that in mind when you're feeling pressured about standards and testing and high stakes.  You all teach them so much more than what's on your curriculum.  You teach them how to be good people."

Thank you to all my veteran readers.  God Bless.

Priceless or Pathetic?

120 Students

69 F grades on Friday's Progress Reports.

Number of parent calls, emails, or conferences?

Zero.

Pathetic.

On an aside, we've had the past two Thursday evenings set aside for parent conferences.  My team had quite a few openings in our schedule.  We did get a few walk in's - including a mom who passed the school on the way home from work, saw the marquee, and pulled in, thank goodness, as we were going to call her to set up a meeting anyway.  However, it never was busy.

Pathetic.

Why do I care more about these kids' future than their parents do?

Putting the Hood to Work for You

I have a student in one of my classes we'll call a Stroll Boy.  Stroll Boy never moves faster than a stroll, and that pretty much plays out in all aspects of his life.  He's famous for doing nothing.  At all.  He's turned in maybe 2 assignments (classwork) this grading period.  He fails every test.  He won't bring his book, a pencil, a binder, a work ethic.  If you pull his records you'll find that he's being raised by grandparents and biological parents are non-existent in this kid's life.   His grandparents are feeding him, giving him a place to live, but don't seem to be all that interested in seeing that he's a success academically.  They probably are overwhelmed at having to deal with a 13-year-old when they'd rather be retired.

So, Stroll Boy is mad at me because I took his locker away - again - because he won't bring his book to class.  (This is a pretty much standard practice in the seventh grade - no book, no locker.)  He's also mad at me because I have higher expectations for him than he has and doesn't want to hear the cold hard truth that he's not going to be playing in the NFL if he doesn't make the grades to play on his high school team in a year or two.    Last I looked, he's not such a phenom that the scouts are already lining up to sign him.  In fact, considering his work ethic and lack of speed, I doubt he'll even make it to the high school team.

His method of "punishing" me, is to be tardy to class.  Now, we're not talking tardy by a second or two.  We're talking a kid who comes in, puts his books on his desk, and then "goes to the bathroom", and shows up five or more minutes late to class.  He just strolls in, ambles to his seat, and spends the rest of the period trying to look somewhat busy (without moving too much or making much of an effort).  I actually find this kind of funny because all I do is write up a classroom referral for a tardy, tell him to get his pencil out (usually doesn't have one) and off we go with class.  If he thinks he's punishing me, he's far off target.  Rather, he's just showing me how sad and lost he is.  This kid has been through every intervention program we have at school for at risk kids and he's one we just haven't been able to reach.

Anyhow, after the second tardy in a row, I managed, amazingly, to contact his grandparents and told them about the tardy issue, the missing book issue, and how I was worried about how he was probably not going to pass science if he didn't turn on the jets here shortly.  I got a very non committal "Okay," from both, and tried to get them to schedule an appointment for a conference with no luck.  (At this time I was lucky to even get to speak to someone considering our lack of success in the past).  I figured, well, I made parent contact, they know what's going on, and we'll just keep doing the referrals and he'll end up in detention or something.  No big deal.

So imagine my surprise when I get an email from one of the front office secretaries telling me that Stroll Boy's grandparents had sent down his uncle and he'd like to sort of spy on him and see how he's behaving in class.   No Problem!  I love it when I get parent/uncle/significant adult observers.  I email back that that would be great, and to let her know what time to send him down.

Classes change and Stroll Boy walks in, drops his books, and takes off.  I'm doing hall duty and don't see The Uncle, but figure he's found a place to observe (most likely guidance where they can watch all the cameras).  The kids run to class, the bell rings, and I start class.

No Stroll Boy.

He walks in five minutes later.

And three minutes behind him there's a knock on the door.  The Uncle.  (Who saw that Stroll Boy was late, I found out later.)

I open the door and there stands The Uncle...and this guy is HUGE.  He's nicely dressed, his braids are pulled back, but he's HUGE.  I introduce myself, he introduces himself and I wave him over to a spare chair which happens to be by the lab group that Stroll Boy is in.  And then I wonder if the chair will support him. Because he's almost twice as tall as most of my students and quite a bit heftier.

Stroll Boy's jaw drops and he looks like a deer in the headlights.  He obviously wasn't expecting his Uncle, especially his Big Huge Uncle from the Hood (as we often call the neighborhood The School is in because, well, that's what everyone calls it).  It was amazing  (and really kind of funny) what a model student he was during this period...he had his pencil, he snapped to whenever I gave directions, he participated, he did a great job.  He looked like a candidate for National Jr. Honor Society.

And then I noticed something.

This is my sixth period class, my largest class, and a class with a lot of unruly kids (every isolation seat is occupied) who have a lot of issues with self-control.  They are loud, they tend to talk all the time, and they aren't the most academically inspired kids I've ever seen.

But on this day they were perfect.

Absolutely perfect.  They didn't talk out.  They raised their hands.  They were polite.  They participated.  And we had a great time.

And then I realized why.  Sitting in the corner of the room, was a Big Huge Dude from the Hood.  A Real Big Dude from the Hood.  And they weren't about to do anything out of line with the Dude from the Hood sitting Right Over There.

After class I talked with the Uncle from the Hood and had a nice conversation with him.  He knows his nephew needs to get motivated and with the program, and he says he's going to work on that.  Good for him. I hope he does.  But in the meantime I invited him to sit in my class whenever he wanted.  Seriously.  I'd take a Big Huge Dude from the Hood in my corner any day.