New School Year Angst

[Veronica]

:D Random craziness deleted

Teaching - the job of producing a quality product from a mixture of unknown materials.

[Crankin]

I missed your rant. Now I want to know.

[malkin]

:D Random craziness deleted

Teaching - the job of producing a quality product from a mixture of unknown materials.

lol!
love this quote!

I'm really looking forward to this year. Last year was my first year back in the school district after 10 years at a private school. This year, I plan to be less confused.

[azfiddle]

Good luck Veronica. I am already through with 2 weeks in the classroom in our modified calendar district.
I love your quote.

PS on an unrelated note, my Ruby is named Veronica Speedwell- after the dark blue wildflower (common name Speedwell, latin name, genus Veronica). I think my new Surly is going to be called Betty...

[Veronica]

I'm stressing because I've been assigned a 4/5 combo this year. We're adopting new math and ELA curriculum, neither of which do I have all of yet. Oh, and that's FOUR new curriculums for me. I just got my student list and I have 3 resource students, 2 ELL, one known crazy who was suppose to move, and two new kids from private school. One new kid is a year younger than everyone else in his grade. The other new kid is from a charter school that lost its charter because they weren't up to snuff. Every kid who has come back to our school from this charter has had major issues, academic and behavior. "Everyone" says that combos are suppose to have independent workers so that you can in theory cover both curriculums. Yeah, right. That's 20% of my class that I don't think will be independent. And I'm tired of the pithy response of "You're a great teacher, you can handle it." Frankly, I just want to reply, "F@ck you." to that. "What can you do that will really help me?"

I've already decided that I'm going to use a lot of my own stuff for ELA. I just don't want to be floundering with new curriculum. The new Common Core standards are pretty close for 4th and 5th grade in ELA and I've put a lot of time in to prepping for novels that I've used in the past, aligning them to the new standards since we've known they were coming. Math is going to require two lessons a day. The differences are huge for the two grade levels. You can pretty kiss Science and Social Studies good bye.

So, my original post was an even more b!tchy rant about what I'm looking forward to. I've now moved on to, "How do I make the best of this?" and screw any state testing. The students will be as prepared as I can get them with the time and materials I have. I feel like the district has set up these kids to not perform well by refusing to give us another teacher.

I looked up my name in the dictionary in like 3rd grade. I've always liked that I'm a pretty blue flower. :p

Veronica

[Catrin]

I did see the original post, and I think you are handling it all very well! You are now in the "making lemonade" stage, and to my way of thinking, that is when we are the most creative. Good luck!

[azfiddle]

Veronica,
You do have a pretty full plate. Good luck with the challenges this year- they are not trivial at all.

[Veronica]

There is a 32 month age difference between my oldest student and my youngest. That's huge at this age. And I've learned that one of those new kids is actually an SDC placement. Now, back when I agreed to take the combo, I was told I would not get any of those. I suspect that our classes are filling up and they are just putting kids anywhere at this point.

I do the prep schedule for my school. The district didn't assign us enough prep slots and they won't adjust until after the start of the year. The contract does give them 20 days to move students and teachers around to accommodate actual enrollment. That's 4 weeks of potential upheaval and we wonder why our students aren't performing as we would like.

It's a good thing I really like that I have no commute. I also really like my principal.

Veronica

[salsabike]

Veronica, what does "SDC" stand for?

[Veronica]

Special Day Class and there are various types of those. We have SDC classes for severely mentally handicapped, autism, emotionally handicapped... and I think that's it at our school. There's a move to put the less severely handicapped students onto the General Ed teacher's roster. Then they get pulled out into a Learning Center to meet the needs specified in their Individual Education Plan (IEP). Putting those students into a combo class can make for a scheduling nightmare since the combo teacher is already trying to manage two grade level's worth of curriculum.

The resource students also get pulled, but it's generally only about 40 minutes each day, unlike SDC when it can be a couple of hours. I also have a student who will be pulled for Speech, but that's only once a week for 40 minutes. Then for the two English Language Learners I'm suppose to devote 35 minutes a day to a dedicated ELL curriculum. Don't ask what the 28 other kids are doing then. :rolleyes:

Each one of these groups is managed by a different district person and they only care that you do what's needed for their subset of your class. It's like they are completely unaware that there are are these other subset in your classroom and no one really advocates for the General Ed population. So the resource teacher who insisted that three of her kids would "greatly benefit from my structure" doesn't care what impact those three kids will have on the rest of the classroom. While I'm wondering are those three kids going to be a disruption when I HAVE to be teaching the other grade level's math curriculum and can't be available to them?

Veronica

[malkin]

... So the resource teacher who insisted that three of her kids would "greatly benefit from my structure" doesn't care what impact those three kids will have on the rest of the classroom. While I'm wondering are those three kids going to be a disruption when I HAVE to be teaching the other grade level's math curriculum and can't be available to them?


Be sure to address this concern with that very same resource teacher! Our district has a stash of funding for situations where more special ed. support is needed. You'll probably need a lot of evidence to support your position... I'm sure you know the drill.

Your whole classroom sounds like a complicated situation. Lucky that you like your principal.

I swore that this would be the year that I started off all focused, calm, and organized. That plan pretty much got blown out of the water this weekend as I found out that my 84-year-old dad is very ill. My brothers and I will be traveling to see him during the first week of school. Four days of travel for 3 days of visit.

[Veronica]

I'm sorry to hear about your dad.

Veronica

[rebeccaC]

I swore that this would be the year that I started off all focused, calm, and organized. That plan pretty much got blown out of the water this weekend as I found out that my 84-year-old dad is very ill. My brothers and I will be traveling to see him during the first week of school. Four days of travel for 3 days of visit.

sorry to hear you have to go through this....hoping being around siblings/family can help in dealing with the processing of your dads illness.....it helped me when my grandmother suddenly passed on recently.

[salsabike]

Malkin, I'm sorry about your dad. It's such hard stuff.

Veronica, I've always thought that teaching a split without a BIG class size reduction is so nuts. I would go on and on but I know that wouldn't help you one bit. :) I wish you well and I wish you good support from the people at your school who can give that.

[Veronica]

Thanks, being proactive helps.

I read Chris Hadfield's book this summer and felt like I should have been astronaut, although Gravity made me think not. :D

Anyway...

Astronauts over plan, sweat the small stuff, look for the flaws in a plan and plan for the next thing thing that could kill them. That's what I do. Okay, maybe I'm not so much planning for what can kill me... but what can go wrong and how do I avoid it? Whining isn't going to change the situation. I've already presented to my principal my concerns about math, with data to back it up, to take the district office. That wasn't enough to persuade them that a combo is a bad idea. All of our classes have reached the district average of 30 enrolled. We can have a max of 33 students. I don't know how big we have to get for them to reconsider. So, now, I'm looking at how do I keep this from killing me - emotionally not physically. :D

Veronica

[salsabike]

What used to do it for me was cultivating a small group of co-workers whom I really liked and respected--for both consultation and commiseration. Huge help. It doesn't cure the systems problems, but it makes most of the days better anyway.

[Veronica]

My coworkers are part of the problem unfortunately. They have a of personal issues, which is one reason I took the combo. Too much of my time with them in the past has spent griping. Something I just don't have the time or patience for anymore. They're not consistent in their classroom management, and don't see that. I've actually been trying to figure out how I can spend less time with them. I work out my griping here through writing; it really is very therapeutic. I get my thoughts out on the computer screen, and then work the problem. I try to identify what I can actually do something about and try to let go of the rest. The letting go part doesn't go so well. :eek: That's probably why I keep writing. I suppose they may be doing the same thing through talking, but I don't see any changes in how they handle things. "Keep doing the same thing in the same way, but expecting different results."

Veronica

[malkin]

Thanks for the good thoughts, everyone. My step-mum is looking into renting bikes for us while we are there.

So V--as the year goes by, we can adopt a "No rants is good news" outlook. Rant away when you need to!
Since last year being my 1st year (back) in the district I could easily just blow off the grumpy complaining coworkers, I'm hoping I can continue that, and continue to be relentlessly cheerful.

[Crankin]

I found that being relentlessly cheerful totally disarmed the complainers when I was teaching. I never engaged in their rants, smiled, and went about my business. This lasted for the first year or two in my last district, when, just as predicted to me by the superintendent, they all gave up by retiring or just being overtaken by the increasing numbers of people like me who were being hired. And like me, they were mostly experienced, with a few new grads mixed in.
I used to think this happened because teaching is female dominated, but the clinic I work in now is also all woman, except for one nurse practitioner, and it's nothing like some of the schools I worked in. Perhaps, maybe because we work more independently, but, really, it feels very collegial, with people always asking for feedback, advice about the work we do with our patients.

[Veronica]

So bear in mind that my class is made up of 4th and 5th graders.

Their reading range is 1.7 - 6.7. That's first grade , seventh month to sixth grade seventh month. The median is 4.7. I think that's a fairly typical range for a single grade at my school. But with two grade levels, I have double the material I am suppose to cover in theory. There is no time for hand holding in a combo class. The two low guys are my resource kids of course. Both of whom, according to their third grade teachers, should not have been put into a combo, however, they do also say that they are good kids. So, on the bright side, my median is good. It means I really can choose novels of the appropriate level to do whole class. And, I've made some really good progress with low, hardworking students.

Veronica

[Crankin]

You'll find a way, I know it.
When I was doing my internship for my first masters, I had to teach a class of LD resource kids in grades 1-6 for summer school. It was awful. Basically just tutoring 1:1 for a few minutes, small groups as best as I could with that mix, and independent seat work. This was how the school district (of which I later worked for, for 7 years) got free special ed summer school teachers. No whole class interaction for 6 weeks.
Ugh.

[malkin]

When I found out that I would be in a 2-3 combination as a third grader, I felt like a complete failure! I was sad and cried, thinking it was for "smart second graders and dumb third graders." My mom set me up for a meeting with the teacher, Mrs. Ironmonger who set me straight that I would have to work hard and independently as a smart third grader in her class.

On another note:
When I get bugged by my coworkers, I remember a former colleague who intentionally mis-hypenated them into "COW-ORKERS." Never fails to crack me up.

[malkin]

Also, my work kids are all 3, 4, or 5 years old, so 4th and 5th graders seem completely grown up to me!

[rebeccaC]

I found that being relentlessly cheerful totally disarmed the complainers when I was teaching. I never engaged in their rants, smiled, and went about my business.........

we can only control the positive space we create around ourselves......that works for me:)

[Crankin]

Unfortunately, it is*really* hard to apply this principle in a public school.
It can be done, but often at some cost to the individual.

[Veronica]

That was my thought. Teachers deal with so many other personalities on a daily basis and it's hard to not let those interactions affect your mood.

I had two more students added to my class yesterday. Both were at parent request. One told the secretary, "If we can't have her, we're leaving the school." I hope she was joking. I had her older daughter for two years, great family. The other one is super low and resource, but mom is not in denial, always a plus. Apparently the thought is my "structure" will keep him motivated. I'm beginning to think I'm a house. :D

Veronica

[malkin]

... I'm beginning to think I'm a house. :D



As long as you are not Gregory House!

[Veronica]

The school year has started and many of my concerns are coming true. My student who is a year younger than all of his peers is academically far behind and very immature. One of the resource kids is already shutting down and we've only had a week of school. The student from the disbanded charter school has no concept of following procedures or what it means to listen. No, he does not have a hearing problem.

I hate that I have some great kids who are very with it and on the ball who have to put up with their learning disrupted because someone decided to clean their desk in middle of math. Or just randomly blurts out during a lesson, "Can we pump up the basketballs?" I think I'm pretty tolerant., but these random thoughts just blurted out pretty much all day long is BS! I've got another kid who blurts constantly, but at least he's on topic and witty.

Veronica

[Veronica]

I want to quit my job. My students are actually shaping up pretty nicely. It's the rest of the sh!t I have to deal with!

Let's see: two days out of the week I work from 8:15 to 12:40 with no break.
I have two full curriculums to cover - math, science, social studies, reading, writing.
I have GATE students to service.
I have resource students to service.

And I was doing okay with all that...

but now. I get to have additional students from other classes for 30 minutes a day while another teacher works with about ten English Language Learners. So, I'm losing 30 minutes of my instructional time to cover all the above. I'll have extra kids that I'll have no space for. I have to figure out what I'm doing with all those kids. It's just f'ed up.

Veronica

[Crankin]

That *is* f'd up. It wouldn't happen where I used to teach.
Not sure what to say!

[azfiddle]

That just isn't acceptable.
No other options for the ELL kids?

[malkin]

Talk to all the people who can make a difference:

Make sure your principal knows.
You might also have a conversation with (or drop a note to) the director of ELL services, the special ed team, and whoever oversees curriculum and instruction for the district.

Have you got a union rep around there?

That really sucks!

[Veronica]

This is coming from our ELL director.

I've had a long talk with my principal. It's a complicated situation. CA requires the 30 minutes per day, regardless of the number of students. We don't have a large population of ELLs at my school - about 15 out of 90 students at each grade level, most have a good speaking command of English. We have had a parent complaint - the teacher has documentation showing she did follow the mandate. But that puts us under more scrutiny. The biggest issue is that this group for the school has not been making adequate growth for the last 4 years. Certain classes have had growth, but as school we're not doing well with this population. Teachers will say that it's the group of kids, but that doesn't fly with 4 years worth of data that says we're not progressing.

Clearly, what we've been doing isn't working and it needs fixing.

Veronica

[Veronica]

I find this very amusing. The resource teacher decided to pull the resource students from my room because it was too difficult do push-in services to five classrooms. I'm down to just 25 students in my class, all of them are pretty close to being at grade level. I have no "crazy" students. I have a few that are VERY impulsive, but they are nice kids. I do wonder what is causing this lack of self control in so many children. It's definitely more prevalent than when I started teaching in the early 90s. I don't mean the moving around in your seat, or tapping pencils incessantly. I mean blurting out in the middle of a lesson something totally unrelated to the topic and the need to sing or make loud weird noises quite often, especially when the room is really quiet. There is a lot of movement within my room during lessons as part of the lesson structure. The students also have lots of opportunities to interact with each other. Thank you Kagan Cooperative structures! But about 4 of my boys seem to need more.

Schedules were reworked so teachers with an ELL population can work with them in their rooms. I don't have a bucket load of extra kids coming to my room. This could turn out to be an awesome class.

Veronica

[Crankin]

So happy that you are down to a reasonable class size. No one crazy is good.
Keep those 4 boys moving... seriously, I know you do a good job of this, anyway, but it sounds like no one has given them any boundaries or listens to them, so they just do whatever they feel like doing. I'd tire them out a bit, and at the same time slowly introduce some rules around the blurt outs.
So, while this doesn't come under the area of teaching, I had one of the 3 clients I took with me from my last job have a "tantrum" in my office last week. He was on the verge of destroying stuff, kicking the wall, screaming. He is 10, an adoptive kid, who made some progress with me when I did a trauma based program with him when I went to his house. It's mostly been teaching his parents how to be consistent, respond to this stuff. These people are altruistic, but they never should have adopted a traumatized kid of a different race, who has been in more placements than anyone i have worked with. I have seen this kid destroy, and i mean destroy his classroom, twice (a special ed class). I got him calmed down a bit and when his mom came into the room, he started up again. I know what triggered this, but it was scary, couldn't get him to stop. He is my youngest client; I don't take anyone under 6th grade now, only adolescents and adults. I want to refer him to a trauma center, where they have people who deal more with younger kids, but his mom will be devastated, and so will the kid. But, I feel like i am not helping him at all.
You might not totally stop all of the impulsivity, but I know you can make headway. And, I am betting at least 2/4 have undiagnosed ADHD.

[azfiddle]

So glad to hear things are looking up! Hope everything continues to go well.

I use some of the Kagan structures too, but not all the time...

Sharon