There's always some sort of emergency around here

We have an "emergency" faculty meeting tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m. Rumor has it that it's to discuss the budget. Do other schools have "emergency" faculty meetings? And if you call them "emergency" is it then okay for them to break our union contract by having them, a) more than the regular once per month, and b) before our contractual working hours which begin at 8 a.m.? (Oh, wait, we ALWAYS have our faculty meetings at 7:30 a.m.) I think this is already our second or third emergency meeting of the year.

The last few weeks . . .

I am finally back at school after a week of test scoring. Add that to the two weeks of testing and it's been a whole three weeks since I've taught anything. And, man, it is so hard to get back into the swing of things. Especially after the three day weekend and all of the kids acting like summer break starts next week. I am looking forward to next week's half day. My school is doing a dance festival outside on the playground and the weather is supposed to be great so it should be a wonderful day.

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The school drama I mentioned in the last two posts ended with the petition to recall our chapter leader being sent in to the UFT office. It had the required 1/3 of the staff signatures so a rep was sent to hold a vote to determine if our chapter leader would be recalled. There weren't enough votes so our chapter leader stays. End of that drama for now.

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Our principal gave out copies of our school's quality review. It is such a joke. We scored proficient. Reading through all of the comments written about our school I just kept thinking "Seriously? How can you know that after just a day and a half at our school?" It seems like most of the things written had to have been based on the comments of one or two people. It really made our school look much better than it is. What is the point of going through this whole review process if the schools are not going to be accurately evaluated?

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I have my Masters!! I graduated on Wednesday. I'm so glad to be done with it all.

Update

It turns out that the negative comment posted online was on the UFT website in the Grapevine. A teacher posted a comment about how the school is not a good place to work and other negative comments about the administration. The principal got her "team" of teachers who are on her side (and against our chapter leader) to go on the site and post positive comments to out weigh the one negative. Now there are several comments on the Grapevine saying what a wonderful school we have, that the administrators work hard and are supportive, and that it is just one person trying to spread negativity. The thing is, any intelligent person reading these comments will be able to see through a comment that in on line says the school is a great place to work and in another says "it's not the administration that makes the working conditions unpleasant." At our UFT chapter meeting today one teacher said that he posted a positive comment on the site to balance the negative one. His reasoning was that we want good teachers to come to our school and if we post negative comments no one will want to work at our school. He is one of the teachers on the side of the administration and it wouldn't surprise me if he was the one who showed the principal the original negative comment (which was posted on a UFT member only section of the website).

Overheard Today in the Office

My Principal to the AP: No matter what we do it's never enough. Now there is stuff written online. I just can't believe someone would do this. After everything we do.

I'm not really sure what they were talking about (and the words I wrote are not verbatim) but it was referring to something that had been written online about the school that the principal had printed out to show the AP. The situation was very odd as they were having this conversation in muffled voices right next to about 12 teachers waiting to punch out after a PD. The principal, who had started the conversation, kept telling the AP to stop talking about it as it wasn't the place. I don't know what the online posting or comment said, but the thing that really baffles me is how astonished she was that something bad could be said about her or the school. She has made comments like this before: How could the staff possibly file a grievance against me after everything that I do for you. She really is that delusional. As if we don't notice that everything she does is for show. As if we should overlook the harassment and intimidation of teachers she decides to pick on. None of the teachers in the school are happy. Fifty teachers have left since she started six years ago. Really? She doesn't get it??

A Sad Goodbye

This afternoon I found out that I am loosing six of my students. I am so bummed!

Last week at out Pupil Personnel meeting my Principal and AP brought up getting four of our fifth grade students into a bilingual class at a nearby school. Two of the students are boys who have been in the school for three years now and speak English pretty well but are very low in both math and reading. While this is expected with students still learning English I talked with their teacher and it seems as if they should be evaluated for special education. One boy can't remember basic sight words such as 'the' or letter sounds. (Just to compare, my two fifth grade newcomers are already reading long preprimer books that have repeated words and structures and they have only been in the country two months). The other two students are my fifth grade newcomers. Although they have been doing well with me learning a lot of language they are in the fifth grade and not gaining any content.

So I looked into a school to send them to and our school made some phone calls to parents and as of tomorrow they no longer go to my school.

First, I am really sad to see my newcomers go. (The family decided to move the two younger brothers of the fifth grade girls so I no longer have a 'newcomer group'). That was my favorite group and I looked forward to seeing them every day. (Several times a day in fact). It is so exciting to teach them new language structures and vocabulary and then see the light bulb go off when they get it. It's even more exciting when the next day they are using the language. I just realized today how much conversation we have now compared to the first days of school. Everyday I know exactly what I have taught them and whether they got it or not. And, they are just great kids. I really loved them.

Second, I'm not sure that the boys need a bilingual class. It is pretty apparent that at least one if not both need special education (or at least an evaluation). If they get special education and bilingual classes at their new school that would be best. I just hope that they aren't at the bottom of the "to-do list" at their new school or that it takes ages for the new school to realize what they need. Already it has taken three years for them to get any consideration. Their teacher told me yesterday that he was so grateful to be having the conversation with me and the school psychologist about them because he has been trying for three years to get them extra help but because they speak Spanish they have been pushed aside because they were perceived to be in need of language acquisition rather than an IEP.

So while I am really sad to see my kids go I hope that it works out for the best. I actually went to the school that they are going to for a PD a few weeks ago and it is a good school. I observed the bilingual class that they are going to be in and the teacher is good (at least the math lesson I saw him do). Hopefully they will be happy there.

What a Day!

First the good stuff.

We had 12 students for yearbook today. The past two days had just been a revolving door of students asking for permission slips to stay and inquiring about the yearbook so today was the first day that we actually got to talk to the kids that are going to be working on the yearbook.

I started by sitting them in a U and giving them a quick, but firm, lecture on how they are all here to work on the yearbook because they want to be here. I told them that if anyone isn't here to work hard, contribute ideas and listen to each other that we will send them straight home. If we have to, we (the two advisers) can throw together the entire yearbook in two weeks on our own. (It's nice to actually have that kind of leverage.)

Then we got to talk about the huge task ahead of us. I talked about the different sections of the yearbook and we took ideas for spreads. I told the kids several times that the yearbook is about their 8th grade year and they can make it what ever they want, all of the ideas are going to come from them. The advisers are just to guide them but they will be creating the book on their own.

The kids seemed really excited about working on the book. A lot of them have older siblings that got books in previous years so they already had some ideas to share. There seem to be three natural leaders emerging in the group. One volunteered to write a letter to the AP proposing a few of our ideas and another asked if we would be able to stay beyond the 37.5 minutes each day to get everything done by March 20th. (We'll definitely be staying late a lot, don't you worry.)

The plan for tomorrow is to start coming up with theme ideas for the book. I have a list of a couple hundred for them to look thorough. We told them that that will just be a starting point and most likely they will want to adapt it to fit our school and their class. By Monday we'll form some committees so that we can get started on content.

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As for the organization of the 37.5 minutes, it's non existent at my school. Just five minutes before the school day was to end, an announcement was made that there wouldn't be two rounds of busses, just one at 3:30 (after the 37.5 minutes). Kids who take the bus but aren't in the extra tutoring time were to just hang out until then (In the auditorium or in there regular classrooms it wasn't made clear). And of course DON'T SEND THEM TO THE OFFICE!! I'm not sure if this was meant to be just for today or indefinitely but all the teachers were about to explode with frustration after that announcement.

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Now for quotes of the day from our fabulous APs.

To a teacher calling her office about a disruptive student:

"I am an Assistant Principal. I supervise adults not children. I am not the dean. Deal with the student yourself, I have a lot of paperwork to get done."

Then, when talking to another AP I commented about the middle school teachers having to give up more preps than the elementary teachers for Circular 6:

Me: "Wow, that's rough that they have to give up so many periods."

AP: "They were supposed to be using those periods all along to do things for us. But instead they just sit around."

Me: "What about using those periods for planning?"

AP: "They don't need those periods for planning. We give them everything. We give them the books. We tell them when to use them. They don't need to plan anything!"

This is the kind of administration I'm dealing with.

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And I just can't write any more about this today. I'm so worn out from this day. I'm about to head off to the gym and sort of free my mind. (I just started going after the Christmas break and I'm not really sure how I survived without it before.)