I am checked out of my classroom (after an all-day Sunday adventure in stuff-moving, stuff-cleaning and stuff-trashing)! I swear, next year I'm showing a video on the last day of school, not doing Child Pollock and other fun stuff.
...That said, for unknown reasons, we had several parents tour this week. Early in the week, my classroom had Paper People remnants and various art activities out. Not to mention an enormous coop of chickens. By the last drop by, two hours before school got out for the year, it was a disaster zone of take-home backpacks, tear-downs, and craft explosions. And an enormous coop of chickens. I had paint in my hair from the action painting, so you can imagine what the kids looked like. I do not think this makes a good impression, but really: on the last day of school, maybe don't tour.
At 4:30 on Friday, all 6 remaining pink slips at my site were rescinded!
I remembered to pass out everything I needed to and give away things I wanted to get rid of (like Moon Sand, the world's messiest substance. That stuff leaves glitter in...well, in the dust.)!
I adopted out all my chicks!
I restrained myself from accepting an offer to raise my pet chicken Egghead for my retrieval in August!
I am registered for the Special Education PD in August! (This means I'm skipping my site PD, and man, am I so happy about that. Not that I'm tired with my site, just that what with the high-needs school endless teacher churn it ends up being more or less the same PD over and over and over and over and over and over and...well, I have ADHD.)
I am taking an Adderall Holiday! Providing I survive the Doom Sleepy, that is.
I am leaving for New York tomorrow!
In other news, I got a couple of really nice letters from parents and/or students. I made plans with my Resident to do a massive classroom purge next week. This will mean that all the shelf-papering I did is for naught, but will mean I have more space to store stuff.
I have five active projects up at Donors Choose and a sixth (about the Science of Jackson Pollock) in progress. I am thinking about linking them here, although that would be the end of my "anonymity".
I had some awesome conversations the last week of school.
CHILD (to child): You're evil.
"EVIL" CHILD: HA HA. Yes, I am.
E. Rat: No. Let's not call each other 'evil'.
"EVIL" CHILD: But I AM evil. Listen: (laughs maniacally).
CHILD: What does 'evil' mean?
NEW CHILD: Devils are evil.
E. Rat: Um. Well, I guess evil means that you do bad things that hurt others...
CHILD: So it means bad?
NEW CHILD: Devils are bad.
E. Rat: Yes, but also that you do bad things because they are bad and you want to hurt others, and that makes you happy. (Resolves to check a dictionary later). So calling someone evil is serious.
"EVIL" CHILD: That's why they laugh like this (laughs maniacally).
ADDITIONAL CHILD: But what about the minions?
E. Rat: What?
ADDITIONAL CHILD: The MINIONS! Are they evil, too?
ANOTHER CHILD: Can YOU do an evil laugh?
...this went on for awhile. I recounted this to someone later and that person suggested that the idea of "minions" might come from a movie. I have no idea.
CHILD, HOLDING CHICK: Do chickens make chicken?
E. Rat: Can you explain that a little more?
CHILD: Like, do they make fried chicken?
E. Rat: Yes.
CHILD: WILL THIS CHICKEN MAKE FRIED CHICKEN?
E. Rat: (Assists child in loosening sudden death grip on chick).
CHILD: WILL THIS CHICKEN MAKE FRIED CHICKEN?
E. Rat: Um, this chicken is too little.
CHILD: Oh, okay.
I'm just not so fast on my feet after the Promograduation insanity, you see.
My punishment for years of running with scissors: teaching today's scissor marathoners.
I'm baaaaaaack and full of rage! Yay?
Hating Teaching from Home Since 2020.
Showing posts with label enrollment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label enrollment. Show all posts
30 May 2011
22 March 2011
Enrollment Rolls Along
Not Confidential to Australians searching for "Trouble Gum" rodents: the animals in "Trouble Gum" are pigs. Adjust your search accordingly.
We had some people come by to register yesterday: always nice. I figure the people registering on the Monday after letters go out will probably be sticking around for August.
We also had a number of people stop by to tour. I presume these people did not list our school and received it as their closest school with space. Our school is cute (new mosaic going up and everything) and has cute kids, so I think we show well. Besides, I'm pretty proud of our Kindergarten program, even its lazy, no-egg snails, and I like people coming to see it.
Occasionally we get a visitor whose smile is so fixed and body is so tense that I'm not sure why they bothered coming by. After all, school sites are not EPC. Indeed, your average school site's staff's heads are appreciably dented from run-ins with EPC. It's not really in a school's interest to enroll a lot of people who don't want to be there. And it's a lot of energy to try to convince people otherwise - energy I'd rather invest in the families who are enrolled.
The whole "hidden gem" thing kind of freaks me out. It seems to suggest riches courtesy the PTA, and when you've spent the weekend laughing ruefully over the $250 teacher tax deduction for materials vs. the $2500 you spent last year, riches sound good. There's something wrong with the notion that a school necessarily needs to be "fixed", though - like that it was broken in the first place.
Me, I think it's value systems and society that are broken. The strongest correlation to test scores is class, after all. "Low-performing" schools are usually high-poverty. The number of children living in poverty in the United States is revolting, and the impacts of that poverty - long-term malnutrition, poverty-related health problems, environmental poisoning, unstable neighborhoods, early death - will be with those children (and all of us) for years to come.
Let's be clear: schools are badly funded. Even in California, we're not being defunded as much as same-olded, with extra vigor, as this School Finance 101 piece shows.
I'm really not feeling the canard that those high-poverty schools are rolling in money, either. There's this new idea being sold locally that the existence of some SIG schools (which are exceptionally well-funded right now, courtesy the federal government) means all high-poverty schools are having Bring Your Own Bathing Suit to Scrooge McDuck's Vault parties. People who believe that should really do my taxes.
High-needs schools are low-seniority, and low-seniority schools are losing money on the average teacher salary formula SFUSD uses. They may also receive funding for certain needs - for a counselor or a nutrition program - that would benefit all schools but are absolutely necessary at poor ones.
I don't know. I prefer desegregated, diverse schools. I'd love to have a big cash base underwriting Kindergarten arts and sciences. I don't think we can get those without a real discussion about what we want children to know and be able to do, why we tolerate massive poverty and school underfunding, and how race and class privilege affect both how we understand the issues and what we want for ourselves and our own children.
I wonder what the locus of "unacceptability" is. I suppose it's variable; for this family it's test scores and for this one it's diversity (or lack thereof). I think that it would be possible to pull out a definition, and once you have that, you can talk about conceptions, assumptions and beliefs. I don't think we're very good at having hard conversations though.
We had some people come by to register yesterday: always nice. I figure the people registering on the Monday after letters go out will probably be sticking around for August.
We also had a number of people stop by to tour. I presume these people did not list our school and received it as their closest school with space. Our school is cute (new mosaic going up and everything) and has cute kids, so I think we show well. Besides, I'm pretty proud of our Kindergarten program, even its lazy, no-egg snails, and I like people coming to see it.
Occasionally we get a visitor whose smile is so fixed and body is so tense that I'm not sure why they bothered coming by. After all, school sites are not EPC. Indeed, your average school site's staff's heads are appreciably dented from run-ins with EPC. It's not really in a school's interest to enroll a lot of people who don't want to be there. And it's a lot of energy to try to convince people otherwise - energy I'd rather invest in the families who are enrolled.
The whole "hidden gem" thing kind of freaks me out. It seems to suggest riches courtesy the PTA, and when you've spent the weekend laughing ruefully over the $250 teacher tax deduction for materials vs. the $2500 you spent last year, riches sound good. There's something wrong with the notion that a school necessarily needs to be "fixed", though - like that it was broken in the first place.
Me, I think it's value systems and society that are broken. The strongest correlation to test scores is class, after all. "Low-performing" schools are usually high-poverty. The number of children living in poverty in the United States is revolting, and the impacts of that poverty - long-term malnutrition, poverty-related health problems, environmental poisoning, unstable neighborhoods, early death - will be with those children (and all of us) for years to come.
Let's be clear: schools are badly funded. Even in California, we're not being defunded as much as same-olded, with extra vigor, as this School Finance 101 piece shows.
I'm really not feeling the canard that those high-poverty schools are rolling in money, either. There's this new idea being sold locally that the existence of some SIG schools (which are exceptionally well-funded right now, courtesy the federal government) means all high-poverty schools are having Bring Your Own Bathing Suit to Scrooge McDuck's Vault parties. People who believe that should really do my taxes.
High-needs schools are low-seniority, and low-seniority schools are losing money on the average teacher salary formula SFUSD uses. They may also receive funding for certain needs - for a counselor or a nutrition program - that would benefit all schools but are absolutely necessary at poor ones.
I don't know. I prefer desegregated, diverse schools. I'd love to have a big cash base underwriting Kindergarten arts and sciences. I don't think we can get those without a real discussion about what we want children to know and be able to do, why we tolerate massive poverty and school underfunding, and how race and class privilege affect both how we understand the issues and what we want for ourselves and our own children.
I wonder what the locus of "unacceptability" is. I suppose it's variable; for this family it's test scores and for this one it's diversity (or lack thereof). I think that it would be possible to pull out a definition, and once you have that, you can talk about conceptions, assumptions and beliefs. I don't think we're very good at having hard conversations though.
19 March 2011
A quick scan at the numbers
...suggests that I won't have to worry too much about reading people ripping on my school (about which they know nothing). SFUSD has some enrollment statistics out, and I'm going to guess based on my read of these that the people who will not be happy to have been assigned our school are not also the kind of people to complain about same on the internet.
If the offers match the population we enroll, our school will remain fairly diverse but continue in its general direction (more Latino and Asian children, fewer African American children). (Our school has been diverse but in flux for a number of years, and diversity should be understood to mean "few if any white children".)
In this we are not common, and I will be interested to see what the new assignment system does for district-wide school diversity. There are some stunning numbers in the data release - 78% of offers at Grattan, for instance, are to white children. (This would tend to suggest that the idea that the nefarious and secret discriminatory quota policies of SFUSD will finally die, but I both digress and doubt it.)
In other news, I think we must have won the Layoff Sweepstakes but SFUSD doesn't seem as inclined to let us have the data on that this year. (Perhaps because we disseminated it so widely. You should've seen Eric Mar! I thought his eyes would pop out of his head.) In between noting that there are solutions to inequitable layoffs that don't involve overturning unions or turning to education deform, I managed to get my crafty layoff posters up this week. So now we turn up the noise.
I mean, like to 11. That's the problem with laying off all the young things: they can still organize and get loud AND show up to teach tomorrow.
Simply, SFUSD cannot claim to be going "Beyond the Talk" if they are willing to lay off nearly half of our staff. How many elementary classroom teachers got pink-slipped? Less than fifty. There are what, eighty elementary schools in the District? And my school gets seven of those? It's not about seniority: it's about equal opportunity.
The district's courage should not rest entirely in its southeast side teachers - but it does. Their annual reward for doing a job that the state refuses to fund and the district refuses to value is a pink slip. What does that say about access and equity? Given SFUSD's long history of failing poor children of color, there is a pressing need to build relationships and trust. Boo-hoo-hooing about seniority and legal requirements is fine - but you can't also pretend that you aim to build that trust.
Hence: 11. Or louder.
If the offers match the population we enroll, our school will remain fairly diverse but continue in its general direction (more Latino and Asian children, fewer African American children). (Our school has been diverse but in flux for a number of years, and diversity should be understood to mean "few if any white children".)
In this we are not common, and I will be interested to see what the new assignment system does for district-wide school diversity. There are some stunning numbers in the data release - 78% of offers at Grattan, for instance, are to white children. (This would tend to suggest that the idea that the nefarious and secret discriminatory quota policies of SFUSD will finally die, but I both digress and doubt it.)
In other news, I think we must have won the Layoff Sweepstakes but SFUSD doesn't seem as inclined to let us have the data on that this year. (Perhaps because we disseminated it so widely. You should've seen Eric Mar! I thought his eyes would pop out of his head.) In between noting that there are solutions to inequitable layoffs that don't involve overturning unions or turning to education deform, I managed to get my crafty layoff posters up this week. So now we turn up the noise.
I mean, like to 11. That's the problem with laying off all the young things: they can still organize and get loud AND show up to teach tomorrow.
Simply, SFUSD cannot claim to be going "Beyond the Talk" if they are willing to lay off nearly half of our staff. How many elementary classroom teachers got pink-slipped? Less than fifty. There are what, eighty elementary schools in the District? And my school gets seven of those? It's not about seniority: it's about equal opportunity.
The district's courage should not rest entirely in its southeast side teachers - but it does. Their annual reward for doing a job that the state refuses to fund and the district refuses to value is a pink slip. What does that say about access and equity? Given SFUSD's long history of failing poor children of color, there is a pressing need to build relationships and trust. Boo-hoo-hooing about seniority and legal requirements is fine - but you can't also pretend that you aim to build that trust.
Hence: 11. Or louder.
05 March 2011
At long last, with uncertain trust
Someone in my old school district told me one time that the reason we had a lot of mainstreaming and inclusion practices was that we couldn't afford anything else. Whether that's true or not, we did have a lot of inclusion practices and they were relatively well-designed.
So coming to SFUSD was a bit of a shock, and not a welcome one. Now that the district is moving away from its segregated LREs, though...well, I have seen enough of zones and strategic plans and whatnot to be more than a little nervous about what this will look like in practice.
For instance: other than Guided Reading, we're still going very slooooowly toward RtI. This is unfortunate, because I think we could designate far fewer children, period, if we had more training and more materials for making small, enormously effective adjustments in the mainstream classroom. Especially the early primary classroom. I still hate to get involved in the child-labeling process, but it is presently the only way to get a child who needs services services.
My experience of asking for assistance - you know, like requesting a specialist observe your classroom and then give you feedback on strategies to assist children with whom you are struggling - has been really negative. Either you're turned down flat because the child is not designated or they turn you down while hinting laboriously that you suck because otherwise you wouldn't be having any problems teaching everyone everyday always. I have been lucky to meet specialists who are willing to "volunteer" or otherwise sneak into my classroom to help, but that's what they're doing: sneaking.
So this is the way I think SFUSD should go, but man is it hard to believe the transition will be anything but horrendous. For instance, SFUSD will know what schools can anticipate K inclusion students pretty soon.
In my old district, rising K inclusion students were identified. A school with personnel who would be open to serving that child was contacted, and its principal would follow up with the K teacher who he or she felt would be best suited to that child's needs. When this was me, I would start attending IEP meetings at the preschool site. The child and his or her parents would visit the Kindergarten at least once, and before summer vacation, there would be a plan in place with specific modifications to ease that child's transitions. I was able to request and receive observations from specialists serving this child to make recommendations. And I knew which first grade that child would enter with a couple of months' advance so that teacher could attend meetings, meet the family and plan.
I'm sure that there were horrible experiences for families in this process, but in my experience it went well - and it was totally guided by preparation and development.
It is my hope SFUSD will do something similar; it is my fear that they won't.
So coming to SFUSD was a bit of a shock, and not a welcome one. Now that the district is moving away from its segregated LREs, though...well, I have seen enough of zones and strategic plans and whatnot to be more than a little nervous about what this will look like in practice.
For instance: other than Guided Reading, we're still going very slooooowly toward RtI. This is unfortunate, because I think we could designate far fewer children, period, if we had more training and more materials for making small, enormously effective adjustments in the mainstream classroom. Especially the early primary classroom. I still hate to get involved in the child-labeling process, but it is presently the only way to get a child who needs services services.
My experience of asking for assistance - you know, like requesting a specialist observe your classroom and then give you feedback on strategies to assist children with whom you are struggling - has been really negative. Either you're turned down flat because the child is not designated or they turn you down while hinting laboriously that you suck because otherwise you wouldn't be having any problems teaching everyone everyday always. I have been lucky to meet specialists who are willing to "volunteer" or otherwise sneak into my classroom to help, but that's what they're doing: sneaking.
So this is the way I think SFUSD should go, but man is it hard to believe the transition will be anything but horrendous. For instance, SFUSD will know what schools can anticipate K inclusion students pretty soon.
In my old district, rising K inclusion students were identified. A school with personnel who would be open to serving that child was contacted, and its principal would follow up with the K teacher who he or she felt would be best suited to that child's needs. When this was me, I would start attending IEP meetings at the preschool site. The child and his or her parents would visit the Kindergarten at least once, and before summer vacation, there would be a plan in place with specific modifications to ease that child's transitions. I was able to request and receive observations from specialists serving this child to make recommendations. And I knew which first grade that child would enter with a couple of months' advance so that teacher could attend meetings, meet the family and plan.
I'm sure that there were horrible experiences for families in this process, but in my experience it went well - and it was totally guided by preparation and development.
It is my hope SFUSD will do something similar; it is my fear that they won't.
21 February 2011
Whither Whether Whatnot.
Applications for SFUSD placements were due Friday. Historically the due date - indeed, the whole enrollment process - has no impact on my school life. I might get a couple of questions from parents whose children I had as to how to ensure their rising Kindergartner is assigned to my class (this happens at the school site; as far as I can tell, EPC otherwise fills our classrooms by completely filling the room that comes first numerically, then the second, and so on. By this method my class fills last. We make some changes to balance out the rooms, handle requests/certain needs/family relationships, and in the event of KIT Camp, to as much as possible place KITCampers with their KITCamp teacher. (Man, I hope we get KITCamp. Our enrollment was way up this year, which would've made for a better KITCamp enrollment...does that count?)
Presuming I am not laid off and class sizes are not raised to 31:1 (at which point I cannot say with certainty I can teach Kindergarten by myself with no paraeducator or team teacher and have the children be happy and successful, so I'd have to seriously think about What I Am Doing With My Life and Whether It Is Time to Quit to Write Amazing Award Winning Literature*), I will teach Kindergarten again next year (hopefully with a Resident again; I want another one and my current Resident seems to be happy enough to be stuck with me). I have one sibling coming up.
Other than that, I don't know what our classes will look like or what our enrollment will be. In my old district, Kinder numbers at my school fluctuated wildly - one year we had four Kindergartens, the next we had six and had to send several children to other schools since we didn't have space for a seventh. In my time in SFUSD, we have always had the same number of Kindergartens in the end but it has often been a hectic thing with possible combination classes or even actual ones through the 10 day count. This year we were full; my class is tiny now but I had 22 for a couple of months and then 21 until December which still bums me out and leaves me secretly convinced that families moved not to take new jobs or move closer to relatives but because of me. This, by the way, is a common teacher delusion many educators have expressed to me in the past- which is the only thing keeping me from depressive brooding and magical thinking.
However, we had a lot of tours this year. Well, comparatively a lot. We are a neighborhood school and a small one at that. Our school is conveniently placed for outdoor education but also on a hill behind another hill. And our neighborhood is a high-poverty one. So we are not exactly on the all-District list of top ten Kindergarten choices. So generally we don't have many tours and those we do have occur after placement offers are made.
It may be a factor of the new enrollment map, but it does not really change our neighborhood allotment. We are not assigned the housing project from which we draw many students, but we have never been the closest school site (and there are at times closer ones with space). I feel pretty confident that our students who come from that mini-neighborhood are following in a long line of family tradition.
Anyway, we had tours. People generally seemed to come away pretty happy, even the people who walked in during my lunch break to find a muddy-booted teacher wearing a grass-stained Catherine Malandrino and carrying a handful of snails. ("We believe in INQUIRY-BASED SCIENCE!" I avowed in an attempt to explain.) Since we do have some nifty programs and an articulated philosophy for Kindergarten ("We believe in learning, so we believe in play and the arts") I think we tour pretty well.
I am curious to see if any of these touring families did decide to list us (the District publishes counts) and then if any enroll. I love my school and my neighborhood - my kids will go there and it is my neighborhood school - and I know we have a first-rate staff. I wish we were better-funded and had smaller class sizes, but we do well with what we have. However, I am definitely part of one of "those schools" for some segment of the San Francisco population and honestly, that can get you down. It's like that whole "bad teacher" framing in our discussion of education - even if you know it doesn't apply, it is a real drag to hear every day. So at the least I am hoping for a challenge to the narrative, I suppose.
*By which I mean "Spend More Time Dressing Myself, Doodling and Walking Around Aimlessly"
Presuming I am not laid off and class sizes are not raised to 31:1 (at which point I cannot say with certainty I can teach Kindergarten by myself with no paraeducator or team teacher and have the children be happy and successful, so I'd have to seriously think about What I Am Doing With My Life and Whether It Is Time to Quit to Write Amazing Award Winning Literature*), I will teach Kindergarten again next year (hopefully with a Resident again; I want another one and my current Resident seems to be happy enough to be stuck with me). I have one sibling coming up.
Other than that, I don't know what our classes will look like or what our enrollment will be. In my old district, Kinder numbers at my school fluctuated wildly - one year we had four Kindergartens, the next we had six and had to send several children to other schools since we didn't have space for a seventh. In my time in SFUSD, we have always had the same number of Kindergartens in the end but it has often been a hectic thing with possible combination classes or even actual ones through the 10 day count. This year we were full; my class is tiny now but I had 22 for a couple of months and then 21 until December which still bums me out and leaves me secretly convinced that families moved not to take new jobs or move closer to relatives but because of me. This, by the way, is a common teacher delusion many educators have expressed to me in the past- which is the only thing keeping me from depressive brooding and magical thinking.
However, we had a lot of tours this year. Well, comparatively a lot. We are a neighborhood school and a small one at that. Our school is conveniently placed for outdoor education but also on a hill behind another hill. And our neighborhood is a high-poverty one. So we are not exactly on the all-District list of top ten Kindergarten choices. So generally we don't have many tours and those we do have occur after placement offers are made.
It may be a factor of the new enrollment map, but it does not really change our neighborhood allotment. We are not assigned the housing project from which we draw many students, but we have never been the closest school site (and there are at times closer ones with space). I feel pretty confident that our students who come from that mini-neighborhood are following in a long line of family tradition.
Anyway, we had tours. People generally seemed to come away pretty happy, even the people who walked in during my lunch break to find a muddy-booted teacher wearing a grass-stained Catherine Malandrino and carrying a handful of snails. ("We believe in INQUIRY-BASED SCIENCE!" I avowed in an attempt to explain.) Since we do have some nifty programs and an articulated philosophy for Kindergarten ("We believe in learning, so we believe in play and the arts") I think we tour pretty well.
I am curious to see if any of these touring families did decide to list us (the District publishes counts) and then if any enroll. I love my school and my neighborhood - my kids will go there and it is my neighborhood school - and I know we have a first-rate staff. I wish we were better-funded and had smaller class sizes, but we do well with what we have. However, I am definitely part of one of "those schools" for some segment of the San Francisco population and honestly, that can get you down. It's like that whole "bad teacher" framing in our discussion of education - even if you know it doesn't apply, it is a real drag to hear every day. So at the least I am hoping for a challenge to the narrative, I suppose.
*By which I mean "Spend More Time Dressing Myself, Doodling and Walking Around Aimlessly"
03 February 2011
Tet and Furlough
The Tet and furlough weekend is nice for many families, but I need to get into the shower pretty fast here because I am babysitting a kid at my school whose family was out of options for childcare today. These weird weeks are hard on families...not to mention my pocketbook, since Friday funday is also Friday nopay for me.
I got a chance to look at the District's new plans for middle schools and bus routes. I admit that I am irritated that there's evidently money for a 7th period at middle schools but not enough for lowering class sizes at the highest-need non-QEIA schools. (Same funding source? Probably not. In favor of a 7th period? Oh yeah. Piqued anyway because I think 14:1 would make the biggest impact on student achievement and it isn't that pricey? Yep.)
The middle school plan is...not my cup of tea. I am not clear how it creates more equity and I don't think it's intended to do so. I'm curious about the projections the bus plan used, but it I like better.
We had two tours this week, which makes for maybe ten or twelve this year. That's a lot more than last year (two or three) or any year before (zero). People liked what they saw, although their surprise at seeing it is always a little trying.
I got a chance to look at the District's new plans for middle schools and bus routes. I admit that I am irritated that there's evidently money for a 7th period at middle schools but not enough for lowering class sizes at the highest-need non-QEIA schools. (Same funding source? Probably not. In favor of a 7th period? Oh yeah. Piqued anyway because I think 14:1 would make the biggest impact on student achievement and it isn't that pricey? Yep.)
The middle school plan is...not my cup of tea. I am not clear how it creates more equity and I don't think it's intended to do so. I'm curious about the projections the bus plan used, but it I like better.
We had two tours this week, which makes for maybe ten or twelve this year. That's a lot more than last year (two or three) or any year before (zero). People liked what they saw, although their surprise at seeing it is always a little trying.
11 November 2010
Annual Failure
Invariably, I have these really excellent big plans for Veteran's Day. The general schedule is usually something like this:
- Wake up early, but not too early
- Eat healthy breakfast, read news
- Clean house
- Run eight or twelve errands
- Fabulous workout time!
- Find funnel neck bird print dress on sale for fifty cents in my size
- Do one of those cook-for-the-month-then-freeze deals
- Spend time with loved ones, pets
- Watch "Vertigo"
- Early bedtime
Of course, these strange midweek holidays never amount to much. The beginning of the year is the hardest for Kindergarten, I think: the kids are at their youngest, the weather's unkind and the teacher has forty seven thousand procedures to prioritize and teach while completing days of one on one assessment. (On the other hand, when other grades have testing stress and senioritis and whatnot, we'll be sewing and painting and reading books and going hiking, so it evens out.) That means come mid-November, I'm tired. Hence, Veteran's Day ends up looking more like this:
- Wake up way too early
- Decide to have lots of helpful caffeine
- Helpful caffeine makes going back to bed impossible
- Eat Unhealthy breakfast
- Start reading about current state budget crisis, get to the part where 98 guarantees are already down 2.2 billion for next year and turn immediately to reading about the McQueen retrospective Met Gala for calming
- Think about doing laundry
- Read books on couch with pets
- Daylong laziness leads to inability to go to bed at a decent hour
This year I ended up going to school for a few hours to do some planning and prep stuff and cooked for two days or so. I feel sluggish and frenetic all at once - a good run after what will undoubtedly be a strange day tomorrow should make enrollment fair manageable. This will be my third time going and every year I find it a magical horror of noise, bright lights and sudden movements: it's far too easy to get caught up in the distraction and end up needing to spend a few hours with a cold compress and/or running on a treadmill in a dark room.
08 November 2010
Saturday, 8am
Oh boy, I am going to do Enrollment Fair again this year!
YAY! Nothing like an early Saturday morning in a vast, crowded, echoing space. Memo to self: stock up on doodle paper, caffeine, etc. And bring a fat stack of our awesome new Todd Parr designed shirts.
Actually, I kind of like going to Enrollment Fair, although it is not really how my school drums up interest. It is certainly true that I have been asked questions that are borderline offensive (and sometimes well over the border), especially since I live by my school and I don't consider my neighborhood "the ghetto". But mostly, it's interesting.
In other news, I volunteered to copy edit our BSC. Since we're three years in, I wish that they would allow us to set up the information the way we want. I mean, presumably all the schools have instituted programs and priorities that they believe will close the opportunity gap. Now it would be useful, I think, to delineate those goals in a list and then note how they impact the equity/access/accountability issues.
But then, three years in and I am still waiting for the District to share its own Balanced Score Cards for various Central Office bodies and its own improvement plan for how it assists the sites on their journey, so I suppose format changing is unlikely.
YAY! Nothing like an early Saturday morning in a vast, crowded, echoing space. Memo to self: stock up on doodle paper, caffeine, etc. And bring a fat stack of our awesome new Todd Parr designed shirts.
Actually, I kind of like going to Enrollment Fair, although it is not really how my school drums up interest. It is certainly true that I have been asked questions that are borderline offensive (and sometimes well over the border), especially since I live by my school and I don't consider my neighborhood "the ghetto". But mostly, it's interesting.
In other news, I volunteered to copy edit our BSC. Since we're three years in, I wish that they would allow us to set up the information the way we want. I mean, presumably all the schools have instituted programs and priorities that they believe will close the opportunity gap. Now it would be useful, I think, to delineate those goals in a list and then note how they impact the equity/access/accountability issues.
But then, three years in and I am still waiting for the District to share its own Balanced Score Cards for various Central Office bodies and its own improvement plan for how it assists the sites on their journey, so I suppose format changing is unlikely.
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