January 4th was the first day back in school after the winter break which puts us on the downhill side of the school year. One of the first email messages that I read upon returning to school was sent by the school's administrative czar and it mentioned that our school added approximately 40 new scholars over the winter break. Just so you know, that is a lot. Despite being at the school for almost four years now it stills has me shaking my head as to why so many parental units feel the need to pick up the family and move during the school year. It's pretty obvious to me that these parental units either failed to consider their scholars education or just don't care about their scholars education when they decide to move. Of the 40 or so new scholars, two caught my eye. Scholar A and Scholar B both have the same last name. Parental Unit A and Parental Unit B are listed as the parental units for Scholar A and Scholar B but they have a different last name. Like the parental relocation issue, this issue with different last names for scholars and parental units also has me shaking my head. Sadly, this is more of the norm that people think and can be traced directly to the abandonment of the institution called marriage.
The start of the third quarter of our school year didn't begin well. Right out of the gate Gnu received an email message announcing the start of the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) testing process. As it has happened so often, our classroom was not on the list to take the test. Why? Who knows, as this has been the norm going back to my first year in the classroom and it is a real irritant for Gnu. On the upside, because those parties involved in the scheduling of this test screwed up, Gnu is placed in a very favorable bargaining position and she takes advantage of it. And because of the screw up, she requests to go first when taking the test and she gets what she wants because who can argue when, for the umpteenth time, our classroom is treated like it doesn't exist. There is a huge upside to going first, our scholars will be the only ones in the computer lab, and believe me, that is huge. No other scholars crammed into the room. No loud noises. No visual distractions. Just our scholars quietly taking the required reading test. And the results of the SRI College & Career reading test are in. MiniJ had a beginning score of BR (beginning reader). MiniJ raised his score by over 120 points. That is huge and it is about to get better. Uh-Uh-Uh took the test. Uh-Uh-Uh had a beginning score of 156 and an end of the year target score of 213. Upon completion of the test Uh-Uh-Uh's score was 407. I can't emphasize enough how huge this is for these two scholars. I can't emphasize enough how huge this is for Gnu. When the scholars returned to the classroom Gnu announced their scores. With each score announced the other scholars in the room began cheering and applauding their classmates. When Gnu mentioned Uh-Uh-Uh's score she made eye contact with me. The smile on Gnu's face was priceless. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but just in case, I'm working with an outstanding teacher and I'm really excited for her. The last scholar to take the SRI test was EM. The results were a little worse than expected as EM's score remained at BR (beginning reader). Despite the huge gains MiniJ and Uh-Uh-Uh made I could see Gnu's disappointment. "What more can I do," she said to me. "A few minutes earlier you told me that EM took a long time taking the test as he tried to phonetically sound out every word. He never tried to do that before. You told me your frustration when EM did not recognize a vocabulary word. You told me how pleased you were when EM read a word you didn't think he could read. A couple years ago, BaseG sat with CorP (former teacher and former scholar) during a reading test that took CorP an eternity to complete. BaseG told me that Corp tried to phonetically sound out every word but despite CorP's best effort he failed the test. However, it wasn't long after CorP failed his test that he passed IRead3 because he didn't give up and wanted to read. Well, EM's in the exact same position now as CorP, so let's hold our course as we both know that EM has made a lot of progress in his reading ability," is what I told her.
The other day, as far west as Utah chimed in on the blog comment about the city of Cleveland, Ohio, and how that city is dealing with scholars who constantly disrupt the classroom. For those that haven't read that blog post, the Cleveland, Ohio court system subpoenas the parental units of disruptive scholars and asks them, in a courtroom, why they continue to allow their scholar to be so disruptive. Well, as far west as Utah takes a different approach with their disruptive scholars. They fine the parental units and if the parental units fail to pay the fine, their graduating scholar does not receive a diploma. Two states are taking their classrooms back from the scholars of P.P.P. (piss poor parenting) maybe Indiana will be the next state.
We are in our math block. Gnu has EM, Uh-Uh-Uh, MiniJ, Knapper, and Short Time with her at the front table. I have Grr! with me where I have my view from the back of the room. We have a guest in the room from the special education overhead department. I'm not sure if our guest is observing the scholars or Gnu so I'm a little concerned. Gnu is doing a lesson on grams, kilograms, liters and milliliters. She has all of her material on the front table, beakers, cups, water, beans, worksheets and most important of all, five scholars totally engaged with what she is doing. It's approximately 10:15am when the classroom door opens and in walks Prophet with his teacher of record. As a reminder, Prophet is from our life skills classroom and he has joined our classroom on a "trial basis" to see how he performs. Prophet's teacher of record escorts him to his desk, places two worksheets in front of him, and promptly exits the room. Gnu reaches a point in her lesson plan where she can leave her front table and walk over to Prophet's desk to get him started. She wasn't gone from that front table for five minutes when it happened. The five scholars who were working so well lost their focus. Why? Their teacher had to leave them to help a scholar that does not belong in our classroom. Prophet was supposed to be a temporary assignment to see if he would be successful in our classroom. He is not, will not, and should have returned to his assigned classroom well before winter break. As you can see, he did not, and there is a total lack of urgency by the special education overhead personnel to address this issue. Gnu is stuck with him and our scholars are the ones that are suffering. As all of this is taking place, I'm writing on a Post It Note because there is an opportunity for me to make a point with the observer that is sitting within eight feet of me. As the observer rises to leave and is walking past me I hand the observer my note. The note said, "this is what happens everyday when Prophet walks into this room. We can't continue doing this day after day after day." When the observer finishes reading the note I'm told, "I'm aware and we will be discussing this at the main office of the special education department." My response was, "thanks for letting me know that but please do so with a sense of urgency as this 'trial basis' has been going on way to long." I was probably a little to aggressive with my closing comment to the observer than I should have been but when to much time passes by and nothing happens I guess it's time for me to shift toward my dark side (I saw the latest Star Wars movie over winter break) and say what needs to be said. I guess all that is left to do is wait and see what happens.
It's now Sunday morning and Indianapolis just experienced it's first major overnight snow storm of the year. If you are as far west as Utah or maybe as far east as France, Germany, or the Ukraine you may be curious as to what constitutes a major snow storm in Indianapolis so I'll tell you. It's a little less than two inches. I can hear as far west as Utah laughing right now.
Jumping forward, it's now 3:57pm and my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse just walked into the kitchen where I writing this blog. Earlier in the day we decided to have brats for dinner but as I'm observing her I'm think those are not the right kitchen utensils needed to cook brats. "Are we still having brats for dinner," I ask. "No, we're having chicken," is the response I get. "I like brats," I say. "Are you doing the cooking," she says. "No," I say. "Then we are having chicken," end of conversation. One of these days I have to try and find where she is hiding my pants and put them back on.
That's it. I'm out. Thank you for continuing to follow along.
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