Academically is was a roller coaster week. I've sat in the same room with EM for three years now and my frustration level with him hit a high point this week. We were doing a reading worksheet and for whatever reason his ability to focus on what he was doing was very limited. As he was reading one of the questions on the worksheet he said to me, "I don't know that word, Mr. Schultz." I responded, "it's one of your vocabulary words so put your finger under the word, look at it carefully and then sound it out." EM immediately put his head down on my desk, pull his shirt up over his head and I knew I just lost him as he crawled into his shell. I almost most lost it with him because this was a word he knew and read numerous times before without any coaching. Why he went into his shell is beyond me, so rather than push him to continue, I just moved to the other side of my desk to work with MiniJ. After the scholars left for the day, I walked over to Gnu who was sitting at her front table. "I can't work with EM any more, I wish the end of the school year would arrive and he can move on to the fifth grade," I said to her. "You're frustrated, when he was at my reading station he needed help on the word 'angry' so I helped him sound it out," Gnu responded. "He then came across the same word five more times and he still could not pronounce the word. I don't know what else I can do to help him. For whatever reason he just goes into these memory lapses. You would think if he saw the same work six times in a very short period of time he'd remember the word." The school year is winding down and Gnu and I are frustrated but for different reasons. I'm frustrated because for three years I've worked with EM, he has not advanced passed beginning reader. Gnu is frustrated because EM, as well as the other scholars have to take the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) test soon, and if they fail to reach the end of the year goal she set for them, her annual salary increase will be at risk.
The final NWEA test is upon us and a lot is at stake for Gnu. At the start of the school year our third and fourth grade scholars took the NWEA test to establish a benchmark score for reading. With the benchmark score set, Gnu had to determine a mid year score and an end of the year score for each third and fourth grade scholar. Once she set the end of the year score, she truly owned that score and if the scholars failed to reach the end of the year score her ability to teach would be questioned and any salary increase she was due could be denied. Gnu decided to take Uh-Uh-Uh first so I got to move to the front of the room to do the academics with the other scholars. About forty five minutes later Gnu walked in with Uh-Uh-Uh. When Gnu reached the front table, where I was sitting, she handed me a pink piece of paper with a number on it. The number, if I recall correctly, was 424. The smile on my face had to be huge. Uh-Uh-Uh just beat her end of the year goal for reading by twenty-four points. That my friends is absolutely awesome and we are off to a good start. One by one, the remaining third and fourth grade scholars took the test. One by one, they either met or exceeded, their end of the year score. Although I can't recall the exact timing of what I'm about to share with you, I do know this, the day was over and I was at home. My cell phone beeped and I knew it was a text message and I saw that it was from Gnu. "A years growth is 10 points on that test. We have kids that grew by 30 points from the beginning of the year. EM grew 21 points from December alone. For once I'm somewhat pleased, lol." My response was, "you should be real proud of what you accomplished." Gnu response came back quickly and it was just one word, "WE!"
Our field trip to the park went well. Our PE teacher did an outstanding job of setting up games for all of the scholars. We did have to walk but it was an uneventful walk with the exception that it was a real warm day. Gnu also decided to let ShortTime join us on the field trip and I volunteered to walk him back to school early as he leaves at 12:00 noon. Gnu was taking a chance with ShortTime as this is the first time she let him go on a field trip. As a reminder, ShortTime has a big time ADHD issue with a little ODD added so taking him was a bit of a risk. ShortTime's first field trip was a success. There were no issues and we had the nicest conversation walking back to school. At about 1:15pm, Gnu and the remaining scholars returned to the classroom. Gnu speaking, "this scholars are a bunch of wimps. All the way back to school they complained about how hot it was and how far they had to walk." "So, how did the day go after I left with ShortTime," I asked. "They decided they didn't want to participate in any more of the organized games," Gnu responded. "All they wanted to do was roll down a hill. You should have seen them. Rolling down the hill screaming and laughing and doing it over and over," she said. That put a smile on my face. Despite all of the challenges these scholar face daily, with parental units that perform poorly as a parental unit, with all of the emotional issues that they have to face, they are just kids and laughing and having fun is what they should be doing every day.
Despite it being Memorial Day, I checked my school email to see if a replacement for the BigB was found. Our school corporation's board of directors met on May 26th and everyone was certain that the board will finalize the decision on who our next BigB will be. While our school board approved the promotion of four people to principal, none were for our school. That, I'm certain, will cause our current BigB some discomfort as she was hoping her replacement would be named my May 31st. It's now apparent that we'll have to wait a little long to see who will lead the school next school year.
As I stated earlier, it's Memorial Day and I'm in my favorite blogging spot. My part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse just put some steaks on the grill. I'm sipping on a New Age wine in a glass with ice cubes and a slice of lime. Pretty tasty stuff. I'm taking a personal day on May 31st as it's a use it or lose it situation and I'm not going to lose it. Gnu is aware and so are PhD(*)Pete and Hill'sGirl. Both PhD(*)Pete and Hill'sGirl have slow days on May 31st so they committed to me that they would both spend time with Gnu during my absence. I'm hoping the day will go well but I can tell you they will be in my thoughts all day.
That's it. Check off another blog post. When I walk into the classroom on Wednesday there will only be six school days left. I know that real soon someone will approach me about signing that piece of paper that states I will return for another school year. I'm still thinking about it because I'm not exactly sure what Gnu will be doing next year.
Monday, May 30, 2016
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Peter Pan and Field Trips
Just a quick comment before I get started. Dear Microsoft, every time you do a system update you screw up every thing. Why do you do that because it thoroughly ticks off your customers? I've been writing this blog for over two years and because of MicroJerk's latest update the blog site I use says I'm using a browser that is unsupported and may result in unexpected behavior. The blog site wants me to choose a new browser and I have no idea what to do. I guess I'll just move on and see what happens.
At 4:00pm on Friday, Gnu and I agreed on one thing, this may have been our worst week of the year. Three times during the week we had to put a scholar in our time out room. S&T was placed in our time out room twice. Both were due to his parental unit failing to give him his medication. Knapper also paid a visit to the time out room. This was his second visit in two weeks. Again, like S&T, it was a medication issue. As I'm quickly approaching the end of my fourth year in this classroom it continues to amaze me when parental units fail to do their job. They know what their scholar is like at home when they are off their medication so why would they send them to school without their medication and ruin the day for an entire classroom.
The search for a replacement for the BigB continues. I was informed that the committee that was put together to interview candidates for the job has done their job and chose a candidate. There person they selected needs school board approval and that should happen in the middle of next week. I can assure you that when the school board minutes are posted on line next Thursday there will be numerous people logging in to see who the next BigB will be. In addition to the BigB departing, three classroom teachers are leaving via retirement. That has caused a domino effect as teachers jockey for the open positions. The school is also losing our library assistant and this loss has a little sting to it. Our library assistant is the person who said to me almost four years ago, "Mr. Schultz, we have the perfect job for you." We've become pretty good friends over the past four years so I'm going to miss her as she always found me a quiet spot in the library where I could go on the days when I needed to get away from the scholars and de-escalate. Oreo has also left the school. This is another big loss as she spent a lot of time with our scholars in our group settings. Oreo's departing is a bit of a concern as she essentially disappeared. I tried to text her a couple times but didn't get a response. Gnu also tried texting her several times and only got one response in which she said she'd be back at school soon. That never happened. There may also be one more change in the workings. Gnu told me that the BigB offered her a job that sounds like it's an overhead position. Gnu spoke to me about this unexpected opportunity one day after school. She explained to me what she would be doing but I had trouble following it. As she put it, "I'll still have this room as a classroom but I will be out of the classroom working with other students." Although I had trouble following what she was telling me, the part I did understand is that she may not need an instructional assistant in her classroom. Knowing that, the last eleven days of school are going to be interesting as I wait to see what Gnu will be doing.
On to the academic stuff. Despite our bad week Gnu continued reading Peter Pan to the scholars. When she selected this book a couple weeks ago I was a bit uncertain if the scholars would enjoy it. It will easily be the longest book she's read to the scholars and pictures are scarce. Once Gnu started reading the story I was quite surprised at how much the scholars were enjoying the book. I also like the way Gnu is reading the book. There are been multiple times that she would just stop reading and so to the scholars, "I can't go on, something bad is about to happen to Peter or Wendy or one of the lost boys," and close her book. The scholars, almost in unison would say, "Miss Gnu, you can't stop now, keeping reading." After stalling around for a minute or so, she'd continue and the room fell silent. I'm sure you are aware that our best reader in the classroom is a marginal reader at best and we have two scholars who can barely read but I can tell you this. They may not be the best readers but they are the best listeners and they are thoroughly enjoying Peter Pan.
One last Peter Pan story and I'm going to move on as I have a cold and I'm not feeling well. Early in the book, when Peter was taking Wendy and her brothers to Neverland, Tinker Bell was with them. As Gnu was reading the story, it became quite apparent that Tinker Bell did not like Wendy. During the flight to Neverland, Peter and Wendy's two brothers, John and Michael, got blown off course. That left Wendy with Tinker Bell. As they approached Neverland, Tinker Bell called to one of the lost boys, Tootles, and told him to shoot the Wendy-bird which he promptly did with his bow and arrow. When this happened, ShortTime shouted out, "Tinker Bell has some real issues and needs some therapy." ShortTime's comment was quite humorous when you consider that just about every scholar in the classroom talks to a therapist.
We went on the first of our three field trips. It was to a professional baseball game and we got to see the AAA affiliate of the Pittsburg Pirates play the Durham Bulls. For those as far west a Utah we are talking major league baseball here. With the exception of ShortTime, all of the scholars attended the game. We arrived at the stadium under cloudy skies and just as the game started, the rain started. After about two innings, the lead adult of our field trip made the rounds to all of the teachers to announce that we were leaving the game in about an hour as it was too cold and wet. At first the scholars were disappointed with the news but by the time our bus arrive they were wet, cold and muddy so they were glad to get on the bus.
We have two field trips left, one is called Field Day and we will be walking, as a school, to a very nice park a few blocks from the school. The third, and final field trip, will be to the zoo. I really like going to the zoo so hopefully the weather will cooperate.
A regular reader of this blog is going on vacation soon. She is heading to Greece and as she told me in an email message, "I'm scared and excited." To my good friend as far west as Utah, have a safe trip and don't forget to send pictures when you get chance. That's enough. As I said earlier, I don't feel well so I'm finished. Thanks again for following along.
At 4:00pm on Friday, Gnu and I agreed on one thing, this may have been our worst week of the year. Three times during the week we had to put a scholar in our time out room. S&T was placed in our time out room twice. Both were due to his parental unit failing to give him his medication. Knapper also paid a visit to the time out room. This was his second visit in two weeks. Again, like S&T, it was a medication issue. As I'm quickly approaching the end of my fourth year in this classroom it continues to amaze me when parental units fail to do their job. They know what their scholar is like at home when they are off their medication so why would they send them to school without their medication and ruin the day for an entire classroom.
The search for a replacement for the BigB continues. I was informed that the committee that was put together to interview candidates for the job has done their job and chose a candidate. There person they selected needs school board approval and that should happen in the middle of next week. I can assure you that when the school board minutes are posted on line next Thursday there will be numerous people logging in to see who the next BigB will be. In addition to the BigB departing, three classroom teachers are leaving via retirement. That has caused a domino effect as teachers jockey for the open positions. The school is also losing our library assistant and this loss has a little sting to it. Our library assistant is the person who said to me almost four years ago, "Mr. Schultz, we have the perfect job for you." We've become pretty good friends over the past four years so I'm going to miss her as she always found me a quiet spot in the library where I could go on the days when I needed to get away from the scholars and de-escalate. Oreo has also left the school. This is another big loss as she spent a lot of time with our scholars in our group settings. Oreo's departing is a bit of a concern as she essentially disappeared. I tried to text her a couple times but didn't get a response. Gnu also tried texting her several times and only got one response in which she said she'd be back at school soon. That never happened. There may also be one more change in the workings. Gnu told me that the BigB offered her a job that sounds like it's an overhead position. Gnu spoke to me about this unexpected opportunity one day after school. She explained to me what she would be doing but I had trouble following it. As she put it, "I'll still have this room as a classroom but I will be out of the classroom working with other students." Although I had trouble following what she was telling me, the part I did understand is that she may not need an instructional assistant in her classroom. Knowing that, the last eleven days of school are going to be interesting as I wait to see what Gnu will be doing.
On to the academic stuff. Despite our bad week Gnu continued reading Peter Pan to the scholars. When she selected this book a couple weeks ago I was a bit uncertain if the scholars would enjoy it. It will easily be the longest book she's read to the scholars and pictures are scarce. Once Gnu started reading the story I was quite surprised at how much the scholars were enjoying the book. I also like the way Gnu is reading the book. There are been multiple times that she would just stop reading and so to the scholars, "I can't go on, something bad is about to happen to Peter or Wendy or one of the lost boys," and close her book. The scholars, almost in unison would say, "Miss Gnu, you can't stop now, keeping reading." After stalling around for a minute or so, she'd continue and the room fell silent. I'm sure you are aware that our best reader in the classroom is a marginal reader at best and we have two scholars who can barely read but I can tell you this. They may not be the best readers but they are the best listeners and they are thoroughly enjoying Peter Pan.
One last Peter Pan story and I'm going to move on as I have a cold and I'm not feeling well. Early in the book, when Peter was taking Wendy and her brothers to Neverland, Tinker Bell was with them. As Gnu was reading the story, it became quite apparent that Tinker Bell did not like Wendy. During the flight to Neverland, Peter and Wendy's two brothers, John and Michael, got blown off course. That left Wendy with Tinker Bell. As they approached Neverland, Tinker Bell called to one of the lost boys, Tootles, and told him to shoot the Wendy-bird which he promptly did with his bow and arrow. When this happened, ShortTime shouted out, "Tinker Bell has some real issues and needs some therapy." ShortTime's comment was quite humorous when you consider that just about every scholar in the classroom talks to a therapist.
We went on the first of our three field trips. It was to a professional baseball game and we got to see the AAA affiliate of the Pittsburg Pirates play the Durham Bulls. For those as far west a Utah we are talking major league baseball here. With the exception of ShortTime, all of the scholars attended the game. We arrived at the stadium under cloudy skies and just as the game started, the rain started. After about two innings, the lead adult of our field trip made the rounds to all of the teachers to announce that we were leaving the game in about an hour as it was too cold and wet. At first the scholars were disappointed with the news but by the time our bus arrive they were wet, cold and muddy so they were glad to get on the bus.
We have two field trips left, one is called Field Day and we will be walking, as a school, to a very nice park a few blocks from the school. The third, and final field trip, will be to the zoo. I really like going to the zoo so hopefully the weather will cooperate.
A regular reader of this blog is going on vacation soon. She is heading to Greece and as she told me in an email message, "I'm scared and excited." To my good friend as far west as Utah, have a safe trip and don't forget to send pictures when you get chance. That's enough. As I said earlier, I don't feel well so I'm finished. Thanks again for following along.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Academics Vs. Field Trips
Last week was one of our worst in quite a while. Knapper erupted at 12:05pm on Monday and it lasted for almost two hours. Gnu removed all the scholars to our safe place and I stayed in the room trying to get him to de-escalate. Numerous papers were torn into pieces and scattered around the room. Obscenities (the F-word and the B-word) were written on the front white board and on several smaller portable white boards. As Knapper wrote the obscenities on the smaller white boards he placed them in various locations around the classroom to emphasize his displeasure with the days events. While all of this was going on, I just observed as he was not in danger of hurting himself or others. Eventually he got around to putting himself at risk of injury so I called for Crisis Team support. With Crisis Team members in the classroom we slowly closed in and cornered Knapper. Unfortunately, now trapped in a corner, objects started getting thrown at the adults in the room and that can't happen. Within thirty seconds Knapper was in the timeout room and the door was secured with our newly installed magnet that can resist 1200 pounds of pressure. Given Knapper's state of anger, it was decided to have a parental unit called to come and get him as there was some concern about getting him on the bus at the end of the day. A short while later the parental unit showed up. I opened the door to the time out room and the parental unit walked into the room, retrieved Knapper, who started crying, and took him home. Shortly after the school day ended Gnu contacted Knapper's parental unit to see how he was doing. The parental unit responded that he had settled down and then the parental unit told Gnu what caused this eruption. As it has in the past, very simple things can cause a scholar to erupt. In this case, Knapper forgot it was grandparents day and at 12:05pm he remembered and erupted.
BigHouse and S&T ride to school on the same bus everyday. On Tuesday, as I was walking to my morning bus duty I saw BigHouse sitting on the sidewalk leaning on one of the school's support columns. Seeing this at 8:45am is not a good thing and before I could even speak to him his bus monitor approached me. The bus monitor speaking, "there was a fight on the bus and BigHouse punched another scholar in the eye." I asked the bus monitor, "who was the other scholar?" The bus monitor responded, "S&T." Great! The academic day hasn't even started and two of our scholars are got into a fight on the bus. I sent them both inside the building to get breakfast and head to the BigB's office with my bus incident reports for her to sign. As I'm standing at her desk I notice a bullet sitting there. When she finished talking to another teacher I asked her, "are you collecting bullets today?" She responds, "yes," opens up her desk drawer and pulls out a small sandwich bag and places the bullet in the bag with several others and says to me, "I've been collecting them for a while." With the bullet safely secured, I hand her the bus incidents reports. She looks at them and says to me, "oh my god, both scholars are in your classroom," and signs her name on the bottom. I tell the BigB that I'll get back to her later when Gnu decides what to do with these scholars and head to the classroom.
Now in the classroom I hand Gnu the bus incident reports and she looks at me and says, "who threw the punches?" I respond that there was only one punch and BigHouse threw it." Gnu, who is slightly agitated, collects the day's worksheets, pulls out one of each for BigHouse, hands them to him, and tells him he will spend the day in our in-school suspension room. Not happy with Gnu's decision, BigHouse's anger is increasing and I'm standing up. Gnu speaking to BigHouse, "we have three field trips coming up. If you want to go on these field trips I suggest you head upstairs." Begrudgingly, BigHouse is exiting the room with EM as his escort. When EM arrives back in the classroom I asked him is everything went smoothly. He responded, "yes, Mr. Schultz." In less then ten minutes our classroom phone rings. I see the number of the person calling and know this is not going to be good. "Room XXX, Mr. Schultz speaking." "You need to get up here right away," the voice on the other end says. "I'm on my way," and out the door I go. When I walk into our in-school suspension room, Duck, a member of our Crisis Team is already there and she has BigHouse pinned into a corner as he is in an absolute rage. I step up behind her and ask, "what is my role?" Duck responds, "take one wrist and one leg as I'm having trouble containing him." I take my position and Duck says to me, "watch your head, he's tried to head butt me several times." As soon as Duck finished talking BigHouse bangs his forehead into the wall. Before Duck can even say anything I place my hand on BigHouse's forehead to lessen the blows as he repeatedly tries to slam his head into the wall. As we are trying to contain BigHouse, the person in charge of the in-school suspension room walks up and says to me, "he was fine when he arrived. I asked him to remove his hoodie and he knocked all of his papers onto the floor. As I was picking them up and placing them back on his desk I got to close and he headed butted me in the face."
After another twenty minutes of struggling with BigHouse his parental unit shows up and he is on his way home. The initial bus incident was an argument between BigHouse and S&T. From what I can figure out both of them we either in the same neighborhood at the same time or on a bus together at another school and a fight erupted between them. Please note that the fight they had was over two years ago. Please also note that BigHouse arrive calmly in our in-school suspension room but the simple request to remove his hoodie set him off big time.
The school year is winding down. Only sixteen days to go and I'll finish year four. It's the start of the day and Gnu is walking back to my desk with her calendar to go over the plan for the remainder of the school year. As she started talking I knew she was agitated. "Look at this calendar, field trip #1, field trip #2, field trip #3, and in the middle of all this is the NWEA testing process for our third and fourth grade scholars," she says to me. "If the scholars do not meet their end of the year academic goal, my salary increase goes away. With this test being so important why would anyone schedule three field trips that will do nothing but reduce the amount of academic time needed to do review work prior to this test," she continued. Sensing her frustration I'm treading lightly. "The scholars showed improvement the last time they took the NWEA test. In fact, a couple of them met their end of the year academic improvement goal. Let's just stay on task, do as much as we can with what little time we have and I'm sure everything will turn our fine." My comment seemed to settle her down as she headed back to her desk at the front of the room but as she was walking I was thinking. "What idiot would schedule three field trips in a sixteen day period knowing full well the importance of the NWEA test." The answer was simple, an overhead person who has no responsibility for getting scholars to pass a test.
Two serious eruptions in our classroom but no suspensions as the individuals that don't sit in a classroom are committed to closing the pipeline to prison but they show little concern about the ever growing pipeline of teachers exiting their chosen profession. Such is the state of academics right now.
That's it. Another blog post completed. I'm going to shift gears next week and talk a little about private school education. I know what I want to talk about but I'm hesitant to bring it up. My plan is to write the blog next week and have my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse approve what I've written. Hopefully, if I choose my words carefully, you will get to see what I wrote because if you think public schools have issues you should see what is going on in private schools.
BigHouse and S&T ride to school on the same bus everyday. On Tuesday, as I was walking to my morning bus duty I saw BigHouse sitting on the sidewalk leaning on one of the school's support columns. Seeing this at 8:45am is not a good thing and before I could even speak to him his bus monitor approached me. The bus monitor speaking, "there was a fight on the bus and BigHouse punched another scholar in the eye." I asked the bus monitor, "who was the other scholar?" The bus monitor responded, "S&T." Great! The academic day hasn't even started and two of our scholars are got into a fight on the bus. I sent them both inside the building to get breakfast and head to the BigB's office with my bus incident reports for her to sign. As I'm standing at her desk I notice a bullet sitting there. When she finished talking to another teacher I asked her, "are you collecting bullets today?" She responds, "yes," opens up her desk drawer and pulls out a small sandwich bag and places the bullet in the bag with several others and says to me, "I've been collecting them for a while." With the bullet safely secured, I hand her the bus incidents reports. She looks at them and says to me, "oh my god, both scholars are in your classroom," and signs her name on the bottom. I tell the BigB that I'll get back to her later when Gnu decides what to do with these scholars and head to the classroom.
Now in the classroom I hand Gnu the bus incident reports and she looks at me and says, "who threw the punches?" I respond that there was only one punch and BigHouse threw it." Gnu, who is slightly agitated, collects the day's worksheets, pulls out one of each for BigHouse, hands them to him, and tells him he will spend the day in our in-school suspension room. Not happy with Gnu's decision, BigHouse's anger is increasing and I'm standing up. Gnu speaking to BigHouse, "we have three field trips coming up. If you want to go on these field trips I suggest you head upstairs." Begrudgingly, BigHouse is exiting the room with EM as his escort. When EM arrives back in the classroom I asked him is everything went smoothly. He responded, "yes, Mr. Schultz." In less then ten minutes our classroom phone rings. I see the number of the person calling and know this is not going to be good. "Room XXX, Mr. Schultz speaking." "You need to get up here right away," the voice on the other end says. "I'm on my way," and out the door I go. When I walk into our in-school suspension room, Duck, a member of our Crisis Team is already there and she has BigHouse pinned into a corner as he is in an absolute rage. I step up behind her and ask, "what is my role?" Duck responds, "take one wrist and one leg as I'm having trouble containing him." I take my position and Duck says to me, "watch your head, he's tried to head butt me several times." As soon as Duck finished talking BigHouse bangs his forehead into the wall. Before Duck can even say anything I place my hand on BigHouse's forehead to lessen the blows as he repeatedly tries to slam his head into the wall. As we are trying to contain BigHouse, the person in charge of the in-school suspension room walks up and says to me, "he was fine when he arrived. I asked him to remove his hoodie and he knocked all of his papers onto the floor. As I was picking them up and placing them back on his desk I got to close and he headed butted me in the face."
After another twenty minutes of struggling with BigHouse his parental unit shows up and he is on his way home. The initial bus incident was an argument between BigHouse and S&T. From what I can figure out both of them we either in the same neighborhood at the same time or on a bus together at another school and a fight erupted between them. Please note that the fight they had was over two years ago. Please also note that BigHouse arrive calmly in our in-school suspension room but the simple request to remove his hoodie set him off big time.
The school year is winding down. Only sixteen days to go and I'll finish year four. It's the start of the day and Gnu is walking back to my desk with her calendar to go over the plan for the remainder of the school year. As she started talking I knew she was agitated. "Look at this calendar, field trip #1, field trip #2, field trip #3, and in the middle of all this is the NWEA testing process for our third and fourth grade scholars," she says to me. "If the scholars do not meet their end of the year academic goal, my salary increase goes away. With this test being so important why would anyone schedule three field trips that will do nothing but reduce the amount of academic time needed to do review work prior to this test," she continued. Sensing her frustration I'm treading lightly. "The scholars showed improvement the last time they took the NWEA test. In fact, a couple of them met their end of the year academic improvement goal. Let's just stay on task, do as much as we can with what little time we have and I'm sure everything will turn our fine." My comment seemed to settle her down as she headed back to her desk at the front of the room but as she was walking I was thinking. "What idiot would schedule three field trips in a sixteen day period knowing full well the importance of the NWEA test." The answer was simple, an overhead person who has no responsibility for getting scholars to pass a test.
Two serious eruptions in our classroom but no suspensions as the individuals that don't sit in a classroom are committed to closing the pipeline to prison but they show little concern about the ever growing pipeline of teachers exiting their chosen profession. Such is the state of academics right now.
That's it. Another blog post completed. I'm going to shift gears next week and talk a little about private school education. I know what I want to talk about but I'm hesitant to bring it up. My plan is to write the blog next week and have my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse approve what I've written. Hopefully, if I choose my words carefully, you will get to see what I wrote because if you think public schools have issues you should see what is going on in private schools.
Sunday, May 8, 2016
I Screwed Up
In my last post I mentioned that Gnu had a family emergency that caused her to leave the classroom. As of today she has not said anything about the emergency and I haven't asked about it. So at this point I guess no news is good news.
On the day of this family emergency our third and fourth grade scholars were scheduled to take the Indiana Stupid Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP) test and they were schedule to take the test during Gnu's absence. All the communications that the BigB and the teachers administering and/or proctoring the test needed to know about our classroom situation had taken place. It was a pretty simple plan. Take all of our scholars to the testing site. Drop off the third grade and fourth grade scholars at the testing site and return to the classroom with the second grade scholars. I was doing a math assignment with the second grade scholars when three of the five scholars taking the ISTEP test walked into the classroom and I realized immediately I screwed up. Within another five minutes the other two scholars entered the room after completing the test and this furthers added to my frustration. They weren't gone long enough. Their allotted time to take this test was one hour. They were all back in under twenty-five minutes. They didn't do much of anything but click on boxes to answer the questions and then hit the exit button on the test. When all the scholars were in the room I asked them why they finished the test so quickly. The response was that there were only eight questions. I said to them that they were given an hour to take this test, how was it possible that everyone got done so quickly. Then I asked the big question, "did any of you actually take the time to read the material before answering the questions?" ShortTime spoke first, "yes, I read everything." "Good, I said to him, "tell me what you read." There was silence until EM spoke up. "I don't know how to read," he said to me. His comment sent me over the edge. I'm now speaking to all of the scholars. "Don't tell me you don't know how to read. What you chose to do was not even attempt to read. All you did was glance at the reading material and then start answering questions. Do you know how hard Miss Gnu worked to prepare you to take this test and you don't even try? You should be embarrassed by what you just did." The objections from the scholars started but I shut it done real quick. "QUIET, just sit there until I figure out what we are going to do next. The test is over and we need to move on."
I've made a number of mistakes in the classroom over the past four years but I've moved on from those mistakes. The ISTEP mistake I made when Gnu was out of the classroom will stay with me for a while. I should have dropped the second grade scholars off with another classroom and stayed with the third and fourth grade scholars when they took the ISTEP test. I didn't, and they chose not to even try to pass the test. I can't guarantee that my presence in the testing room would have resulted in them passing the ISTEP test but my being there would have at least resulted in them trying. I screwed up, I failed my teaching partner at a critical time, and I felt like shit.
It's 8:45am and I'm wearing my bus captain's hat. The first bus dropped off the scholars without incident. When all the scholars exited from the second bus the bus driver told me he was going to pull his bus out of the way and come back and talk to me. When he approached me he says, "every day I have to wait for EM. Some days I have to honk the school bus horn several times to get him to come out of the house. Today, as I was honking the horn and waiting for EM one of the neighbors approached the bus and starting talking to me." The neighbor speaking, "you needed to stop honking that horn every morning, you are waking up my children." The bus driver informed me that he apologized to the neighbor speaking to him and them continued telling me his story. The bus driver speaking again, "as this neighbor turned and started walking back to his home I noticed that he had a hand gun in his back pocket."
EM has a history of being late for the bus. I've spoken to the BigB about it and she said to me the same thing I told the bus driver. "When you stop at the house, wait your allotted time. If EM does not come out of the house, you need to drive on so you can stay on schedule." The day after the hand gun incident the bus stopped at EM's house, the bus driver waited the allotted time without honking the horn, and drove on. EM was absent from school that day.
It's food pantry day at our school. Yes, we stock a food pantry exclusively for families with scholars in our school. So you know, it is very well attended. EM, as he is exiting the bus on food pantry day says to me, "Mr. Schultz my parental unit is going to pick me up after school today." "Ok," I say to him and he walks into the school. It's now 2:30pm and I'm heading to the office to ask our administrative czar to call me when EM's parental unit shows up at school. The response I got was, "I don't have to call you, EM's parental unit is in our food pantry right now." So I walk over to the food pantry to confirm with EM's parental unit that he will be a car rider at the end of the school day. When I arrive at the food pantry I was informed that she had picked up what she needed and left. It's now 3:30pm and the school day is over and I don't know for sure how EM is going to get home. EM thinks his parental unit will pick him up so I take him to the office and tell him to have a seat until his parental unit arrives. I then ask the administrative czar to contact me when EM is picked up. When I don't hear from the administrative czar I head back to the office and EM is still sitting there. Now it's decision time for me. Either let EM continue to sit in the office and wait for his parental unit or take him to the bus. After overhead paging EM's parental unit with no luck the decision to send him home on the bus is made. As EM is being walked to the bus he is crying because his parental unit said "to wait at school for me to pick you up" and in his anxiety issue mind he is thinking she left him and would not be home when he got there. No scholar deserves this type of treatment from a parental unit, especially one with anxiety issues. Unfortunately, EM is a product of PPP, and such is his life. EM and I have been in the same classroom for almost three years now. He is a real nice young man and does not deserve to have some many parental unit issues. Please keep him in your prayers.
It's Friday morning and Gnu was late arriving. At around 9:45am she makes an announcement to the scholars, "I really overslept this morning and didn't have time to take a shower so hopefully I don't smell." I wanted to say to her that if she didn't shower and smelled, she'd easily fit in with some of the scholars in the room but chose to remain silent. Shortly after making her announcement, she walks over to MiniJ, gets close to him and says, "do I smell?" She then walked over to Uh-Uh-Uh and again asks the questions as she gets up close and personal, "do I smell"? They didn't think she did. I didn't think she did so on went the day. I know I've mentioned a number of times what I wonderful teacher Gnu is but I wonder if I've ever mentioned before that she is a bit Edith Bunkeresque, a ding bat as Archie Bunker would say.
It's Mother's Day. My daughter is enjoying her first Mother's Day. My part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse is enjoying her first Mother's Day as a grandmother. I'm blogging, drinking a gin and tonic, looking out over the backyard and realize that I need to cut the grass. Bye!
Sorry, PPP means piss poor parenting.
Thanks for continuing to follow along.
On the day of this family emergency our third and fourth grade scholars were scheduled to take the Indiana Stupid Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP) test and they were schedule to take the test during Gnu's absence. All the communications that the BigB and the teachers administering and/or proctoring the test needed to know about our classroom situation had taken place. It was a pretty simple plan. Take all of our scholars to the testing site. Drop off the third grade and fourth grade scholars at the testing site and return to the classroom with the second grade scholars. I was doing a math assignment with the second grade scholars when three of the five scholars taking the ISTEP test walked into the classroom and I realized immediately I screwed up. Within another five minutes the other two scholars entered the room after completing the test and this furthers added to my frustration. They weren't gone long enough. Their allotted time to take this test was one hour. They were all back in under twenty-five minutes. They didn't do much of anything but click on boxes to answer the questions and then hit the exit button on the test. When all the scholars were in the room I asked them why they finished the test so quickly. The response was that there were only eight questions. I said to them that they were given an hour to take this test, how was it possible that everyone got done so quickly. Then I asked the big question, "did any of you actually take the time to read the material before answering the questions?" ShortTime spoke first, "yes, I read everything." "Good, I said to him, "tell me what you read." There was silence until EM spoke up. "I don't know how to read," he said to me. His comment sent me over the edge. I'm now speaking to all of the scholars. "Don't tell me you don't know how to read. What you chose to do was not even attempt to read. All you did was glance at the reading material and then start answering questions. Do you know how hard Miss Gnu worked to prepare you to take this test and you don't even try? You should be embarrassed by what you just did." The objections from the scholars started but I shut it done real quick. "QUIET, just sit there until I figure out what we are going to do next. The test is over and we need to move on."
I've made a number of mistakes in the classroom over the past four years but I've moved on from those mistakes. The ISTEP mistake I made when Gnu was out of the classroom will stay with me for a while. I should have dropped the second grade scholars off with another classroom and stayed with the third and fourth grade scholars when they took the ISTEP test. I didn't, and they chose not to even try to pass the test. I can't guarantee that my presence in the testing room would have resulted in them passing the ISTEP test but my being there would have at least resulted in them trying. I screwed up, I failed my teaching partner at a critical time, and I felt like shit.
It's 8:45am and I'm wearing my bus captain's hat. The first bus dropped off the scholars without incident. When all the scholars exited from the second bus the bus driver told me he was going to pull his bus out of the way and come back and talk to me. When he approached me he says, "every day I have to wait for EM. Some days I have to honk the school bus horn several times to get him to come out of the house. Today, as I was honking the horn and waiting for EM one of the neighbors approached the bus and starting talking to me." The neighbor speaking, "you needed to stop honking that horn every morning, you are waking up my children." The bus driver informed me that he apologized to the neighbor speaking to him and them continued telling me his story. The bus driver speaking again, "as this neighbor turned and started walking back to his home I noticed that he had a hand gun in his back pocket."
EM has a history of being late for the bus. I've spoken to the BigB about it and she said to me the same thing I told the bus driver. "When you stop at the house, wait your allotted time. If EM does not come out of the house, you need to drive on so you can stay on schedule." The day after the hand gun incident the bus stopped at EM's house, the bus driver waited the allotted time without honking the horn, and drove on. EM was absent from school that day.
It's food pantry day at our school. Yes, we stock a food pantry exclusively for families with scholars in our school. So you know, it is very well attended. EM, as he is exiting the bus on food pantry day says to me, "Mr. Schultz my parental unit is going to pick me up after school today." "Ok," I say to him and he walks into the school. It's now 2:30pm and I'm heading to the office to ask our administrative czar to call me when EM's parental unit shows up at school. The response I got was, "I don't have to call you, EM's parental unit is in our food pantry right now." So I walk over to the food pantry to confirm with EM's parental unit that he will be a car rider at the end of the school day. When I arrive at the food pantry I was informed that she had picked up what she needed and left. It's now 3:30pm and the school day is over and I don't know for sure how EM is going to get home. EM thinks his parental unit will pick him up so I take him to the office and tell him to have a seat until his parental unit arrives. I then ask the administrative czar to contact me when EM is picked up. When I don't hear from the administrative czar I head back to the office and EM is still sitting there. Now it's decision time for me. Either let EM continue to sit in the office and wait for his parental unit or take him to the bus. After overhead paging EM's parental unit with no luck the decision to send him home on the bus is made. As EM is being walked to the bus he is crying because his parental unit said "to wait at school for me to pick you up" and in his anxiety issue mind he is thinking she left him and would not be home when he got there. No scholar deserves this type of treatment from a parental unit, especially one with anxiety issues. Unfortunately, EM is a product of PPP, and such is his life. EM and I have been in the same classroom for almost three years now. He is a real nice young man and does not deserve to have some many parental unit issues. Please keep him in your prayers.
It's Friday morning and Gnu was late arriving. At around 9:45am she makes an announcement to the scholars, "I really overslept this morning and didn't have time to take a shower so hopefully I don't smell." I wanted to say to her that if she didn't shower and smelled, she'd easily fit in with some of the scholars in the room but chose to remain silent. Shortly after making her announcement, she walks over to MiniJ, gets close to him and says, "do I smell?" She then walked over to Uh-Uh-Uh and again asks the questions as she gets up close and personal, "do I smell"? They didn't think she did. I didn't think she did so on went the day. I know I've mentioned a number of times what I wonderful teacher Gnu is but I wonder if I've ever mentioned before that she is a bit Edith Bunkeresque, a ding bat as Archie Bunker would say.
It's Mother's Day. My daughter is enjoying her first Mother's Day. My part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse is enjoying her first Mother's Day as a grandmother. I'm blogging, drinking a gin and tonic, looking out over the backyard and realize that I need to cut the grass. Bye!
Sorry, PPP means piss poor parenting.
Thanks for continuing to follow along.
Sunday, May 1, 2016
The Pipelines
In either the first or second year that I started my view from the back of the room I attended a professional development day for instructional assistants. One of the speakers was PhdJack, a special education overhead person who, when in my classroom, actually took the time to speak to me unlike the others who stand within six or seven feet of me and pretend I don't exist. The subject of PhdJack's presentation was Suspensions Are the Pipeline To Prison. The presentation really had my attention as PhdJack spoke on a subject that was pretty foreign to someone from the suburbs. In a nutshell, PhdJack put forth a presentation that stated the more a scholar is suspended from school, the more likely the scholar will drop out of school, and after dropping out of school the more likely a scholar will make a series of bad decisions and end up in jail. PhdJack had all of the necessary statistics and data tables up on the big screen for everyone in attendance to see and she made a very valid point.
Moving forward to the start of the 2015/2016 school year where several email messages came across my desk from our school corporations human resource department about the need to reduce, if not entirely eliminate suspensions as they are nothing but a pipeline to prison. Accompanying all these reduce suspensions email messages was an updated copy of the school corporation's progressive discipline policy. Given that I'm in a classroom with scholars with emotional handicaps, who have sudden angry outburst that could result in injury, I started to read the policy. About half way through the document I scrolled to the last page and realized that this policy was forty-two pages long so, quite honestly, I stopped reading it.
Moving forward again to today and I'm pretty frustrated with our school corporations reduce, if not, eliminate suspensions policy and here is why. So we are clear on this, the particular incidents that I'm about to mention, did not happen in a couple days but go back at least two or three weeks and a number of these incidents involved scholars that are not in a special education classroom.
Classroom Incident - A scholar is very angry at the teacher and shouts, paraphrasing, "I'm going to stab you and cut out your guts." A second scholar gets angry at the aggressive scholar and charges at as this scholar because he is upset at the way the other scholar spoke to his teacher. Fortunately, the scholars were separated with the second scholar directed out into the hallway to cool down. The telephone in my classroom rings and I have to put my crisis team member hat on and head up to the classroom where this incident took place. Just as I arrive, the scholar that was walking the hallway to cool down returns to the classroom, sees the other scholar and bull rushes this scholar. Within a matter of seconds two male members of the crisis team are on the floor trying to contain the charging scholar. This scholar is in such a rage their is perspiration all over his face and a slight foaming at the mouth. After several minutes, both scholars are de-escalating in separate locations, and the day continues. Action taken for this very aggressive behavior, nothing that I'm aware of except this, both scholars got off their respective bus the following day.
Bus Incident - a bus monitor exits a bus and gets my attention. "You need to step on this bus right now as two scholars are fighting." As I enter the bus and head to the bus aisle there is a scholar on the floor half crying and half screaming, "my jaw is broken." The other scholar involved in the fight had returned to his assigned seat and was sitting quietly. The scholar that sustained the most damage was the scholar who was doing the provoking (fishing as Phd(*)Sparty and Phd(*)Pete call it) came out on the losing end as he caught a round house right to the side of the face. I escort the injured scholar off the bus, convinced him that his jaw is not broken, because if it was, he wouldn't be able to do all of this screaming and handed him off to a member of our crisis team. The second scholar involved in the altercation exited the bus in a fairly calm manner and was also escorted into the school. Just as the other scholars on the bus are about to exit I hear this from a third scholar, "you better open up that door and let me of this moth....f.....ing bus." To the best of my knowledge, no school suspensions but one bus suspension for one day were the disciplinary actions taken.
Bus incident - The bus door opens and the first scholar that exits the bus has blood on her face and well as quite a bit of blood on the sleeve of her jacket. The next person I see is the bus monitor who informs me about the incident and points out the second scholar on the bus that was involved in the fight. Again, to the best of my knowledge, no suspensions.
I'll admit those are rare incidents, far from the norm, but they happened and in a relatively short period of time. There are two more that I could talk about but I think you have an idea of how badly things can get on any given school day so I'm shifting gears. As you are aware, I'm a crisis team member that responds to some pretty serious incidents. At the same time I'm also the contact for other serious incidents that don't rise to the level of a crisis team call. These are calls I get that just state go to this general education classroom as so and so scholar is misbehaving. It's these calls that are far more numerous, in fact they happen four or five more times that the crisis team calls. So what do I deal with, scholars flipping over desks, knocking stuff off of desks, throwing objects, acting total rude, angry, defiant, and disrespectful toward their teacher and spewing forth some very obscene descriptive terms direct at their teacher and anyone else close to them.
Despite what you've just read, the pipeline to prison is being slowly closed but as they say, for each action their is an equal and opposite reaction force, and he is the reaction.
Every day five buses arrive at our school and I greet them as the bus captain. With five buses, there are five bus drivers and five bus monitors. "Why do we have do deal with these disruptive scholars on this bus? Every day it's the same scholars acting poorly. Every day we report their behavior to the school and nothing happens. We don't deserve to be treated the way we are treated." These drivers and monitor are correct, they don't deserve to be treated this way and I don't know what to tell them. I guess I could tell them that suspension is the pipeline to prison but that would be a waste of time as it will not resolve the challenges they face on their buses.
We have less than five weeks of school left this school year. Right now I can easily say there are five teachers in my school that are thinking of leaving the school. A couple I know real well and they've had it with the disrespect if not right down right abuse that they have to take in a classroom. This past Friday I went on-line to check on the number of open teaching jobs posted for our school corporation. There are numerous. Today, it's not uncommon to read about the looming teacher shortage and that the number of high school graduates that are entering college and pursuing a teacher degree are down.
For every action this is an equal and opposite reaction. The smaller the pipeline to prison shrinks the wider the pipeline to teachers leaving the profession grows. I don't know if there is a happy median so I guess I'll have to choose which pipeline to close. If there are no teachers, there are seriously overloaded classrooms. If the consistently disruptive scholars are removed from the classroom the other twelve, fifteen, eighteen, or twenty scholars will received a better education. The closing of the pipeline to prison is causing bus monitors and bus drivers to quit. The closing of the pipeline to prison is causing teachers to leave the profession, open the pipeline back up until a workable solution can be found.
Non-academically, it was a tough week in the classroom. First, the BigB announced that she is leaving our school. That came as a huge surprise to just about everyone that works at my school. I've worked with the BigB for four years and it has been a wonderful experience. While she is not leaving our school corporation, she is leaving our school and she will be missed. Second, on Thursday of this week, Gnu's cell phone rang during an academic lesson. Normally, she will look at the phone to see who is calling and set the phone back down. With this particular call she answered the phone. The scholars noticed it first. "Miss G, why are you crying?" When I looked in her direction she was up and walking toward me to tell me her news. There are tears in her eyes when she tells me what is going on. A family member is ill and hospitalized in poor condition. I put my arm around her and we walk toward the classroom door. "You need to go to the hospital," I tell her. "I can't, there is too much to do." "No, you need to leave. All of the day's work is out on the counter tops and I know what needs to be done so leave." She stopped by the BigB's office to tell her she is leaving and I moved to the front of the room. The scholars are all asking me what is wrong with Gnu. I'm not sure what to say as I know exactly what is going on because Gnu told me. I can't tell the scholars the truth and I won't tell you. All I ask is that you pray for her and her family during this most difficult time.
It's Sunday, late afternoon, and I'm in my favorite blogging location, the screened in porch on the back of the house. I chose a vodka and tonic over a bloody mary to assist me in my blogging this week. Family members came down from Michigan to see my granddaughter and a good time was had by all. That's it. Thanks for continuing to follow along.
Moving forward to the start of the 2015/2016 school year where several email messages came across my desk from our school corporations human resource department about the need to reduce, if not entirely eliminate suspensions as they are nothing but a pipeline to prison. Accompanying all these reduce suspensions email messages was an updated copy of the school corporation's progressive discipline policy. Given that I'm in a classroom with scholars with emotional handicaps, who have sudden angry outburst that could result in injury, I started to read the policy. About half way through the document I scrolled to the last page and realized that this policy was forty-two pages long so, quite honestly, I stopped reading it.
Moving forward again to today and I'm pretty frustrated with our school corporations reduce, if not, eliminate suspensions policy and here is why. So we are clear on this, the particular incidents that I'm about to mention, did not happen in a couple days but go back at least two or three weeks and a number of these incidents involved scholars that are not in a special education classroom.
Classroom Incident - A scholar is very angry at the teacher and shouts, paraphrasing, "I'm going to stab you and cut out your guts." A second scholar gets angry at the aggressive scholar and charges at as this scholar because he is upset at the way the other scholar spoke to his teacher. Fortunately, the scholars were separated with the second scholar directed out into the hallway to cool down. The telephone in my classroom rings and I have to put my crisis team member hat on and head up to the classroom where this incident took place. Just as I arrive, the scholar that was walking the hallway to cool down returns to the classroom, sees the other scholar and bull rushes this scholar. Within a matter of seconds two male members of the crisis team are on the floor trying to contain the charging scholar. This scholar is in such a rage their is perspiration all over his face and a slight foaming at the mouth. After several minutes, both scholars are de-escalating in separate locations, and the day continues. Action taken for this very aggressive behavior, nothing that I'm aware of except this, both scholars got off their respective bus the following day.
Bus Incident - a bus monitor exits a bus and gets my attention. "You need to step on this bus right now as two scholars are fighting." As I enter the bus and head to the bus aisle there is a scholar on the floor half crying and half screaming, "my jaw is broken." The other scholar involved in the fight had returned to his assigned seat and was sitting quietly. The scholar that sustained the most damage was the scholar who was doing the provoking (fishing as Phd(*)Sparty and Phd(*)Pete call it) came out on the losing end as he caught a round house right to the side of the face. I escort the injured scholar off the bus, convinced him that his jaw is not broken, because if it was, he wouldn't be able to do all of this screaming and handed him off to a member of our crisis team. The second scholar involved in the altercation exited the bus in a fairly calm manner and was also escorted into the school. Just as the other scholars on the bus are about to exit I hear this from a third scholar, "you better open up that door and let me of this moth....f.....ing bus." To the best of my knowledge, no school suspensions but one bus suspension for one day were the disciplinary actions taken.
Bus incident - The bus door opens and the first scholar that exits the bus has blood on her face and well as quite a bit of blood on the sleeve of her jacket. The next person I see is the bus monitor who informs me about the incident and points out the second scholar on the bus that was involved in the fight. Again, to the best of my knowledge, no suspensions.
I'll admit those are rare incidents, far from the norm, but they happened and in a relatively short period of time. There are two more that I could talk about but I think you have an idea of how badly things can get on any given school day so I'm shifting gears. As you are aware, I'm a crisis team member that responds to some pretty serious incidents. At the same time I'm also the contact for other serious incidents that don't rise to the level of a crisis team call. These are calls I get that just state go to this general education classroom as so and so scholar is misbehaving. It's these calls that are far more numerous, in fact they happen four or five more times that the crisis team calls. So what do I deal with, scholars flipping over desks, knocking stuff off of desks, throwing objects, acting total rude, angry, defiant, and disrespectful toward their teacher and spewing forth some very obscene descriptive terms direct at their teacher and anyone else close to them.
Despite what you've just read, the pipeline to prison is being slowly closed but as they say, for each action their is an equal and opposite reaction force, and he is the reaction.
Every day five buses arrive at our school and I greet them as the bus captain. With five buses, there are five bus drivers and five bus monitors. "Why do we have do deal with these disruptive scholars on this bus? Every day it's the same scholars acting poorly. Every day we report their behavior to the school and nothing happens. We don't deserve to be treated the way we are treated." These drivers and monitor are correct, they don't deserve to be treated this way and I don't know what to tell them. I guess I could tell them that suspension is the pipeline to prison but that would be a waste of time as it will not resolve the challenges they face on their buses.
We have less than five weeks of school left this school year. Right now I can easily say there are five teachers in my school that are thinking of leaving the school. A couple I know real well and they've had it with the disrespect if not right down right abuse that they have to take in a classroom. This past Friday I went on-line to check on the number of open teaching jobs posted for our school corporation. There are numerous. Today, it's not uncommon to read about the looming teacher shortage and that the number of high school graduates that are entering college and pursuing a teacher degree are down.
For every action this is an equal and opposite reaction. The smaller the pipeline to prison shrinks the wider the pipeline to teachers leaving the profession grows. I don't know if there is a happy median so I guess I'll have to choose which pipeline to close. If there are no teachers, there are seriously overloaded classrooms. If the consistently disruptive scholars are removed from the classroom the other twelve, fifteen, eighteen, or twenty scholars will received a better education. The closing of the pipeline to prison is causing bus monitors and bus drivers to quit. The closing of the pipeline to prison is causing teachers to leave the profession, open the pipeline back up until a workable solution can be found.
Non-academically, it was a tough week in the classroom. First, the BigB announced that she is leaving our school. That came as a huge surprise to just about everyone that works at my school. I've worked with the BigB for four years and it has been a wonderful experience. While she is not leaving our school corporation, she is leaving our school and she will be missed. Second, on Thursday of this week, Gnu's cell phone rang during an academic lesson. Normally, she will look at the phone to see who is calling and set the phone back down. With this particular call she answered the phone. The scholars noticed it first. "Miss G, why are you crying?" When I looked in her direction she was up and walking toward me to tell me her news. There are tears in her eyes when she tells me what is going on. A family member is ill and hospitalized in poor condition. I put my arm around her and we walk toward the classroom door. "You need to go to the hospital," I tell her. "I can't, there is too much to do." "No, you need to leave. All of the day's work is out on the counter tops and I know what needs to be done so leave." She stopped by the BigB's office to tell her she is leaving and I moved to the front of the room. The scholars are all asking me what is wrong with Gnu. I'm not sure what to say as I know exactly what is going on because Gnu told me. I can't tell the scholars the truth and I won't tell you. All I ask is that you pray for her and her family during this most difficult time.
It's Sunday, late afternoon, and I'm in my favorite blogging location, the screened in porch on the back of the house. I chose a vodka and tonic over a bloody mary to assist me in my blogging this week. Family members came down from Michigan to see my granddaughter and a good time was had by all. That's it. Thanks for continuing to follow along.
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