It's a bit odd that the period beginning on June 8th and ending on July 27th is called summer break. If you think about it, the summer season starts of June 20th and goes through September 20th, so it's not really a summer break. It's more of a second two week spring break immediately followed by a five week summer break. Unfortunately, today is my last day, break is over, and the scholars will walk in the classroom door on Monday morning.
Here is where we stand as of today. Well start the year with a teacher occupying the front of the room and an instructional assistant occupying the back of the room. In between these two individuals will be either three or four scholars. We'll start the year with a new principal and vice principal. We'll have a new school based behavior specialist and we'll be without our behavioral therapist as the one we had is not returning. We had three teachers retire and three teachers leave primarily to make more money in other school districts. For me, this one is the toughest loss of all, our media assistant is not returning. Losing a media assistant may not seem that important given all of the other changes I mentioned but this media assistant was my contact person when I first ask about a position in this school that will actually pay me money. To this day, I can remember our conversation clearly.
"Jim'sWife, (that is what I named her to remain anonymous) if I'm going to be in this school four or five days a week do you have a job that will actually pay me money?" "Mr. Schultz, we have the perfect job for you," she responded. About three minutes later we walked into the back of a classroom and she said to me the school needs an instructional assistant for this classroom." I'd agree to sit with a view from the back of this classroom and on Monday I will start my fifth year doing so. Sadly, for the first time in four years, Jim'sWife will not be around and I will miss my friend a lot.
Ok, time to go through our cast of characters as it stands today.
The adults
Gnu - teacher, who occupies the front of the classroom.
Me - instructional assistant, who occupies the back of the classroom.
BigB2 - principal.
LittleBB - vice principal.
FBG - behavior specialist. This position was previously occupied by Oreo who just plain
disappeared.
Open - behavior therapist. This position was previously occupied by PhD(*)Pete who chose to
leave our school.
The scholars
Knapper - if he shows up, he will be in the fourth grade.
Big House - probably will start the year in the classroom but my be move to a regular classroom,
fourth grade.
Grr! - probably will start the year in the classroom but my be move to a regular classroom, third
grade.
S&T - will be in the third grade although academically he will be taught at the second grade level.
New Scholar - I believe this scholar is in the third grade.
The other familiar names
EM - is now in the fifth grade and will start the year in a regular classroom
MiniJ - is now in the fourth grade and will start the year in a regular classroom
Un-Uh-Uh - is now in the fourth grade and will start the year in a regular classroom
Gnu will continue to support MiniJ and Uh-Uh-Uh at the start of the year to insure that their transition to a regular classroom goes smoothly. I will do the same when the need arises. Although EM is in the fifth grade and Gnu is no longer his teacher of record, we both will support EM as the need arises.
A few days ago I attended our first staff meeting with the BigB2 and LittleBB. During a break in our meeting I overhead a teacher expressing her displeasure with having "special ed" scholars in her general education classroom as she is not prepared to teach "these" scholars. This did not sit well with me and I had to hold my tongue but I'll tell you what was going through my mind. Listen lady, the scholars you referenced are not "special ed." They were special education scholars who, through hard work, position themselves to re-enter a general education classroom. So lady, if you are going into the school year with the mindset that you will have some of my "special ed" scholars in your room and you are going to treat them as "special" or worse do the best you can to get them kick out of your classroom them you will thoroughly tick me off.
For the record, every one of the scholars that I've worked with over the past four years started their learning in a general education classroom. For reasons beyond their control, these scholars developed emotional issues, in most cases an inability to control their anger, and were placed in a classroom for scholars with emotional handicaps. The reason they were put into this type of classroom was so that teachers and behavior specialists can work with them to control their anger with the end objective of returning them to a general education classroom. That is exactly what happened with EM, MiniJ, and Uh-Uh-Uh. All three of these scholar improved their behavior immensely. All three of these scholars improved immensely in academics and that is why they are in a general education classroom. So, if a teacher is going to continue to label them as "special ed" then maybe this teacher should consider retiring which is something that I feel should have happened at the end of the last school year.
That's it. I've got stuff to do, like go buy an electric pencil sharpener as Oreo is no longer at our school and she took her pencil sharpener with her. Dang! I almost forgot one big upcoming event that will take place on September 3rd. Someone is getting married. It's not me and it's obviously not one of our scholars so that pretty much eliminates everyone in the classroom but one person. In about twenty hours my alarm clock will go off. I'll climb out of bed, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, climb into my car, stop at the BP gas station and buy a cup of coffee, and continue on to school. It's going to be an interesting year and hopefully you will continue to follow along.
