T4 And Others

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

It's 7:59pm and I'm sitting in my favorite blogging location, the screened in porch that is on the backside of my house.  My brain keeps telling me that I need to get started writing again but I'm easily distracted.  Directly in front of me, approximately seventy-five yards away, is a backyard basketball court and there is a game going on.  To my right I can see that the sun is about to set but also in that direction there is a cardinal calling.  At about a forty-five degree angle from me as I look left the humming bird feeder that my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse put up over the weekend is very active as the humming birds just migrated into my neighborhood.  Also to my left, approximately fifty yards away, a rooster is crowing.  No, I don't live in the country, I live in the city next to a neighbor that has chickens.  The rooster that is crowing right now is quite interesting with its all black body and a feather style on top of its head that looks like one of those old school white tennis balls.

Let's see, I just wrote eight sentences.  In Knewer's classroom that would earn me an A.  When writing this blog what you just read is me stalling.  I checked the calendar on my cellphone and it has been exactly fifty days since my last blog post and I'm sure many of you have figured out some time ago that I'm struggling as the school year winds down.  Up until two days ago I was perfectly content with not writing this blog but then something happened.  The first happening was a text message, paraphrasing, "I haven't seen any blog posts in several weeks, when are you going to post one?"  Right after this text message poured in I was sitting in school talking to T4 and for some reason I broke one of my long standing rules, don't tell anyone at school, with the exception of two of my former colleagues, that I write this blog.  Why I broke this rule is an unknown but T4 knows about the blog, asked if she could read it, I pulled the blog up on my cellphone and showed it to her, and then I gave her the blog address.  A day or so later T4 asked me when I was going to post the next blog.  I told her I wasn't sure.  Paraphrasing again, "you need to keep writing the blog.  You really describe what it is like being a school teacher in this school.  People need to know what the teachers have to put up with every day in the classroom.  You are telling it like it is and you need to continue writing."  On the same day that T4 told me to keep writing another message poured in, this time from As Far West As Utah.  The message said, "it has been weeks since I've seen a blog post."  That was three messages in a matter of a few days so I got the message, lets get started.

Thursday May 10, 2018

I'll start with a scholar update.  Knewer's class lost one and gained two.  The departure, and unusual one, was Hiss.  Knewer was told that Hiss' parental unit was going to move and it would be outside the district boundary.  For three days Hiss was a no show so I cleared out the inside of her desk, put what I thought was personal items that may be retrieved at some point in her cubby, and then cleaned off what was easily the filthiest desk I'd ever seen.  With Hiss' stuff cleared out guess what happened?  Two days later Hiss walked into the classroom.  Knewer thought Hiss was there to get her personal items but, no, she was staying for the whole day.  The next day Hiss showed up again and Knewer started to make enquiries.  The parental unit had indeed move outside our district boundary but decided it was too much trouble changing schools so the parental unit just let Hiss keep coming to Knewer's classroom.  The parental unit was promptly told that Hiss can't return.  So, as it stands right now, Hiss is gone, maybe, as she never did take all of her personal items with her.

Hiss was only gone a couple days when the first of our two new scholars arrived.  This young school, AreYouSure, came from a second grade general education classroom in our school.  I didn't recognized him as one of the usual hell raisers in our general education classrooms but it didn't take me long to figure out why he was in our classroom, Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and a foul mouth.  The last new scholar to arrived was Brush.  This fine young scholar, fourth grade, came to us from outside our school district.  Like AreYouSure, Brush has an Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and a foul mouth.

To refresh you memory, because this slacker stopper writing for fifty days, here is a complete list of scholars.

Grr! - fourth grade
Tourette - fourth grade
Brush - fourth grade
Huey - third grade
Cue - third grade
AreYouSure - second grade
Fruit - first grade

Knewer is still the teacher of record for all of these scholars.  Low, the instructional assistant, FBG, behavioral specialist, and the old guy with the gray hair and beard who still occupies the table where he has a swell view from the back of the classroom, are all working with these seven fine young scholars.  So, where to next?  Two choices, school lockdown or millennials.

I'm going to start with school lockdowns given the somewhat recent school shooting down in Florida. Like probably every school in the country our school goes through lockdown training.  When the announcement comes over the school intercom that we are going into a lockdown position what we do is pretty simple.  Pull down the window shades, turn out the lights, position all of the scholars somewhere in the classroom so they can't be seen through the window in the classroom door and then lock the classroom door.  Sounds simple until you consider that there are four scholars in Knewer's classroom that are ODD and the likelihood that one of the four will go into a defiant rage because he doesn't want to sit where he was instructed to sit can quickly put the entire classroom at risk.

Moving forward, and please keep the school lockdown procedure in mind.  Twice in one day this past week an overhead intercom message directed everyone in the school to lockdown.  No problem, we know the drill except for one thing, this lockdown was labeled a medium lockdown.  My first thought was, what is a medium lockdown?  I looked at Knewer and Low and they just shrugged their shoulders.  So, what did we do?  Nothing, we just continued with the lesson plan.  Approximately one hour later someone came of the intercom again.  This time the lockdown was labeled a soft lockdown. The adults in the room again made eye contact, nobody knew what a soft lockdown was so we continued with the academics.  "What we got here," from the movie Cool Hand Luke, 1967, "is  failure to communicate."

So, a quick review on lockdowns.  We have three procedures, lockdown, medium lockdown, and soft lockdown.  All three apparently are designed to keep the scholars safe if a shooter is on the school property or worse has entered the school building.  Am I feeling safe, hell no and here is why.  By 9:30am every school day all of the adults are in the building, ninety percent plus of the scholars are in the building, I've just parked my car, got out, and walked across the parking lot heading for the front door of the school.  As I approached the door I'm reaching for my school identification badge that is in my right front pocket.  With identification badge in hand, I looked up and saw that the front door of the school was standing wide open as there is a door stop in place.  Are there any adults in sight, NO.  Is there anything to prevent a complete stranger from entering the building, NO.  Slightly agitated I bent over, picked up the door stop, walked into the building, turned to enter the main office, located a pit of no return in the staff lounge and deposit the door stop in the pit.  Now we are talking about a serious safety issue and to make matters worst, I've collected six door stops as of today.

Friday May 11, 2018

On to the millennials but first a little financial review.  I'll keep it simple, our school corporation is faced with a financial shortfall that totals in the millions.  There have already been discussions about budget cuts that may include teachers, instructional assistants, and all other support personnel.  An astute person, say a first year teacher, or a second year school teacher/leadership person, or a third year teacher would take notice and think, "I don't have a lot of time on the books in this school corporation so maybe I should stay on top of my game to avoid a RIF (reduction in force) pink slip."   Keep that in mind as I move forward.

Teacher A - total amount of time in the classroom, less that one full school year.  For those of you familiar with a RIF, this is a prime candidate.  So what does this teacher do?  The classroom is too stressful, my students are acting horrible, I'm stressed, I'm taking some time off.  In fact, I'm taking multiple days off, I'm taking the whole week off.

Teacher B - total time at this school, less that two years in an overhead position at a school that is facing a declining enrollment.  All of this mandatory testing is too stressful, I need a break.  I'm taking four days off.  Then I'm coming back to school, working one day, and then I'm taking another day off.  If you think this overhead position is a prime RIF candidate, raise your hand.

Teacher C- total time at this school, less that three years.  The National Football League (NFL) draft is coming up and you know what, I've never attended, in person, an NFL draft.  That has to end, I'm going to travel to Dallas, Texas, sit in the new AT&T Stadium, and watch the draft live.  Let's see, in order to do this I'll need to take off three days from school.

They are millennials, all three of them.  During the five school years that I was a paid instructional assistant I think I had less that five occurrences of absenteeism.  These three millennials missed more school days in a matter of a couple weeks that I did in five years.  The school district has a financial shortfall totaling in the millions of dollars.  The school has a declining enrollment and here is the kicker.  From what I can tell it doesn't even bother them.  It's no big deal.  Hey, I have the time and I'm going to take it.  I kept the best part for last, if they get a RIF pink slip I can hear them know. What?  What did I do wrong?  I only blew off handful of days, what is so wrong with that?  You know what, you people are just mean.

That's it.  The fifty or so day drought is over.  More to follow.  Oh, and one last thing.  "Keep it in the vault or next time you can punch holes in you own tennis balls."