So Much At Stake

Saturday, December 15, 2018

This past Tuesday was the day of our School Quality Review (SQR).  I mentioned the SQR briefly in my last blog post so I'll give you a refresher course so you don't have to go back to the last blog post and reread it.  My school, the one that I have been at for the past six and a half school years, the one that I've thoroughly enjoyed going to, the one that I will continue to go to for as long as they can put up with me, has received a failure grade from the State of Indiana for the past three years.  The more that I think about this failure grade the more I think to myself, "how did we get here?"  I believe it was four years ago that our school grade was a B so what went wrong?  I have an opinion that would be quite a lengthy list of reasons but I won't bore you with the entire list.  I'll keep it short.

First off, when I walked into the school to start my seventh year I met the new BigB.  The new BigB was the fourth one in six years.  Four leadership changes in six years and four different strategies to move the school forward.  That is frustrating as you can't see academic growth when you keep changing directions.  Second, at the end of my fourth year at the school there was a mass departure of teachers from the first floor.  If my memory serves me correctly, eight of the eleven teachers on the first floor, moved on to other teaching opportunities.  When you add the number of teachers that left the school in my fifth and sixth year you are now in double digits when it comes to teachers leaving the school.  Numbers like that hurt a school.  How do you keep any academic continuity in the school when teachers are departing at such a high rate?  Here is my last one and then I'll move on.  During my fifth year, discipline for inappropriate, if not downright awful, behavior took a back seat to social emotional learning and a directive that school suspensions are the pipeline to prison and they needed to be severally reduced.  This last one, more than the others, used in combination with a huge emphasis on kindness rather an consequences, in my opinion, is the cause of our school's decline.

Moving on and here is how the day of the SQR went in my school and, most importantly, in T4's classroom.  I was sitting at my half round table out in the hallway grading a quiz when I first encountered our guests.  As they were approaching I looked up and one of the guests said, "good morning, how are you doing today?"  I responded, "I'm grading a math quiz and knowing that we are having guests in the school and that I have no idea who you are I'll just say that I'm doing excellent."  That drew a smile from a couple of our guests as they then proceeded down the hallway and I thought to myself, "at least I know they can smile."

Sunday, December 16, 2018

The scheduled arrival time of our guests in T4's classroom was 12:05pm with a schedule departure time of 12:25pm.  With so much at stake, in this short twenty minute span of time, it was natural for tension being a little high.  How high, one of us had to go pee four times in less than an hour.  The morning activities leading up to our SQR time was the normal schedule with one small exception.  One of the T4-M's was in a bit of a defiant mood and there was a concern on T4's part as to how this scholar would behave when our guests were in the room.  "Schultz, when our guests arrive you need to sit right next to T4-M," was my directive.

It's now approaching noon and T4 decides that it would be nice if one of our scholars would greet our guests at the classroom door when they arrived.  T4-F was chosen and there was a brief rehearsal session on what T4-F would say to our guests when they arrived.  After the rehearsal we were ready.  It's now 12:05pm, no guests, they are late.  It's now 12:08pm, no guests, they are even later.  It's now 12:10pm, getting really late as twenty five percent of the time allocated for T4's review is gone.  It's now decision time for T4.  Does she start the lesson without them or continue to wait?  She waited.  It's now 12:12pm, seven minutes late, when they arrived at the classroom door.  I was sitting at the far side of the room next to my assigned scholar so I could not hear clearly the exchange of words between T4-F and our guests.  What I did hear clearly was one of our guests say to T4-F, "I'll just take a seat."  In walked three guests, all with a dour look on their face, and they took seats among the scholars.

The lesson was on angles and T4 began the lesson.  "Eyes on me, say as I say, do as I do," was the directive to the scholars.  "Everybody stand," they stood up.  T4 then said, "turn ninety degrees" and she jumped up turning ninety degrees to her left and the scholars mirrored her.  She then said, "return to your starting point," jumped up, turned, and was again facing the scholars and they matched her.  The next two turns were one hundred and eighty degrees and then two hundred and seventy degrees.  That went smoothly with all of the scholars actively participating.  Next up is the final turn, three hundred and sixty degrees and all I could think was, "please God, don't let anyone get hurt."  "This is the last one," T4 said to the scholars.  "When you do this one you should all be facing me when you land.  Are you ready?  Go."  They all did it.  I don't think anyone even lost their balance and fell.  They were all so excited that they actually just did a three hundred and sixty degree turn that would have surely put a smile on Michael Jordan's face.

The scholars are now back in their seats.  On their desks were two round (circles) pieces of paper, one white and one pink.  Both pieces of paper were cut so that the cut line resembled the radius line of a circle and T4 continued the lesson.  "On your desk are two circles, one white and one pink.  How many degrees are they in a circle?"  A number of hands went up and the response was three hundred and sixty degrees.  "Now, connect your two circles along the cut line so that they are hooked together."  That was completed with a minimal amount of help and the lesson continued.  "Turn your two circles so that a ninety degree angle is shown but it has to be in pink."  That was completed and so was showing the straight angle as well as the two hundred and seventy degree angle.  Now comes the challenging part.  "In order to get a two hundred and seventy degree angle you have to move past three right angles.  How do you know that three right angles equals two hundred and seventy degrees?"  T4-F immediately raised her hand.  "Ninety plus ninety equals one hundred and eighty and then you add another ninety and you get to two hundred and seventy degrees."  She nailed it doing mental math, no paper and pencil, no calculator.

T4 then proceeded to ask the next question.  "If a right angle is ninety degrees, how many degrees are there in half of a right angle?"  There was a slight delay and then hands went up.  Forty-five degrees was the agreed upon response from the scholars.  With time moving quickly with our guests in the room T4 continued.  "Show me in pink the two hundred and seventy degree angle.  Now I want you to add forty-five degrees to the two hundred and seventy degree angle and then hold up your paper when you are finished."  Again, minimal help was needed.  Here comes the part that just blew me away.  T4 speaking.  "Now tell me how many degrees are showing in pink."  A short delay and then a hand went up.  It was T4-M and he said, "three hundred and fifteen degrees."  I don't know what T4 was thinking when T4-M answered the question but I know T4-M, as I help him a lot, and I was stunned that he got the right answer doing mental math.  Back to T4, "how did you arrive at three hundred and fifteen degrees?"  T4-M, "I started at two hundred and seventy degrees, I knew that half of ninety degrees was forty five degrees, so I just added forty-five degrees to two hundred and seventy degrees and got three hundred and fifteen degrees."  T4-M just nailed the hardest question of the lesson and I was so proud of him.  It's now 12:23pm and T4 was about to continue when our guests stood up and walked out of the classroom, two minutes early.  Here is my big unknown as they departed.  I don't recall hearing them saying any thing to T4 or to the scholars.  These dour faced people just stood up and walked out of the classroom.

The SQR you just read about occurred on the seventy-fifth day of the school year.  I've watched T4 present a math lesson for all of those seventy-five days.  The vast majority of those math lessons went very well.  There were only a couple occasions where the math lessons struggled but that was not due to the teacher, it was mostly do to too many scholars who just couldn't get there act together.  As far as the math lesson on SQR day, I can some it up in a few words, T4 nailed it, the scholars nailed it, it was a perfect lesson plan.

The entire staff, using an analogy from the book series The Game of Thrones, was called before the King to explain their short comings.  Each teacher was given a twenty minute block of time, in T4's case she had only eleven minutes as the dour faced guests arrived late and left early, to state their case. Well, the teachers have stated their case, so now what?  The King has options; allow the school to proceed as it is, make improvement recommendations, replace the leadership team, or send the teachers and the leadership team to the King's Justice, also known as the royal executioner, to have their heads lopped off, forced to find a new teaching positions, and the King assigns an entire new teaching staff to the school.

So now everyone waits.  We are five schools days from the start of Christmas break.  We are nine days from Christmas.  We are fifteen days from a new year and everyone waits while this hangs over their heads.  Will my head be placed on the royal executions block?  Welcome to the teaching profession where years of dedication to their profession can be lopped off after a twenty minute presentation.