How I Spent My Winter Vacation

Well, I'm still not a full time employee of any one school (though I do manage to work approximately forty hour weeks between my three or so different gigs); this means I'm paid hourly and therefore am coming up $hort this month, what with that whole Christmas/oops: separation of church and state Winter Vacation thing. Not that I'm not loving it. In between the hacking cough, runny nose, achy head, and sore throat, I've managed to squeeze in some nicely spiked egg nog, some gift wrap tearing extravaganzas, and some mighty late mornings.

Of perhaps more interest (to myself, obviously, as no one reads this blog as far as I can tell) is the lesson planning I've been working on for math. I teach math interventions for first through eighth graders at Rural Charter School and in an after school program for third and fourth graders at Favorite Elementary. I've had my students take the easyCBM progress monitoring tests to get a handle on where the holes are. These came out this year from the University of Oregon and are aligned to the new Oregon math standards, which are in turn aligned to the NCTM common core standards. Bureaucratically this is tricky this year, but it's essentially a good idea to move to the common core. The tests the kids took can be pulled up in a usable report with details of what skills are lacking. I've been going through the reports for all my students at both schools and generating documents with areas of concern listed out. Then I can target their weaknesses with select activities and worksheets (yay!! worksheets! who doesn't love 'em? but it's what I do). My biggest complaints with this approach are that it's tedious to pull all the data for the twenty five or thirty kids I teach and that the management is a bit tricky when I've  got a group of students all doing different pages and all honestly needing my attention in order to pull it off. And by attention, I really mean that often that's the primary thing they need. When not given the option of spacing out, passing notes, or  otherwise picking answers willy nilly in order to just be done with it, my students tend to do well and to show improvement.

So I'm getting prepared both for Monday back at school and for this Friday evening, when we host our New Year's Eve party. We've done it enough times now to call it our Annual New Year;s Party. Better go get rested up for it while I can. In the meanwhile, I think I'll feast my eyes on my lovely 1965 retro My Favorite Careers Barbie (aka The Teacher with the "PhD in Fashion"). Check her out at the top of the post. Other than the horribly Not Sensible Shoes, she's pretty rad. Thanks Dave! Made my xmas cheerier!

Examining the pedagogy of rti

I've thoroughly settled into my role as an intervention specialist. I do about 30 hours a week in Rural Charter School, doing direct instruction on reading and math at-risk kids in grades K-8. Then I hustle back into town to do an after school math intervention at Favorite Elementary. Then about three times a week I rush over to the local Young Adults Transitions House to tutor college kids who are in a residential treatment/ finding yourself/ figuring out how to grow up program. So it turns out that though I thought I was getting my master's degree to teach sixth grade, in fact it was so that I could work with all manner of at-risk youth, ages 6 to about 22.

The tutoring is quite simple; I just keep track of the students' syllabi, assign them the reading they're supposed to do anyway, make time management and study suggestions, edit papers, and give moral support. No outside prep required and I enjoy it.

The after school math at Favorite Elementary is slightly more complex because the goal is to boost kids who didn't pass their state assessments last year into the passing category this year. And this year  we have a fully revamped set of state math standards (finally aligned with NCTM standards and generally well thought out) and a new state assessment to go with it. So materials that worked well last year aren't quite right this year and I'm doing a lot of research and cross referencing to get the right stuff to these kids. But their attitudes after school is quite good and my Middle Kid gets to join us. So of course I like it.

My main job at Rural Charter is going well. I'm given a lot of autonomy and professional judgment about how to run my interventions and progress monitoring. The part that's on my mind right now is trying to be sure I'm following the spirit of the Response to Intervention model while working within the limitations of a tiny budget. I pretty much have one program for a given skill/grade level, and if it doesn't work the only response I can think of is trying to apply that program differently. I've managed to tweak the schedule here and there to give certain students one-on-one time. This works well, I think, for kids with certain distracting behaviors, or a certain type of noncompliance. I'm still relying on the same curriculum to reach them, so I'm pretty much just crossing my fingers.

I am seeing some gains though. A couple of seventh graders have been graduated out of my groups due to dramatic gains in their progress monitoring scores! And I feel like I'm hitting a good rhythm with the majority of the rest of my students; I can tell how to express to them that we're sticking with high standards. Basically, if you're not 6 or 7 with a certain level of unmedicated hyperactivity, I'm going to use that "SLANT" technique. In a nutshell, this is requiring students to sit up, participate, and show that they're paying attention. It's amazing what a difference in performance I see when I require them to scoot their chairs in to the table and sit straight.

Any thoughts or recommendations on RTI out there? I'm basically a general ed teacher by training who is sort of functioning as a special ed teacher, so I'm constantly looking for good ideas.

Off to school I go

Getting really into the new year (and kids haven't even started yet). I even had another job interview yesterday and was offered the position, but I'm going to turn it down and stay with Rural Charter. (It was a preschool teacher job, with future expansion into kindergarten and, probably, other elementary grades as this new school grows into a full private elementary school. Not for me though- I'm a bit too immersed in my mission as a Title 1 teacher- and the pay is half what I make now, so it's not an option anyway. Great to get the offer though.)

So it looks like I'll be the intervention specialist and an instructional coach at Rural Charter. Not sure what exactly this will entail, but it looks like it will be things I've already been doing, like getting the new math standards out to all the teachers, and so on. Very interesting work, and hey- I'm up to 27+ hours a week, which unfortunately still looms large as a worry. I need about 50 hours, but whatever. With some tutoring and possibly an after school intervention deal at Favorite Urban Elementary, I'll be significantly closer to full time this year than last.

Got to get ready for work now. Today is the first meeting for the Title 1 transition team: we're going from Targeted Assistance to Schoolwide this year (as in, 2011-12 will be schoolwide) and have to jump through a ton of hoops along the way. This morning, hoop #1. Bring it on.

Back to School

Well, I was lucky enough to get interviews for two different jobs here in town, but got neither one. So I'll be heading out to Rural Charter School five days a week (versus the three a week it was last year) and keeping my spirits up by doing an after school program at Favorite Elementary and possibly adjunct teaching at the community college. I like the charter school OK, but it's 45 minutes away and I don't have my own classroom up there. I've been too adrift for the past few months what with it being summer and all. Even teaching summer school in July didn't anchor me enough. I'm ready to go back to work. I won't get my own beautiful perfect classroom this year, but I might be able to almost pay the bills without leaving the profession. We have a number of folks living with us who will pitch in and help take up the slack on money, so maybe we'll survive this worst year yet of the recession. Worst for us anyway. The states have received their stimulus money, but the districts are holding on to it, so probably no hiring.

Anyway, off to think about intervention plans.

Summer's wrapping up. Time to look forward to September.

I've agreed to return to Rural Charter School and continue my Title 1 interventions. This year the job will be about 20 hours per week (last year it was 14) and the board was going to buy a reading curriculum, so lots of improvements. Frankly, I was looking for full time work, but those positions are few and far between around here.
One of my main hopes is that I can establish myself with a set classroom. This would improve the flow of students through the day's schedule immensely. Last year I sort of camped out in the director's office and then moved around the school, pulling kids out of their classes at the appointed times. This wasted a lot of time and the older ones (7th grade) often put on a big show of resisting coming with me. This is sort of understandable; if you don't feel great about being pulled out for extra help you're likely to try to resist. If you're 12 years old anyway. This year the school is adding 8th grade (so it's  now complete as a preK-8 school). I see even more of this silliness unless I change my methods. The school is housed in two converted houses, and space is at a premium. They're working on grants to convert and take possession of a third house on the property, but I don't expect it to be ready by September, or maybe not even this year. However, if I could stake a claim on even a small room, probably in the primary grades building, I could pretty much have the older students show up for our sessions on their own and I could get the younger ones from their classrooms across the hall or whatever without wasting any time. Then my transition time between sessions could be spent on work instead of on walking back and forth across the property.

I'm also hoping my 20 hours a week at the charter school can be condensed into three days, so that I can have two days for other work. This could bring my weekly schedule much closer to 40 hours. I may have an intervention gig at my own kids' Urban Public School, prepping students for their state assessments. If that's two full days a week, I'm in great shape. This scenario is basically how last spring semester went, only with more hours per day. I did about 5 hours at Rural, three days a week, and about 3 hours at Urban, twice a week. That added up to around half time, but spread out in such a way that it was pretty tricky to do any other work. If I do my 20 hours at Rural over 3 days and get two other 8 hour days at Urban, voila! I'm working full time! Still no benefits, but whatever. I'm going to push for this schedule. The Urban job likely won't start in September, but could be lined up to start in October. I think I'll contact the principal at Urban and propose this. It's based on an idea he presented to me back in May or June, and this would be a great solution both to my own income and career needs and, I think, to both schools' intervention needs.

The recession has thrown everything into a tizzy. I started grad school thinking that if I just applied myself and presented myself well to the powers that be, I'd be given at least a couple of job offers and my biggest dilemma would be choosing which grade level I wanted to teach. Then, while I was in school on my way toward my degree and  teaching license, everything went south and no one's retiring and the few teachers who do leave aren't being replaced and some are even getting RIF'ed and someone like me who's just entering her second year is pretty low on the totem pole. As a result, this blog has become much more about the job hunt and the economy and ohmygod how am I going to pay the bills than about education. Now that I'm somewhat at peace with the direction I'm headed for 2010-11, I will allow myself the luxury of talking for a minute about Actual Teaching. How novel!

I spent the month of July teaching summer school at Urban Public School. A caveat: I use the word urban rather loosely. I do not live in a big city. I live in a rural county; I'm in the downtown area (really downtown in a loft in a converted commercial building) of the town that is the county seat, and my kids' school (which I'm calling Urban Public School) is a few blocks away in the 'hood of our community. I like this and wouldn't have it any other way, but truly my town has a population of about 40,000 and is not contiguous with any other towns. It's the smallest place I've lived for more than about three months. It's not a big city. But within that context this is the most urban area of the whole county and we have a proportionate amount of the ills of most cities. Heck, I live directly next door to the local Gospel Rescue Mission- basically a soup kitchen and homeless shelter. I hear a lot of sirens. My daughters are familiar with gang graffiti. It's by no means a bad place, and I'm not going to make it out to be truly Inner City or anything.



The rest of the language arts block was spent reading The Lightning Thief to the class, with required brief written responses each day. Then during the second half of the month I brought in a dozen books from the public library on Greek mythology, and the students did a small written description and a portrait in markers and construction paper collage of their favorite character or  type of creature from the myths. We had quite a few Medusas. The draw of decapitation was too much to resist. Poseidon also loomed large. It was sort of an abbreviated version of Project Based Learning. We read some literature, did some research on pretty freely chosen subjects (any character they wanted was fine) and created a final presentation that was then put on public display at the district office. If I ever find myself with my own classroom of kids around this age I think I'll do a more in-depth version of this project. It was tons of fun, but the subject is so huge it would be better with more than a few hours worth of time.

All in all I was pleased with how the summer session went and how the kids responded to my lessons. It was really valuable.

Summer School rumination

It's funny. I think "rumination" comes from the same root as "ruminant" which is a cud-chewing mammal, like a cow or sheep. I've been chewing over a few ideas regarding my work right now, and you, dear reader, are the Oh So Lucky Recipient of my conclusions.

I started this blog as a class assignment in grad school and continued it, thinking it would be about lesson plans and great readings and cute things kids said at school. In reality, it's been more about my career in general, recession, the resulting lack of jobs, and the weirdness of working lots and lots of extremely part time jobs right after getting a *&%&*#@$% master's degree... but I digress. It's pretty much been about my own navel.

So, as I examine the aforementioned navel, I find that I tend to freak out a little sometimes. I was grading papers last night, after a lovely summer weekend spent largely not grading papers, and when I sat down to get to work I pretty much dissolved in tears over the ridiculousness of the scene. I felt a bit like a fraud; I don't know how I'm going to teach these kids what they need in four short weeks and I'm not being told I have to do any particular thing, so all I'm left is "professional judgement". I'm thoroughly enjoying every minute with my class, but I worry that they're not going to show improvement on the post tests. Not that I have serious reason to worry based on their performance thus far, I just worry in general. Just ask my dear husband.

This summer session is like a regular school year in microcosm. Assess. Instruct. Allow some free exploration. Instruct again. Assess (and hope like heck they've improved so a good statistic can be reported on a spreadsheet somewhere). I just hope it's being done well, and above all else that the kids are getting what they need. I do have an awfully good class, so I have reason for optimism.

Summer School!

Well, I spent the first month or so of summer break doing a combination of relaxing and stressing about my job prospects. It has been nice to stay up at night with my husband and the other grownups around here (we've had some house guests), sleep late, and of course to have more relaxed time with my daughters. Fortunately, though my work situation for the fall is still in limbo, I did have summer school to look forward to.

Said summer school started this week. I'm teaching the fourth grade, and I love it! I already knew many of the students, or at least recognized them. Most are from Favorite Elementary School, which is where classes are being held. Students from the whole district can attend, though, so there are some new faces. This summer session is targeting Title I, Migrant, and Title VII students; this means basically no change in demographics from the regular school year, so it feels just like home!

This is the first time I've taught summer school, and for starters I'm so grateful for the opportunity! I was lucky to be hired: the administrator running the show approached me about it during the spring and I immediately told her I'd been hoping to teach in the summer and would be thrilled to do it. As it turns out, those jobs were never even posted on the district's personnel site, so I doubt I would have had a chance if I hadn't already known and worked with Ms. Administrator.

From a professional standpoint, though, summer school is an interesting  opportunity. We have only 16 half days: four, four-day weeks. I have to do superquick assessments and dive in to targeted reading and math lessons as fast as possible. There's not a lot of time in which to make a difference for the kids, but on the other hand there's not the rigid, punitive air of the regular school year either. I want to show growth between pre- and post-tests, but what I choose to do and how I do it are largely left up to my professional judgement.

This is an interesting point. As a recap for readers who may not care to re-read my posts of the past two years, I got my master's degree and teaching license in the summer of 2009. I then entered the worst job market in memory (the Great Depression being outside most people's memories by now). I was fortunate to be hired as a long term substitute teacher, a gig that ended up lasting fully half of the school year (pretty great for subbing!) in one of my own daughters' former kindergarten classrooms. It was great. The second half of the year was spent rushing about between four part time jobs: Occasional Substitute, Title I Academic Interventionist for Rural Charter School (K-7), Math Interventionist for Favorite Elementary School (prepping students for their state assessments), and Tutor. Whew. All these jobs and still not more than 25 or 30 hours a week! But they were all in my field and what with the way the schedules and the travel time lined up there wasn't room for any other gigs.

So with my interventionist work, I was quite beholden to state and federal guidelines, and found myself administering a number of assessments and generally fitting students of all shapes into neat square boxes in order to satisfy said state and federal requirements (such as compliance with Title I or getting enough of them to pass their state assessment that the school would get out of AYP jail). While I have absolutely no complaints about the administrators with whom I worked last spring, and while I do feel they treated me respectfully and as a professional, the way I had to run my classes was entirely different than summer school. Did you wonder if I was going to bring it back around to my main topic? But yes, I did have a point!

Summer school is up to me. If the kids attend to my lessons, some improvement can be recorded, and we all have fun, then it is counted as successful. So week 1 for my 4th graders consisted of some pretests, a number of cursive and grammar exercises, math facts memorization, and some arts and crafts. And a lax attitude about how long recess should be. I'm used to developing plans more slowly, but now that we're 25% through, I feel that I know where we're going. I'm going to throw the decoding lessons out the window; it's all about comprehension. I'm going to back off on the worksheets on equivalent fractions or ratios and probability; we'll focus on the multiplication table and then probably drill on all basic facts, along with some online math games. The kids will do some silent reading, but most of that time will be used  by my read-aloud: The Lightning Thief. I hope to also share a whole bunch of books and graphic novels I picked up at the library on Greek Mythology as an extension of the read-aloud. And at the end of each week we'll do some art projects. Last week it was pop-up cards; I'd found a reading comprehension exercise where they read a page of instructions and then answer questions. Naturally I felt they should be able to actually make the cards. I think next week it'll be origami. This will require a lot of preparation, and the parapro and I will have to know what we're doing ahead of time. Maybe I can find animated how-to's on the internet. If I can incorporate some reading and written responses in the activity like with the pop-ups, that would be great.

I think I'm off to google origami now. And then a late afternoon iced coffee. Ahhh.

A new season commences

The beginning of summer. Our icky weather has finally warmed up. Climate change has done a number on my area this year. First we had such a drought that the governor officially declared it a disaster or emergency or whatever it is he declares things so as to make available money to help the victims (in this case the victims are farmers who are  trying to grow stuff in the high desert and will now be paid not to grow anything.). Then we had snow and rain all through the spring, which may or may not have been enough to officially change the drought situation but at least it made my dandelions happy. I'm talking Seasonal Affective Disorder in May and even the first of June. Now the sun has come out, the temperatures are in the 70s, but it's humid. I mean, we're east of the Cascade mountains, in the high desert beginnings of the Basin and Range Province. It's a dry place. But for the past couple of days it felt like East Tennessee in the spring: humid but not especially hot yet. At least I can go without a sweater now, but it's still weird.

School's out today. My sixth grader graduated yesterday, with tons of awards and a real live diploma. I cried through the whole thing, especially when the superintendant was reading Oh the Places You'll Go! as a last story for the sixth graders. I remember their first day of kindergarten so well, and now she's off to middle school. Sigh. At least I don't have any grey hairs yet.

In other news, the annual job hunt is in full swing. Got a "thanks but no thanks" letter from one of the elementary schools I'd applied to, and nothing yet from the other three. I'm branching out into not-as-much-in-my-field type jobs in this search. Our local theater and cultural center has an Outreach & Education director position, another social service type group has an education director, there are a couple of preschools on the radar, and I still have a lead on a not-yet-posted 5th grade position at Favorite Elementary. And adjunct teaching at the community college. So we'll see what develops.

I started this blog almost 2 years ago as a class assignment (ed tech, first quarter of the MAT program). I continued it mainly because it's kind of fun, but I can't help but notice that a disproportionate amount of the entries are all about Employment rather than Education. I guess our state's budget crisis (an additional 9% sliced off all state departments including Dept of Ed, on the heels of some other sort of big nasty cuts) means this will be a point of obsession for a while. At least I'm qualified if anything does open up, not that that was enough with any of the jobs I've applied for yet. Ugh.

Well, today's my 14th wedding anniversary. Enough doom and gloom. I'm going to bake a cake.

The end is nigh

The school year is almost done! I'm not looking forward to most of June and August without work. But I'll be teaching summer school in July, and needless to say I'm really looking forward to it. I'll be doing 4th grade, which is exciting (one of my own daughters is going into 4th, so it's personally meaningful too as I intend to help her along the way while I'm helping all those other people's children). It will be held at My Favorite Elementary School, and I'll get to collaborate with the sixth grade teacher my eldest had this year. The guy rocks. He's all about pushing the kids, creating poetry and sculpture (he has a kiln at home so they did a lot of pottery) and dramatic performances and pop-up books and so on to summarize their learning on all sorts of topics from forest biodiversity to Shakespeare. My daughter definitely grew in his class, and working with him will be fabulous. Also, if all goes exceedingly well, a sixth grade position could maybe possibly, but hush it's Not Official Yet, be opening up at that school and the principal told me this in secrecy and it sounds like he'd like to hire me but it's Not Official Yet so I can't count on anything (story of my life lately). If that sentence made any sense at all I'd eat my hat. Not really because it's still snowing around here and I'll need the hat.

Anyway. My daughter's 6th grade teacher was great and I'll be working with him this summer and possibly next year. There. Sheesh. There was also an elementary position at another nearby school that was posted in the middle of last week. I applied, and tomorrow (unless I get called to work) I think I'll pop in and cold-call the principal over there. I could walk to that school in about 15 minutes. That would be sweet. I don't really care what grade level it is, though I'm thinking I'd like upper elementary. I've been reading a lot about writing strategies and would really like to put it into practice. I know, I know. My day will come. It's just very frustrating right now because I'm not making anything like enough to pay the bills right now, the nest egg is rapidly depleting, and even with a full time contract job I probably will have us breaking even at best. I haven't earned any brownie points around here lately in the fiscal responsibility department. But full time work (I mean actual full time, not this working 5 days a week and somehow only netting about 19 hours routine) would be a big step in the right direction. I'll need a second job though. Sigh. At least in my state all the gas stations are full serve. I could put that master's degree to work pumping gas after school. And there's a station a couple of blocks from here. Sheesh.

Testing may suck, but on the other hand, WE DID IT!

My job at City Elementary is over, as today is the final day of state assessments. Since I've been prepping kids for their second and third tries at the math test and proctoring testing sessions, my work there is done. Despite mixed feelings about the whole testing ethos, I have to say that I came out of it better informed about the realities of what's expected of kids and better prepared to teach to the test  help kids succeed in the future.  It's not that what's on the test isn't important knowledge and skills. It's just that the standard multiple choice format only measures so much; I had a lot of students who I know can do more than what their scores show. Don't even get me started on the whole punitive high stakes philosophy imposed on us by the former administration and sadly not yet reversed by an otherwise decent new one.

My little Jump for Joy picture atop this post, then, should be taken with a grain of salt. The joy, caveated though it may be, is on account of WE MET OUR AYP GOALS!!! Just enough SPED and ELL students passed the accursed test for My Favorite School to get out of jail. For now. And not for Free. The principal and teachers there worked hard all year, and I was fortunate enough to be able to join them for the spring for my little intervention sessions. (So there you have it: without AYP and state assessments I wouldn't have had that job.) The thing is, those educators ALWAYS work really hard. I know. My daughters have been attending that school since 2003. They just had to put a certain type of attention on a certain type of performance this year. But because they're all such dedicated public servants (seriously), and because they gave me such useful materials to use in interventions, meeting this goal was doable. Irritating, but doable.

In other news, I have a second, very tentative job offer for next year. It will probably be an upper elementary grade (a teacher is moving away), but it could end up being any grade level if someone with seniority wants to do the classroom shuffle. The principal at Favorite Elementary asked me what my preferred grade level was. Naturally I responded "K through 8". I mean, it's a recession for cryin' out loud. Upper elementary is probably my preferred level right now, but if I've learned anything on that subject this year it's that there's something to love about every grade. And of course unique challenges to every grade as well, but so what. My own classroom is my own classroom. I'll love it no matter how big or small the kids are. That job and the other (also a little tentative) one are in Wait Mode. Won't know anything firm until mid to late June. More hurry up and wait. I'm pretty good at that by now. Not that I like it or anything. At least I'll have a month of work teaching summer school.

In the meantime, it's off to work. Interventions still need to happen, even though the clientele is a little squirmy with the whole end of school year thing. The oldest kids are in full-on hormone mode (girls in inappropriate warm weather clothes, boys having a heck of a time dealing with said outfits, noone wanting to stay on task, and at least one older middle schooler having announced that he's dropping out anyway so why do any more work.) The younger ones just want to get out and ride their horses (Charter School is a very small rural one, so a lot of the students have horses; most have serious outdoor access anyway, so lots of tree climbing and lizard catching is needing to be done right about now). I may resort to bribery to get it done.

Last week of state assessments. Finally.

I honestly came really close to falling asleep while proctoring a fifth grade reading test today. My job was to listen as the student read the selections aloud and occasionally tell her to "do her best" because I "know she can do it". ZZZZZ. At least when we proctor the math tests we do something, even if it is just to read the questions and the multiple choice answers to the kids.

Did I mention I'm looking forward to having my very own classroom and not having such a focus on tests?

The good news is that a lot of the kids I've sat with for their tests have passed! Most, in fact. And this is the last week for testing, so for good or for ill it'll be over soon. Sigh.

Yes, the middle school job looks very appealing. Actually it's not technically middle school, since it's multiple subjects in a self contained classroom. Regardless, the students and the curriculum are really appealing. I've started stocking up on Nancie Atwell and thinking about standards and units and all the writing we'll have to do. I'm hoping it does in fact pan out- the school has a board of directors (charter school) who asked me if I'd take the position but who also haven't officially signed off on anyone's jobs for next year or the budget. That's probably happening next month. All the teachers (all 4 of them, 5 including me) are crossing their fingers while waiting for the Official Word. But I'd be surprised if staffing changed at all other than, of course, me moving into a classroom and someone new filling the Title 1 interventions position. I'm wrapping up the school year by assembling reading intervention program samples that the board could consider adopting for next year. I like Reading Success from SRA. It meets the federal guidelines of being a research based program, it's fairly inexpensive (I think it can be bought with this little school's little Title 1 fund), and it's designed for 3- 30  minute sessions per week which is in keeping with the most likely schedule of the interventionist. At least it's what my schedule has been this year. And it includes levels for older kids (grades 4-8) who are struggling with comprehension and a little bit with decoding. Anyone have any thoughts on this program? It might not be fabulously satisfying work, as it's strictly direct instruction (as far as I can tell), but it's probably user friendly and will probably work well for RtI. The school really needs to adopt materials for next year!

Mid-Spring Update... I'm still here!

It's been almost two months since my last post. I've been up to my ears in assessments and progress monitoring and data entry and report generation and, occasionally, teaching kids some reading and math. I especially like the math. This is noteworthy for a humanities-focused art major, but it's true. I am tutoring a middle school girl in math (as well as English and history, but mostly math). I'm doing similar small group work with third-through-seventh graders in math, helping them with whatever lesson they're working on that day. My oldest daughter just started Algebra, so I've been helping her with her homework (and getting quite a review myself). And I've been doing a Testing Intervention in which I pull third-through-sixth graders for half hour test prep sessions in which we review math concepts a little and good test taking skills a lot. My head has been spinning from all the running around and all the different levels of my students! This intervention work is actually fascinating in a lot of ways, but I'm spread out over three part time jobs (while parenting and, lately, trying to help my husband get a house totally repaired for tenants!). It has been educational for me but it leaves me longing for my own classroom.

This brings me to the Employment News of the season (so far). I've been sort of offered an honest to goodness job for next year, teaching a 7th and 8th grade class at the little school where I've been doing Title 1 work. My only concern about accepting this position is the commute: 40 minutes on dry pavement (of which we get very little during the school year). But that's no deal breaker. I remember thinking about the older grades my teaching license covers when I was student teaching. I was really drawn to 6th, 7th, & 8th grades in theory, but of course have been staying flexible this year as I run all over the place working with all ages. The board of directors for the school in question extended the invitation this week, with the caveat that enrollment is not yet finalized and of course there's always budget stuff to wait on. I definitely responded in the affirmative! So I'm thinking a lot about the middle school age bracket, and have even allowed myself the luxury of imagining writing and social studies and scientific inquiry projects. I already know what the math will look like.

Assessment time: round two

Most of my time is being spent on test preparation for kids who didn't pass the state assessment the first time around. As is the case all over the country, these tests are high stakes; in some cases it seems the stakes are higher for the schools than for the students themselves. Because these are mainly the kids who struggle at least a little more than others, it's sometimes dispiriting work. A lot of walls get put up so these kids can reject the whole process, the whole idea of school, before it can reject them by informing them that they don't meet benchmarks. I wonder what the future holds for some of these kids; most will eventually master these skills but a few will end up dropping out or barely making it through school. And then what? Young people have few enough options these days; kids who self-limit by blowing off scool end up with even fewer. If only their frontal lobes were developed enough for them to comprehend the impact today's actions and decisions will make.

I have to both coach kids who need more work on test taking skills and convince the reluctant participants that it really is a good idea to take these assessments seriously and actually do their best. I go home tired at the end of the day.

Lots of number crunching.... is this teaching?

As a part of my job as Title 1 interventionist, I am also serving as the Title 1 coordinator for the school. This is by no means an official job title. It's just that now I am assembling/writing the school's Targeted Assistance School Plan. Seems that the person who resigned and who I replaced had not really assembled this year's binder of plans, schedules, data, etc that make up this Plan. So now I'm working on it in addition to helping students. Overall I have to admit that I kind of enjoy the work. Not that I'd like to do just this all the time, but it's informative and a good counterpoint to the hands-on work with kids. I think it's good for educators to have some insight into the needs and responsibilities of administrators, kind of like I think everyone should hold at least one service job. Gives you perspective. I'm not an administrator, but working with some of this federal government paperwork does give me a broader perspective on the work I do in the classroom. I just wish more pencil pushers had a chance to see how their work impacts children. It's a good experience overall.

Working on reading and math interventions

Things have gotten underway in my new job. I'm doing small group interventions for reading and math at a rural charter school. The whole school is only about 55 or 60 kids, and my groups are all four or fewer students at a time. The challenge (for now) is streamlining my curriculum. I'm working with five different levels for reading, and using as many different programs! There's a fair amount of prep involved on the front end to get this all figured out, but I feel like I have something coherent and relevant for each group now. The littlest ones are using Touch Phonics to review and incorporate some remedial phonics skills. The next level is using a Sight Words and Syllabication system. The next two levels of intermediate students are reading short high interest nonfiction passages and being tested for comprehension. I think I'll soon be adding Dolch word drills to their work as well. And with the oldest students we're timing their reading speed on short passages, repeating three times per passage, and charting the results on nice little graphs. They seem pleased in spite of themselves to see the improvements they make each time.

This is all a great learning experience for me. I have to deal with such a huge age range (7 to 13) that my classroom management skills are tested daily. But I'm loving the challenge and as I get to know the kids I think I'm doing a better and better job. Tomorrow is an inservice day and they're sending me to a training for Renaissance Learning. I'm looking forward to it because their systems are widely used in our local districts and it will be good to know better how to use them, and because I think the Accelerated Math component could be useful for interventions. Plus it will be nice to sit and learn in that format for a day.

All in all it's going well.

2 jobs = more than twice as busy!

I've worked a week now with the (for now) real schedule. Three days a week I do academic intervention at the rural charter school about a half hour from home and the other two days I'm in my beloved kindergarten class. The new job is solely under Title 1 and has been mostly paperwork and assessments so far. The routine hasn't been quite set yet, so it's still a little hectic. I do feel like I'm learning good things through all the reading tests I've been administering! Each is a one-on-one session with a student and it's giving me a chance to get to know the kids a little and start crafting my strategies for the actual interventions once that really gets started. For example, I'm identifying who needs remedial phonics lessons (mainly 2nd graders) and who needs a fluency oriented curriculum (everyone else). The next challenge is going to be applying pre-approved, research based programs in an engaging way. I like the 1:1 ratio, but it won't stay that way. I'm most concerned about a very reluctant seventh grader who doesn't want to participate in anything. He's a challenge, but most of the other kids are pretty happy to be learning. My kindergarteners are great as always. It feels like coming home to go back in there on my Tuesdays and Thursdays. I really loved being there full time. I'm still adjusting to this new routine! Now I've got to go make up a homework packet for the week. This week we're learning the letter K!

OK. I'm back!

Curses. It's been nigh unto a month since I posted here. What have I done since the  middle of Winter Vacation? Well, we had a nice little New Year's Eve party that pretty much consumed my life for a number of days. You wouldn't probably guess it to look at me/my home/ my wardrobe, etc., but I am, according to a new self-help book from the library, a perfectionist. This doesn't mean I do things perfectly. It just means I expect myself to and get all bunched up if (OK, when) things don't go that way. But New Year's was fun; a couple dozen friends came, there was a LOT of food, kids watched Up and lit fireworks at midnight out in the snow. The weird building that's become our sort of loft apartment cleaned up pretty good, and I drank champagne.

School started back up with me working mornings and Official Teacher coming in from lunch on. There were some minor annoyances (homework folders neglected, books rearranged, a new penchant for boy lines and girl lines instead of one we're-all-one-class line) but the big stuff has been going OK. One poor little soul has been freaking out and "rearranging" the furniture (read: knocking over bookcases, throwing around little chalkboards, and generally resorting to the Civil Disobedience 101 method of physical noncompliance). He hates Official Teacher, hates her new rules, hates her as-yet undifferentiated methods. He's the brightest and academically most advanced kid in the class, but he's a total pill. He gets bored to the point of anger with tracing letters with a marker when he can already read. I've been pulling him out of groups the moment I see that little scowl forming around the eyes and giving him stacks of books and writing paper to use instead of the worksheets or magnetic letters the other kids are using. In addition to preventing meltdowns/ overturned crayon cases/ shredded papers, it gives him the challenge he needs.

 And I don't insist he hang up his jacket on a hanger. He can just wear it. He really doesn't seem to bathe often and he's pretty guarded, so just keep the jacket on and read about the New Dog or whatever, I say. But Official Teacher has these opinions about life skills that sound pretty, well, sound. The kids have regular plastic hangers and must hang up their jackets every time they come inside. Between having the manual dexterity of 5 year olds and the broken zippers and the crowd of bodies all trying to get to the jacket area at the same time, this little detail uses up a good 7 minutes every time we come inside. It drives me bonkers. I yearn for little hooks where hoods can just be shoved so the jacket's owner can high-tail it over to the story rug. Seriously, 7 minutes. By the time we're back to work, we've lost a ton of time. We come in from the outside at least 3 times every day. This is a ton of lost minutes, and I'm not convinced that this is a skill they really need. No other classroom uses hangers, for example. I just hate it. But hey, I'm not there to hate!

Report cards are coming up next week, so we've been working on our assessments. During the first week back from vacation, Official Teacher and I decided that I'd do the math portion and she'd do the language arts. I got started by the end of that week, and am now about 95% done with it. I'll finish on Monday, I expect. She didn't start until about a week later for some reason, so I'm concerned that we won't have data on Grade Prep day (this Friday). Ugh. I am getting paid to do a full day on prep day, so I can get all the report cards done and then maybe work on more prep.

Official Teacher has been talking a lot lately about wanting to work Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and have me come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If this is what ends up happening, we'll have a lot more planning to do because we'll need the week to flow consistently. Doing mornings and afternoons like we have been has meant that I do certain subjects and she does others, and if our own lesson plans are altered or extend to another day or whatever, it's fine. With someone else teaching the next day that will become problematic. And frustrating. So we'll have to plan together and stick to the plans so that it all makes sense from day to day. If this grade prep day goes like the last one, I'll be done with report cards early (maybe 10am) and we can focus on planning.

The other good thing about this possible schedule is that it fits perfectly with my new schedule for academic interventions at Little Charter School. I'll be there Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This would be extremely good. Actual work five days a week!

I met with the director of Little Charter School last Thursday and we discussed the schedule and the general program I'll need to do. I'm going to be paid out of Title I money, and it turns out they had enough of that to give me more hours than they originally expected. The pay is low by professional standards, but seriously. $20 per hour is not bad pay, even if it is only part time. I mean, one day of work a month and my phone bill is paid. One day and my electric bill is paid. This is certainly not bad pay. If I combine it with Tuesdays and Thursdays with my kindergarteners, I'll be very close to Making Enough. Wow.

Anyway, the interventions work will be challenging and very interesting. They have no curriculum or specific program in place due to some sort of personnel hullabaloo during the fall, so I get to establish a system from scratch. They prefer that I use a standardized program, something research based and established. They have a few different programs on hand, and next month they're sending me to a training on Renaissance Learning so I can institute Accelerated Reading and Math. This is exciting because I will be the house expert on these programs and will be able to use them as much as they are appropriate for my students. I think this will be helpful, especially for the math for which there is little in the way of materials so far at the school. Let's just hope that's not on a Tuesday or Thursday!

Well. I've been busy. In addition to all of this, I had two out of three daughters home sick this week with the pukeys. My husband and I are hatching plans for insulating our walls through an incentive from our natural gas company, and I've been working valiantly to Get Caught Up on laundry.  I go to bed Tired at night. But it's way better than being unemployed. Way better. I love this work. I just hope to continue to get enough of it that I can focus on pedagogy and stop fixating on money. So far the new year's shaping up pretty decent in that way. Who knows- at this rate I could be on contract by September!!!