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!!!