Winter Benchmark Screening Time

Back to school this January has meant mid-year benchmark screening for the entire student body at Rural Charter School. While I don't exactly relish the role that tests play in our school year, I do appreciate the access to data that these assessments give us. I've gotten pretty used to administering the tests now and can see the overall structure of our school's RTI pyramid. Though there are always a few kids to worry over, the student body in general looks pretty good so far. The majority are at or above their grade level benchmarks and only a few in each class are in Tier 3. I'll spend the remainder of this week and all of next (which is only three days) wrapping up all the tests. I can't wait to get back into lessons with my students. Doing this sort of work is informative, is a crucial element to public schools in the NCLB era, and is great experience for me. I'd still rather be helping kids learn to read and spending time encouraging them to work hard.

Meanwhile, back in town at Favorite Elementary, I'm moving forward with the after school math classes. The principal there asked me to go to last night's school board meeting and share some of the work I and the other after school  teachers are doing. It's developing into a great program. Favorite Elementary is a Title 1 school with a large population of English Language Learners and a history of a shaky relationship with AYP. Thanks in part to an intervention program we did last year (which I was part of) we met AYP, but are still in the danger zone for a couple of small demographics. So this year the interventions are after school, and I like what I'm seeing. I'm able to spend 45 minutes to an hour with my students, and we have great conversations about strategies and skills that should help them in math in general and on their state assessments in particular. I'm glad my kids go to Favorite Elementary. I guess if we lived further out, I'd opt for Rural Charter though. That place is growing on me! In a nutshell, I really love my work. I'm grateful to be working, even if it's still not quite full time, and I just love the jobs. I feel so fortunate!

Assessment time ... and holiday art?

Ten days to go, starting in about an hour, before winter break. Four days to administer assessments for progress reports. I sure hope a) I didn't forget anything critical from the 2nd quarter report card when I was writing up the assessment forms yesterday at my dining room table, and b) the little monkeys scholars can demonstrate more knowledge than last time they were formally assessed. I have a hunch they will; a bunch that started the year off in the "intensive" category from our DIBELS testing have shot right up to benchmark status in emergent reader skills, which is Very Promising. And of course there was Friday's awesomeness. General good learnin' all around. If only my little Bound to Repeat Kindergarten girl could wake up enough to understand that "cat" does not, in fact begin with /m/, nor do most of the other words I throw at her in our practice sessions. M was the very first letter of the week way back when, and it seems that it's never clicked for her that other sounds exist out there too. Breaking apart words into phonemic segments is weirdly challenging for kids this age, but Everyone Else in the Class has grasped it to some degree or another. Sigh. Upping her interventions so we can document all this in EBIS.

And if I can squeeze in two handprint calendar pages a day for the holiday craft/gift we're making, we will have it done in time to be all put together and sent home with the kids before the end of next week.  And we have the annual winter concert this week, with much disruption in the schedule. Oh, and I need to put up some sort of holiday crafty art thing in the hallway display area before Thursday. I'm thinking poinsettias made from red paper and maybe some glitter. Seasonal yet secular.

Woo Hoo! Monday here I come.

Sharing Is Hard, and other news from the Kindergarten Front

The weird experience of having the Official Teacher "volunteering" all week kind of threw me off. Generally, we get along well, and when I'm looking at it as a sort of team teaching venture it's actually pretty great. The class is large (though at 28 it's not the biggest kindergarten in either the school or district), so extra hands are always welcome. And of course she knows (mostly) what she's doing, so the kids will absolutely benefit. She got the "bucket of frogs" that is one of our math centers to actually straighten up and ribbit right! As a student teacher, I was shown all sorts of techniques that my cooperating teachers used, with great explanations of their purposes. Working with Official Teacher could be more beneficial in a way, because I've been trying a lot of things and will understand better what a new system can offer. She thanked me on Friday for sharing the room and letting her come in. I just answered that, hey, it's a weird situation and we might as well approach it as a team. If all goes well and she does return to work this year, I may be able to stay on in a team teaching position.

Everyone talks about how it would be hard for the students to get used to a new teacher. They are, after all, only 5 and 6 years old and I've been their teacher all along. I think the truth is that since Official Teacher is coming in a bit at a time, they'd do fine with her later. They'd get used to it. I'm not saying I'm OK with that. I'd miss the kids and the work a lot. And I frankly need the paycheck. So I don't really want her to come back. But it's out of my hands and if it's going to happen but as a team teaching or job sharing situation, well I think that would be just dandy. Then maybe something will open up for next year. Someone could retire, or relocate for a spouse's job, or whatever. I know a first grade teacher in our building has a husband who's getting a high-tech bachelor's degree in June and would certainly have to relocate to find work in his field. I'd be happy to move into her classroom! The bottom line is that the rosy picture that was painted of the profession when I started out working on my degree and teaching license is no longer accurate. No one's retiring. There are no open positions. When a position does open up, it's usually as a one year temporary job instead of a contract position.

In other news, I'm wrestling with assessment. Kindergarten doesn't have much in the way of papers to grade, and a lot of the assessing is through observation. The district now wants us to administer big math assessments in January for the next report card. The official assessment is eleven pages long. With our average class size of about 29 or 30 kids, that's HUGE! I like the idea of collecting good data on the kids, but I have no idea how to pull that off. These aren't third graders or older who can actually work on something while one kid at a time is pulled aside by the teacher for a little test.

Of course, if we're team teaching it'll be cake. ...always look on the bright side of life...