Alarming

Honestly, folks, I spend at least seconds coming up with these post titles!

First of all, I think there’s mold or something in the cooler pads/air filters in the combined AC/heater units in my classroom. I am basically fine at home, and then go to school and feel awful. Virgil said this morning that he’d get Elizabeth (who cleans my room) to check out my filters. He said this as he came to my portable to verify that it wasn’t on fire. Normally, he doesn’t show much interest in whether or not my portable is on fire, I’ll admit. But today, he seemed to think it was a worthy thing to do. That’s probably because I put the heater on high heat instead of low heat, thus setting off the fire alarms. As soon as the alarms went off, I knew it was my fault, since I go through this once a year. Nice to get it over with, I guess!

For the past three days, the head SFA person in my school brought new teachers into my class (among others) to show how I do SFA. Yesterday at the staff meeting they said that we need to have the children read silently the first ten minutes of the class (in addition to the regular reading time built in) because they aren’t doing their 20 minutes at night. I asked if this was to start today. Geez, you should have seen that! I simply asked if we should make sure our students go to SFA with a book in their hands. Some complained that the kids would lose the books. (You walk into your SFA room with a book and you leave again with the same book. How can you lose it?) Others complained that the kids don’t have books (although we have library every other week, and they all just got a free book from RIF). It got worse when one stared at me like I sprouted three heads when I asked her if she had books in her classroom. Since I have a ton of books in my classroom, those who didn’t bring one borrowed one of mine. After reading, we went over how to do the reading homework, so we went over time for that part of the class. I explained when she came in, though, why we weren’t on the next thing, and she was fine with that. You do have to explain this stuff a lot, though. You have to guess what people expect to see when they come in and then either tell them where/when it is or why they don’t see it.

We got this dumb email from the assistant principal who looks at our math test scores. I was rather pleased with mine, but she wasn’t. She said we should ask Karen what she does that works. Nonsense. I want to instead ask Karen how many of her students flunked the AIMS last year. Of the nine students who flunked the math test, seven flunked the AIMS test last year and the other two only didn’t flunk it because they weren’t in Arizona to take it. Otherwise, they would have failed it as well. They did make a lot of progress (as evidenced by the difference between their pretest and posttest scores), but that doesn’t count. So tell me how you got kids who failed the AIMS to suddenly catch up. Otherwise, bite me.

It’s been that kind of week. At the staff meeting, we went over the scores last quarter’s students got on the 4Sight test (a test that I firmly believe is invalid). The big push was on expository text and associated skills. I saw my scores and was devastated at how poorly they did, especially listening to this lecture on how we had to focus on this. So I raised my hand and pointed out that I spent nearly the entire quarter on this. Yet, when I looked at the test the night before I administered it, I knew my kids were screwed. Here’s the best analogy I can give: You’re told that the test is going to be about the parts of a newspaper. You go over the different newspaper conventions in the local newspaper, such as how want ads are worded differently from news articles, what the masthead is, Dear Abby, etc. Then your test questions are “Compare and contrast the Wall Street Journal and Morse Code,” “How do they decide which letters to the editor to publish,” “If a train leaves New York at 6:30 …”

The highlight of the week was the announcement over the PA system this morning about another staff member getting her Master’s degree and how hard she worked. Um, yeah. Thanks for that. I certainly don’t need it blasted over the intercom that I got my degree, but it does feel a bit like a slap in the face to only mention one person and ignore everyone else with the same accomplishment. So it’s been a bit of a cranky day.

On the plus side, I have a plot idea finally for NaNoWriMo, so I’m excited about starting to write on November first!

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

My sister’s sleeping on the couch right now, so you need to be quiet while you read this so you don’t wake her up!!

I’m thinking I’m going to do my NaNoWriMo novel mostly online in a blog that I don’t use. That way I can access it from any computer, and don’t have to worry about saving it because WordPress does auto-save. I will still take the chunks periodically and put them into a single document, because I’m going to need to do that in order to get a final word count and submit it. I know of two other family members who have signed up this year. Sweet!

The weather is finally rather chilly in the morning and evenings. That is a weird adjustment, after it being hot for so long! Still need the AC in the middle of the day, but really just to cool the house down. Otherwise it goes up to around 82. May just start opening windows when I’m home instead!

Friday morning I finally had 100% attendance. By 10:30, two students went home sick. At least one teacher has a daughter who was officially diagnosed with “piggy-pox” on Friday. There were a lot of teachers out on Friday (lots of subs), but I don’t know how many were sick themselves and how many had a sick child at home. They sent me one of the students from another teacher for SFA (reading) because they didn’t want a sub to have to deal with him. I’d already had him last year for SFA, and knew he could be good if he wanted. So he was a saint.

Earlier in the week, one of my students who’s our Student Council rep came up to me and said that the other kids in her group were playing R[name] Touch. So I asked what R. Touch was. Apparently, it’s like a way of saying you have cooties, and you have them until you touch someone else and say R. Touch. R. is my dear boy on the autism spectrum. So I called some of them into my outside office (the porch) to get more information. It took a little while because a couple lie like a rug, but there are a few who would not only name names, but give you dates, photographs, and other evidence if you asked for it! So then they knew I was REALLY mad because I came back in the room very calmly and went over to the phone. We have a counselor/social worker who’s excellent at this sort of stuff, because she comes and does it during the course of the year anyway. So she came over and got more information, and talked about empathy. It turns out that they’ve been doing this to R. since last year, and they named names of kids in other classes who are bullying him as well. He also talked about other kids who do it. He also got to say how he felt. Then when she was done and went back to the office, they addressed this with the other students involved. There will be no bullying of kids in my classroom, and especially bullying someone who doesn’t have the social skills to deal with it. The next day after school, his mother came by for something and I told her what happened. While I was taking to her, he drew on the board the picture at the top of this entry.

It’s NaNoWriMo Time! (nearly)

Yes, it’s nearly November, no longer the month of my birthday and Thanksgiving, but NaNoWriMo Time! Also known as National Novel Writing Month. http://www.nanowrimo.org/ Last year, as I put in my profile there, I wrote WAY over 50,000 words, but they were all for my Master’s program. This year, I can write FICTION! Oh, wait. A lot of that was fiction, too! But I can write FUN fiction this time!

My first year of doing NaNo (2004), all I had ahead of time was a title (Rolled-Up Streets) and a character. So November first I sat at the keyboard, all set to type … and I realized that my character was incredibly boring. So I killed her off in the first sentence. Then I had to figure out why anyone would kill someone who was so boring. It had a ton of plot twists and turns and was remarkably fun to write. Some of you actually have a copy of that in your closet somewhere.

The next year, 2005, wasn’t so smooth. The story had fascinating parts, and an excellent philosophical conversation that I still love, but it didn’t get far.

In 2006, I was spending too much time on IM with a wacko, so I didn’t get much writing done. I still like that story as well, and really need to get those people moving!

I did “finish” in 2007. By that I mean I finished the story, and reached the word limit. However, that story would need an incredible amount of work, and I really think that since I have the basics down, it’d make more sense to keep the basic story line but totally change the point of view and how the story is told (since it’s told in a blog format). The idea itself has merit.

Last year I started, but I don’t remember if I even reached a thousand words. I was too busy with school-times-two. I didn’t even go to any of the local write-ins.

I really like the setting of Rolled-Up Streets, and often wondered about writing another story from someplace within Knigi. It has four provinces, and each is very different, so I could pick one of the other ones. Heck, I already have a map, too! Or maybe not. I’ll let you know what I decide!

Report Card Day

I actually got my report cards finished on the day we’re supposed to do them! Normally, I’d be up late Monday night since they’re due Tuesday, but instead, they’re all in their envelopes in the file cabinet, ready to be handed out!

I got to work around 7:10 or so, because I was on the set-up committee. Every report card day we have something — breakfast for the first one, lunch for the second, and then I forget what the third is. Either the second or third includes a barbeque. So I signed up to help set up at 7:30. There were three people hanging around outside the office (at least one had the official TUSD name tag on), and I saw them talk to a couple of people. Then when I went to get paper for the cafeteria tables, they were sitting calmly in the office, which was otherwise empty. I almost left but finally asked them if whomever they were waiting for knew they were there. No, they were waiting for the principal, but hadn’t gotten hold of her since their email to her bounced. So I called her on my cell phone, which was in my pocket, and let her know they were there. While I was on the phone an assistant principal arrived, so the P had the AP take them around.

The people were there to install a certain (ten?) number of sound systems, and apparently one is going in my room since all the other teachers in my grade said they didn’t want it. Then the teacher wears a mike hooked up to this amplification system, instead of the student who’s hard of hearing wearing a box on his or her chest. The sound is amplified for all the students. Not that we have any students in fourth grade at the moment who medically need it, but hey. This year’s fourth graders are notoriously chatty, so it’ll be useful I suppose anyway!

I had an epiphany of sorts this week. Let’s start with the part where if I have a reason to feel sorry for myself, I drag in other reasons as well. What good’s a pity party without a lot of party favors, right? So one day recently I look at my bank account, which suddenly the New York Times sucked OVER $300 out of to renew a subscription that I cancelled in APRIL!!!! I called them on the phone and had a fit, and they said I’d have my money back. Did they do that? Of course not!!!!!! So I called them back and the lady looked it up and said “OH, THEY CREDITED THAT MONEY TO YOUR ACCOUNT.” WTF??????? I don’t have an account! I want the money back that you stole from my bank account!!!!!!! So she said I’d get it in ONE TO THREE WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!! So once again I’m financially screwed over someone else’s incompetence. It’s driving me nuts, cuz I feel like I’ll never be normal financially, like able to just stop at the grocery store on the way home if I want to!

So of course, this leads to thoughts of my second favorite thing that’s fraught with problems, my car. So while I’m thinking that these things only happen to me, and everyone else is living happily ever after, I notice on my way home a tow truck. Now of course my car is not on that tow truck because my car is at home and it was a carpooling day. But the existence of the tow truck, and subsequent thoughts of the existence of AAA and repair places, led me to one conclusion: I’m actually not the only person this happens to. OK, yes, this was news to me. But if all these things exist, then perhaps other people have things go wrong with their cars, too! In fact, dare I acknowledge it, but I’ve actually SEEN cars on the side of the road that aren’t mine, that are in distress! Of course, the epiphany was short-lived, because really. It’s just not right to let reality interfere!

Google Earth

I was playing on Google Earth, and decided to show you my school. Where the School pushpin is, that is my portable. There are two more behind mine, two more behind the one across from mine, and a whole bunch more in the empty space. The baseball field is much smaller now! But now you can see how far I go to pick up my kids each morning and after lunch’s recess, how far I have to walk them to the cafeteria, where the bathroom trailer is (it wasn’t there then), library, school office, and SFA room. The SFA room matters because I have to lug tubs of books all the way over and back for my SFA class. Now we’re on a six day cycle, so I lug every six days instead of every five. As you can see, I get a lot of walking in!

I started carpooling, either last week or the week before. I’m not sure if I mentioned that or not. But it was too stressful to keep driving in the right lane so I could pull over if the car died, and worrying about if I’d make it to work and then make it home each day. I ride with a special ed teacher (the one who was in charge of the after-school English program I helped teach last year) and a third grade teacher (the one who I worked together with on some writing projects last year). So we go into work one day this week, and the special ed teacher discovered that someone had broken her classroom windows and bombed the room with a fire extinguisher. Our portables have metal grates over the windows (the one at the window fire exit is removable) so that isn’t something we worry about (not that we don’t have other issues, but it’d take like an ice pick and heavy rock banging against it to get at our windows). And yet there’s no surprise. These things happen somewhat regularly! So they are talking about (finally!) putting in security cameras.

H234

Or is it H1N1? I can’t keep these things straight. Not sure if I mentioned that I had two kids in reading class who missed many days of school. When one of them came back, I found out he’d been out with Swine Flu. He’s still not actually healthy, and is coughing the two hours I have him. Mr. Q’s class had eleven kids absent today. I only had four out sick, one moved, and one on vacation. Even one of the teachers was sent home with it. One school here was going to close, since they had a 41% infection rate.

Our school has a couple of problems with illnesses. First of all, a portion of our school is the Special Ed program. Some of these kids are medically fragile. Some are in the nurse’s office every day for tube feedings. This is not a place that you want full of swine flu germs. I found out today that the nurse is taking the special ed kids’ temps twice a day. Another problem is that parents send their kids to school sick, plus they don’t want to pick them up and take them home if they’re sick. This is the scenario — the uncle’s cousin’s neighbor’s grandfather is sick, so the whole family stays home from school. The kid himself or herself is actually sick, and they’re sent to school. At least half the parents don’t have phones, but of those that do, many don’t come pick their kids up, so they’re in the nurse’s office the entire day. We got a note that says if they have the list of symptoms, to send them straight to the nurse’s office, even if they just got to school.

Now, there’s never an actual “good” time to get sick, but this week is the end of the quarter. Tomorrow is our math test. I’m wondering how many kids will be there to take it!!

In the meantime, one boy was out all last week. I’d see is sister and ask if he was sick, and she’d say she didn’t know. She didn’t really seem to dense to know if her brother was sick or not, so I talked to the office about it. A few times. On Monday they found out that mom moved. She took two of the kids and Dad took the other two, so I was talking to one of Dad’s kids (who are still at our school).

***

Speaking of viruses, the Conficker virus has been going around the school district’s computers. Many were too old to even accept the patches, which is when I discovered, to my shock, that there are actually computers older than mine in classrooms! Well, actually, not any more! After their constantly trying to do this and that, they finally yesterday came and took all of our hard drives. They brought back nice, shiny ones today and got our computers going. I went to check my school email using the Outlook program, and it’s a totally different-looking one from what it’s been. Well, briefly. Then for the umpteenth time in the past few weeks we lost our server, all internet, and all phones. A student had to call home, so I had to have her use my cell phone. The front pocket of my purse has better technology than the entire rest of the school!

***

Half of Thursday and all of Friday, I went to an OMA workshop. That’s our non-existent music program that was teaching the fourth graders to play the violin prior to this year. The workshop was great — all about integrating the arts into the curriculum. Schools that have a full OMA program are cold OMA Gold. I told them my school is OMA Tinfoil. It was nice to be at a workshop with people who wanted to be there and who like teaching, and to learn new stuff. Friday they served an awesome lunch. Usually workshops have a nasty lunch, and it’s usually some version of chicken. There was some chickeny thing there, sort of like an afterthought, but the main meal was Mexican food. Yum!

***

I AM NO LONGER A STUDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, indeedee, it’s true! My official last day of class was yesterday, although I was finished with all my work on Saturday. The teacher said he’d post our grades by Wednesday at the latest. Once he does that, I can get a transcript sent to the school district saying I have a nice, shiny Master’s degree!!!! I started August 5 or 6 of 2008 and the only time off I had was a brief vacation at Christmas. You can take a week off between classes, but I’d rather plow through, which I did!

I’ve not seen any graduation ceremonies in Tucson, even though they have an on-campus program here. Maybe they just do December and June. At least, I’m hoping! The other choices are getting up way too early to drive to Phoenix or to Yuma. So I may just skip the Walk. They don’t give you your diploma then anyway, and there won’t be a single person in the room who was in any of my classes.

That’s mostly what’s new. I don’t write much because sometimes I’m busy and sometimes I think I’m just talking to myself! Oh, well.