11 Days left.

So, I had allotted this week to do the DRA (Diagnostic Reading Assessment) because it's taken me that long in the past. On Friday I went in to make sure everyone's folders were organized and I had copies of the correct test. I sort of guessed on where I thought the kids would test out and I'm proud to say I was only wrong 1 out of 15 times. (ROCK ON! Less time and paper wasted when I'm so very right!)

I ended up spending the entire morning on it with the third graders. I gave them some busy work and tested the kids I had to test. (The other reading teachers are testing the other third graders.) It took about two and a half hours all told. After the kids' out loud reading fluency is tested, they have to answer questions to test their prediction and comprehension skills. That part they do on their own and it can take them up to an hour or more to complete it. So the whole morning was testing. I decided to do the same with the fourth graders. I only missed two kids, because they were absent.

I figured it was better to mess up the whole day rather than the whole week. Then I took some time to grade them and put the results into my computer. I felt a little guilty about taking teaching time to do that, but I haven't once complained about not having any specials after physical education was cut after the holiday break and both my classes lost Performing Arts because the teacher can't control them at the end of February. I figured I sort of deserved it and the kids didn't complain.

I'd given them the math assessment last week and so was able to put everything together in each of their folders and left my classroom feeling like I had accomplished a lot. Report cards are going to be a breeze! The only test they have left is the Spanish language test and Ms. Jenson will be giving that, though I'll have to correct the multiple choice section.

While I was in the midst of testing the third graders this morning, who walked into my room but Monte! One of my sixth graders from last year! It was so good to see him. He's so much taller. I asked him why he had come by, though I guessed he and his mum had been to the capilla on the other side of the church from where my classroom is. He said that he had just popped in to visit me and that he lives outside of La Pasa now! His mum popped into my classroom earlier this year to say hello and to wish me well. I must have made an impression on that family! It made me warm and snuggly inside.

*Sigh* Only eleven days left.

Bad Interaction with a Parent

I honestly meant to write while I was on Spring Break. Really. I promise that was the intention. I just didn't do it. I did pretty much nothing, which was fantastic. There were lots of things I meant to do (grading, catch up on second drafts of lesson plans, fix the play that the fourth graders are working on) but mostly I sat around and knitted on a blanket I've been trying to finish for awhile after taking it apart and starting over.

There are lots of things that I need to catch the blog world up on. But for now, since I have 15 minutes before walking up to meet The Boy with the dog, I'll write up the most recent.

Over the past year it has come to my attention that the most dangerous and scary part of my day is when the kids are let out after school. Some kids are headed for after school program in the cafeteria, but don't want to go because their friends are waiting for their parents. Other kids peel across the school driveway at break neck speed for their parents' cars that don't follow the one way rule of the school parking lot. Those that are left begin swinging on the gazebo and throwing rocks. We don't use buses, so though we are a small school of about 120, that's 120 children running EVERYWHERE. Enough to put even the sanest of teachers into a pretty serious panic.

At the beginning of the year, I made a suggestion that all teachers walk their students out and line them up along the sort-of-basketball-court and as parents drive by children can get in to cars in a safe and organized fashion. This idea was not looked on favorably. Why? Who knows?
Goodness forbid we all do a little extra work at the end of the day in order to keep the children safe. (Though I gotta say our kindergarten teacher does a great job of keeping her kids corralled and accounted for.)

For the most part, I can keep track of whatever class I'm in charge of during the afternoon (3rd or 4th) during dismissal and speak to the parents I need to speak to. The last few weeks have proven difficult and the weather has improved and children have begun using dismissal as recess in earnest. The gazebo is between the "field" (read: rectangle covered with dirt, rocks, used heroine needles and broken glass) and the driveway. This makes it difficult for me to speak to the parents I need to speak too and keep Juanito from throwing rocks at Paulito.

Having had enough of that I decided that I would line up my students anyway. That way I could at least keep a good eye on the students that I am most responsible for. I started this afternoon. Once we got outside, I sent the students that go to after school program to after school program inside the cafeteria. I sent off the students whose parents were already parked and I lined up the rest.

Matt, a fourth grader has been having a lot of trouble following directions and getting his work done lately. He's labeled as gifted and in many ways he is ahead of the game. Today, however seemed to be particularly difficult for him as he refused to do work for Ms. Jenson this morning or for me this afternoon. And so after a few reminders, I caught myself almost begging him to do work. At this point I sent him to Ms. Hernandez so he could do his work in there. Later Mr. Dido took him for the last half an hour of the day as part of his gifted services. He came out a few minutes after the rest of my class with Mr. Dido. I sent him to after school program. He didn't want to go. (Well, he hadn't followed any other direction today, what would make that simple one any different?)

Gilbert is another of my fourth grade students. His father was waiting for him and so he was one of the students I sent off straight away. After Matt refused to follow the direction of going to after school program, Gilbert came up to him and asked for his phone number. I stopped the conversation and sent Gilbert back to his car, after explaining that Matt had a direction to follow and that this wasn't the best time to be asking anyway. I repeated my direction to Matt and he slouched off to cafeteria after shooting me his best sneer.

A minute later, Gilbert's father came strutting up to me. The following was our conversation while he was keeping cars from continuing through the correct one way:

Him: What was that with Gilbert and Matt?
Me: I'm sorry?
Him: (Angry voice) All Gilbert wanted was Matt's phone number.
Me: (Very respectfully) I understand, it's just been difficult lately to keep all the kids safe after school and since you were already here I sent Gilbert back to you.
Him: (Even angrier voice) IT'S AFTER SCHOOL!
Me: You're right! Well done, that's why you're picking your son up after all! Yes, sir.
Him: (Even angrier voice) You always seem to be annoyed about something! (Then he turned his back and walked away.)
Me: (To his back) I'm sorry you feel that way, Sir.

(I can't remember if it was annoyed or another word exactly, but it was something like that.)

Now, if I had been allowed to continue the conversation in a civilized way, I would have suggested that he and Gilbert walk into the cafeteria together to talk to Matt, or that he could, but I wasn't.

Now, Gilbert also has bouts of not following directions and fooling around in class. I talk to his parents about this. I also mention positive things during these conversations. So in no way am I always annoyed when speaking to him.

I felt a little guilty after this interaction, so I walked myself into the cafeteria and asked Matt for his phone number. He couldn't remember it! He gave me nine numbers and then when I said that couldn't be right, he gave me five. I went outside to pass on this information to find that they had already left.

I was surprised by this interaction because this is one of the families I know the best. I was their daughter Loo Loo's teacher when she was in fourth grade. I tutored her on my own time and was not compensated by them. (The school got a grant from the city.) I drove Gilbert and Loo Loo home a few times this year while their father was in the hospital, so their mother could stay with him or run some errands. (They are right on the way to my house.) And earlier this year Gilbert broke his glasses and on my own time (they even called me over Christmas Break) I helped them get glasses for cheap over the internet.

Now, I did those things as a pay-it-forward-sort-of-thing. My good deed for the day or whatever. But after all this I was hurt to be treated this way by this father. Thankfully, I kept my voice down and was respectful. (Mum taught me well and Sophia taught me how to stand up for myself in front of parents.)

The cool thing was that I was one of the first classes out for dismissal this afternoon. Other teacher saw what I was doing and copied it! So we had grades 1 - 6 lined up on the-sort-of-basketball-court.

Dog Days of January

I wanted to tie up some loose ends that I left when I stopped blogging for so long.

Ms. Jenson is still a bit of a nutter, but I have a little more respect for what she does in the classroom now. I do still have some problems working with her. The first being that during the first set of parent teacher conferences, she told all the parents (with me sitting right there) that I was responsible for all of the academic concepts the student were learning, except for Social Studies and she was only responsible for whether or not the students were learning Spanish. This was incredibly frustrating for me. I only have each class for half a day. There is no way I can cover all the academic subjects for both grades in that amount of time. I have spoken to Sr. Callejo about this and he agrees something needs to be done, he just isn't exactly sure what to do. I hope it's figured out soon, because report cards are coming up again and I really don't want all the work put on me again.

First, Fiona came back! Her little sister didn't because their mother can't deal with Ms. Jenson. Getting Fiona back felt so good though. I really don't think she would have done as well in a huge inner city middle school as she would do with us. I guess that's probably true for all our students, but I really feel close to Fiona. Her mum told us that she didn't like the other school at all and basically begged to come back to us. That made me feel really good. Of all the kids, she is the one I would choose to find out about as she grows up and moves on.

Kismet has been causing quite a lot of trouble lately. He's probably spent a total of an hour in my classroom all week because he gotten into so much trouble before his class even gets to mine. It has gotten to the point where no adult in the school can keep his body safe. In the past four days, he's climbed to some pretty high heights after being asked not to take his feet off the ground and dropped from them. The first time he landed on his arm and came close to breaking it, the second time he landed on his face and scratched it up. He doesn't do these things while he mother is at the school with him obviously but once she leaves it's all over. I really feel like I can't be held responsible for his personal safety because he listens to nothing I say and then chooses to do the most dangerous thing. He'll be in class and then disappear. I can't chase him because I'm also responsible for the other 11 children in my class. His family doesn't seem to understand how dangerous this is.

I've lost some other students, I'm down to 12 students in the fourth grade. I have only two girls in that class now. The third grade class has been fluctuating a bit. One of my favorite students, who didn't show up at the beginning of this year, showed up on Monday. Hector was one of my kindergardeners and it's nice to have him back!

We got a new student, who has been causing a lot of trouble. He's been making a lot of gang related comments and threatening to hurt other kids. It's been quite the experience. I think of my third graders as relatively hard core kids, they have a lot of energy and a lot of street knowledge, but after spending time with Chris, I'm pretty sure most of them are scared s*&@less of this kid. He's only been here a few weeks, but as missed three days because of external suspension and two days worth of internal suspension

I don't feel like the year is half over... at all.

More Co-Teacher Drama

Hehe.

The other morning I was doing my "duty" outside where all the cars come in, Sr. Callejo brought his son (who is in Kinder and totally adorable) to the cafeteria and then came back and exchanged pleasantries with me for a few moments. As he was walking away Ellie and Fiona's mum came up to talk to him. Whenever I see one of my parents talking to my principal I'm always nervous that they are saying mean things about me since that was all that was ever said about me to my principal that first year of teaching. She walked away and he meandered back to me. He explained that she was thinking about pulling Ellie out of the school because Ms. Jenson (co-teacher) says mean things to her. Example; "Ellie, your handwriting is ugly." This is the first time we've heard the same comment from parents, so now we knew that really is what she was saying and not the kids putting words in her mouth.

He asked me to tell her before we started classes that morning that she should really try to be more positive with the kids and less negative because we can't loose kids at this point, especially because of something like that. He couldn't because he had to leave for a day long meeting. I balked at this a bit. If it had been Sophia, it might have been a little awkward, the conversation would have been casual enough that the awkwardness would have blown over pretty quickly. This I feared would not be the case with Ms. Jenson. I said as much and he said that he really appreciated me sending on the message. I reluctantly agreed to pass on the message. Which pretty much went over exactly the way I predicted, with Ms. Jenson saying things like, "Why would he tell you and not me, hum...hum" (fake dramatic confused look.)

This morning the third graders were in my classroom for the first hour (as per our implementation of reading recovery) and I realized that Ellie, wasn't in class. The girls are rarely late and absent less than they are late. I wondered if I had inadvertently left her in the cafeteria. I asked the other kids if they had seen her that morning and they all answered in the negative. Then little Molly (Callie's little sister) piped up and said, "She's not coming to the this school anymore, my sister told me." I was so surprised. Then it hit me. If Ellie was gone, that probably meant that Fiona, my most favorite student ever was gone too.

I opened the door to my classroom when I saw the seventh graders coming through the hallway. I was relieved to see that Fiona was in the line. I asked their teacher if I could borrow Fiona for a moment. She followed me to my classroom and explained that their Mum didn't like the way that Ms. Jenson spoke to the kids. I asked her if she was leaving and she said that her Mum hadn't decided yet. I explained that I really didn't want to lose touch with her. So I gave her my email address and my cell phone number and made her promise to keep in touch if she had to leave the school. She promised and gave me a hug. I really hope she keeps her promise.

I hate that we're losing kids because of this...other things I can understand. But this? Come on. Especially that family. They have been with us from the beginning and it's just too bad.

There was a staff meeting today and Sr. Callejo explained to the whole staff we needed to keep "positive reinforcement" in mind. He also said that the PTA President wanted all complaints like this to come to her so that she can speak to the family and give them a tour of school, so that parents have the chance to see all the good things we are doing. I think this is a great step, something I wish I had thought of. So many parents never come into the classroom. These sorts of things make our school more community oriented.

By the way. I think I have the third graders licked. Licked I tell you. More on that later.

Want a great kid's book? Try Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan. I just finished reading it out loud to them today. They loved it.

Routine

School is beginning to become a routine again. Yay!

So remember how I wondered what would happen when Ms. Jenson and I couldn't communicate about what was being taught in the classroom. Well. It happened.

So. We are a bilingual school, which means that the students have half of their day in English and half of their day in Spanish. We have to find a way to do this without "translating," which means that I can't teach on lesson in English and then that afternoon another teacher (in this case Ms. Jenson) teach the same lesson in Spanish. The two lessons need to build on each other in some way. This is easy to figure out for most subjects. We both teach Language Arts in each language, I teach science in English and she teaches Social Studies in Spanish. Math sort of throws a wrench in this finely tuned machine.

Because of the way that "Everyday Mathematics" is set up as a spiraling curriculum, we can't do every other chapter on our own the way we do with the reading curriculum. We have to know what each other taught yesterday, so that both of us know what to teach today and tomorrow. This, at least at the beginning involves a lot of planning. Sophia and I figured it out together last year and it took us a few weeks to get used to how it worked. We worked so well together, that eventually we didn't need to sit down and plan together because we got into a groove. I don't foresee this happening with Ms. Jenson.

Before school started I sat down and explained how we use the math curriculum in a bilingual school. She seemed amenable to this at first and the first two days of teaching this way went alright. On Thursday, I asked her how far she had gotten with the third graders that morning so I knew what I needed to work on with them that afternoon. It was then that she told me that she didn't think that she was going to be able to to do it the way we talked about. Rather, no matter what part of the day, she said that I should teach the introductory lesson (the lessons are mostly broken up into two main parts with smaller third part) and she should do the follow up. She said that kids just don't know any Spanish at all and that she was going to start teaching them SSL (Spanish as a Second Language.)

Now. It could have been worse. She could have suggested the translating method. This was a step or two above that, which is good. But this is the one thing that Sr. Callejo was clear about, this is how we were teach math to give the kids the best chance of having a bilingual vocabulary in the subject of Mathematics. So very carefully, very politely I said that if she really thought that was the best plan because she didn't think the kids could succeed the way we were doing it, she should bring it up with Sr. Callejo so that he knows that we will be switching it up a bit.

Well. That went over like a lead balloon. She went off about how she left public school because she was sick of being told how and what to teach. And that she couldn't believe that this was happening to her in a charter school and how she was just going to have to learn how to deal with it again and finally that she just couldn't believe that I was suggesting she get permission to change the way she was teaching. Which of course was not my intention, or in fact, what I said at all.

Now. Honestly. We have it really good at ALDR. We are not handed our schedules, our lesson plans, we get to use the curriculum (other than this relatively loose method with the math curriculum) in any way we wish as long as we address the standards set down by the state. We are not micromanaged at all. At all. The rules and procedures we do follow and set down we do to follow the laws set down by the state.

Nutter. This lady is at least part nutter. I spoke to Sr. Callejo about it and he talked her down from the ledge today at lunch.

Mondays are going to be my saving grace because the third graders have performing arts at the same time as the fourth graders have physical education and then vice versa. This means that Ms. Jenson and I get to plan together for a whole hour and a half. So today we sat down to talk through what we were going to teach for math (just math mind you) for the next five days. It took us over an hour to get through FIVE (five people) days. Crazy.

HaHa! Funny story from today. Fred came back today, I was expecting him last week but he didn't show up until today. I was helping him with some Geometry today when he looked at me and said, "Ms. Knitter, you've got stuff right here." He pointed to the part of his eye nearest his nose. I realized that he thought my eye brightener looked like "stuff." From the mouths of babe eh?

Banishment!

I'm not sure if I've really explained before that my school has a four day week. We have school Monday through Thursday from 8:00 to 3:00 (3:30 for seventh graders.) I love this schedule. I'm not sure what's going to happen when we have to go back to a five day schedule for whatever reason. When we went to this schedule, one of the biggest worries was planning time, since we would be losing a whole day of after school planning time. So we picked one day a week to stay until four thirty and one afternoon a month that hour would be a staff meeting.

Good plan right? Well, it didn't exactly turn out that way. We ended up having a staff every week. After a few weeks of this I realized that it was because people weren't reading their memos! We would go to the meeting and 90% of the time was spent on regurgitating the memo! I mentioned this to Sr. Callejo once and he told me that the rest of the staff wasn't reading the memo and couldn't be trusted to follow through with things the way I did, simply because they read written instructions. He laughed it off, but in my mind I was saying, "then hire better people you crazy man!"

Anyway, we had our first staff meeting this afternoon. We were given a folder of information that we had to sort and some of it needed to be returned. Instructions had to be given four times. Which wasted time.

And then came the title of this post. My classroom is the largest. I love it. It's got a great heater and a great air conditioner, the computers are out of the way, and I have enough space to store things. However, there are four doors. There is one door that leads out into the school parking lot, a straight line from the school to the cafeteria. Another door leads to the small office of the school business manager, another to the other classrooms and admin offices and the last leads to the second and third grade classrooms.

Now, there are many times during the day when people have to come through these doors. Second and third graders need to be able to get to their title one reading and special education classes, admin staff need to be able to get the business office and to the second and third grade classrooms as well as my own. I get it. I'm fine with that. The kids are trained to do it quietly and a month into school, it won't bother my students at all. What drives me nuts is the interior/exterior door that leads straight to the cafeteria.

On the first day, Ms. Jenson thought (and rightly so, she's brand new and we've been using my interior/exterior door during orientation) that that door was how her kids were to go to the bathroom, so twice during the morning and once during the afternoon. So before the second morning, I took her aside and explained that she could use her own interior/exterior door. She was upset. Not sure why.

At the end of the day today, I ran into the third grade classroom where my fourth graders were having Spanish, to pass out some things. I reminded the students to put their pencil boxes back on our classroom library bookcase for the next day. Ms. Jenson looked at me and said, "Well we'll have to go through your classroom then." And I said, "Oh yes, of course you can go through at the end of the day." She said, very sarcastically, "Oh yay!" I walked back into my classroom very confused, because when I asked her not to use my door, I was only talking about the whole class bathroom trips in the middle of classes.

There's one teacher, Ms. Gana that I had to beg last year not to use my door during the school year. She's started back up this year. (Even thought this year, she has her own door on the same side of the building as me!) Last year she was upset that I asked her not use my door. This year after Ms. Gana and a few others have taken to using it during the school day again, I decided to bring it up at the staff meeting. Very politely, I explained that we needed to not use that interior/exterior door during the school day. After I was finished, Ms. Jenson said to everyone, "Yes, she's already BANISHED me from using that door." I was so surprised, I couldn't really defend myself.

I really hope our relationship improves. It's going to be a hard year if my co-teacher is like this about things that have nothing to do with what's being taught...

And My New Co-Teacher Is...

Introducing: Ms. Jenson.

The other day Sr. Callejo called and asked if I wanted to be in on the interview for my co-teacher. I replied in the affirmative of course. And then realized...that meant for sure that was going to be teaching fourth grade (well at least for half the time)! There was awhile when it was thought that I would have to repeat my stint in the middle school grades.

So here's how its going to work: I'll be the homeroom teacher for the fourth graders and have them for half the day. The other half of the day I'll be teaching the third graders. Ms. Jenson will be teaching the kids when I don't have them.

We interviewed two teachers today and I didn't LOVE either of them. But I realized that's because I was comparing them to Sophia...and no one can top her. I learned so much from working with her and she was such a great role model.

Ms. Jenson is much older than me...perhaps in her sixties, anglo and bilingual. She's taught all grade levels, in inner cities as well in refugee camps in Costa Rica. She's got some serious experience. I hope to be able to learn as much from her as I did from Sophia. I really hope that she wants to work together for the both classes, rather than us planning seperately for both.

It was good to go back to ADLR. For awhile we thought we were going to move back to where our school was orginally situated, this was the reason for all the hurried packing at the end of last year. At the last moment, Sr. Callejo decided that it was better to stay where we were rather than make the move, which means that the packing was a mute point. It was nice to be back in the classrooms, everyone coming back from break, seeing the old faces. Report day is August 3. I'm ready.