CONFERENCES

Fall is the time of pumpkins, Halloween, and teacher-parent conferences. I am not sure which is scariest for the new teacher. There are a number of things to do to have a good conference. I’ll share a few of those things here.

The first thought to keep in mind is that both of you are here for the same reason: to help each child improve academically/behaviorally. Neither person should be on the defensive for any reason whatsoever. As a teacher I keep in mind that some parents are regular visitors to the school because their child is persistently in some sort of trouble. These parents dread conferences and sometime are in an “attack mode” as a defense mechanism. Starting the conference with a positive comment about the student will set the tone for a good conference.

I also prepare for conferences by giving one or two very simple assignments during the school year before conferencing. Since I teach science, I like to give a scientific coloring from time to time. I make sure that I have given at least two of them before conferencing. That short circuits the comment, “Johnny finds the work too hard and doesn’t understand what you are doing in class.” The focus shifts very quickly away from that excuse when I show zeros for “Johnny” not doing colorings. Then we can get down to exposing the real reasons why “johnny” is not doing assignments.

I always have parents and students sign in for conferencing. That way I have a record of the conference and I can always ask for additional contact information. Also, as I mentioned in my last blog, I tell the parent(s) to keep the pen. It always helps to set a good mood. Sometimes I have candy setting out as well. Jolly Ranchers are great for conferences and also for classroom rewards/bribes. They are cheap and tasty!

Open House is a time of confusion. Parents want to talk about grades while teachers are supposed to show off their rooms and only explain their curricula. Parents always leave unhappy and teachers are frustated that they only have about 10 minute time blocks to explain everything. We decided to replace Open House with Fall Conferences and have been pleased with the results.
Conferences are usually held soon after report cards have been sent home. That tends to bring out the parents. Then the teachers with the most students in grade trouble get the most “business”. They, and the new teachers, tend to have long waiting lines. New teachers tend to confer with parents longer than necessary and may run an hour or more overtime to meet with them all.

When conferencing, limit small talk to introductions and a short comment about something good the student has recently done or turned in for a grade. Then get out a progress report and “run down the list”. Point out strengths and shortcomings and make suggestions for improvement.
One of the best suggestions for underperforming students is that the home should have a study area and the student must spend a set time interval in it every day. If there is no homework, he/she can either work ahead or read a book.  There is no TV, cell phone, or electronic game access during that time. Make it a mutually agreed upon time so it is not perceived as punishment. You will find that most parents appreciate the suggestion but won’t carry it out. Unfortunately most of the poor grades are related to a lack of strong parental support and your talking to the parent won’t change the “let the teacher do it” attitude.

I document everything with notes after each conference. That way I can do followups during spring conferences.

Use the conference time wisely. Get to know the parents of your students. Present a caring, concerned teacher image and your job will become a lot easier. All parents want their children to be successful. Some won’t want to exert a whole lot of effort to help, but their good will is still very important. A followup email to each parent is another good move to maintain a good parent-teacher relationship. Build upon each conference in this way and many students will view your class differently because now you know their parents.

Memories

I have a number of things I remember about my school years: some pleasant and some not so pleasant. We all have such memories. One of the things I try to do in my classes is to give my students some good memories about their school days. I try to create a classroom atmosphere that is educational, welcoming, and influential. I believe that most days I achieve at least one of these goals.

I have taught many students for three years of their science education. They have had advanced earth science, chemistry, and physics with me while other students who are not college bound have had me for two or more years of the fundamentals of biology class (failed and then passed). One student had me for fundamentals of biology three years in a row. He failed it the first year, passed it the second year, and just wanted to have my class for a third year so took it again.

When students repeat a class with me or return after graduation on a visit, I sometimes hear things that make me feel good or things that make me smile.

For example, during my fourth year of teaching, I was lecturing a 7^th grade life science class. I sat down on my stool behind my lecture desk and it broke, sending me to the floor. The kids were shocked until I laughed it off. I had most of those same students two years later in 9^th grade earth science. The second day of class I was asked by the class whether or not I still broke stools during class. Obvious a lifetime memory!

Another student drew a giant mural on the back of my classroom depicting the United States space program. Several years after graduating he visited to see how his mural had fared. It was just fine and was there ten years later when I left Pennsylvania for Oregon.

Kids visit after graduation and talk about science demonstrations that made an impression upon them. They tend to remember little favors I have done for them. Most of all they feel the need to visit me when they come back to their “old school”.

One of the things I have been doing for the past seven years has been very rewarding on a personal basis. My wife and I have a retail mail order plant business and we sometimes buy pens to give out to customers. Back in 2005 I got the idea of giving pens to my students. I try to influence students attitudes as much as I try to achieve a measure of subject matter success. I usually purchase between 300 and 500 pens, keeping the cost under $150.00 and getting enough of the pens for two years. These totals depend upon the best prices available.

I search the web and books for a 2-3 line inspirational quote which I have printed on the pen just under my name. I hand the pens out, one per student before Thanksgiving vacation. The expression of disbelief on many of their faces is worth the price of admission. They always read the quote and sometimes I even have to explain what it means. Two things have occurred that convinced me to continue this activity. First, out of approximately 150 pens handed out, less than five are found on the floor at the end of the day, which means they have value to just about everybody. Second, I have had students up to four year later who have said they still have their "Fincham Pen(s)" in their room at home. I think that a little gesture on my part had a profound effect on some of my students.

The pens also make a good impression on parents during parent/student/teacher conferences. I have parents sign in before we conference in order to keep track of who met with me. I always lay ten or more pens on the table and give one to every parent who meets with me. It helps start the conference with a good atmosphere.

Kids remember many things from school. As a teacher I want their memories to be good ones. I have rigorous academic standards that are suited to the level of class I am teaching, but it is tempered with an obvious concern for each student under my supervision. My students remember many things about me, things I have done out of the ordinary as well academic skills that will serve them well as they go beyond high school to higher education or into the workforce.

Setting the class parameters: Ninth Grade

When the students have all been settled into class and their seats have been assigned, it is necessary to set the class parameters. Students need to know the classroom procedures and the teacher's expectations. This information is especially important for the ninth grade students who are new to the high school.

Ninth grade students will by and large exhibit middle school behaviors for much of the school year, especially the boys. The girls tend to be more mature although a number of them will continue the slutty language that tends to be fairly common among middle school students.

The information below is given to my ninth grade students on the first day of class and is taken home to be signed by their parents. It pretty much covers my expectations. Then I have included two additional forms for you that I use when a student becomes a problem. The one is for behavior and the other is for language.

Next blog I will discuss how to handle the disrupting student.

Grading Policy

You will receive points for each and everything that you do. At the end of each marking period, I divide the points you earned by the total points possible. The resulting percentage determines your grade.

Class work

You are responsible for making up work that is completed during an absence.

Wednesday from 2:45 to 4:00 is set aside as make up time for students who need to complete makeup work and tests.

Hall Passes

You will be given two hall passes at the start of each quarter for bathroom privileges. They are for emergency use only. Use the facilities before or after class, not on my time.

Testing

An important part of your grade is determined through testing. If you are absent for a test or quiz, you may only make it up before or after school. It must be made up within two weeks, or it is recorded as a zero.

Homework

A homework assignment is given periodically. All homework is to be done individually unless I assign partners. Homework one day or more late receives a 50% deduction. Once an assignment is returned, that particular assignment will no longer be accepted as late work. To make it up for half credit, another assignment on the same material may be completed. The student must specifically request the desired assignment. No late work will be accepted within five school days of the end of the quarter.

Returned papers

I will return papers by placing them into a class bin. It is up to students to retrieve their papers from that bin. Papers with no name will be placed into that same bin. Periodically the bin will be dumped into recycling. I do not lose papers so do not try to use that to explain any incomplete work.

Class Behavior/Participation Grade

Each student can earn 10 points per week in this grade category. Participate, obey class rules, and do not disrupt class activities.

Cell Phones

Turn them off and keep them in your backpack. If anyone, including a parent calls you during class and you attempt to answer, I will assign you a lunch detention. If I catch you texting, I will assign you a lunch detention. If that consequence does not change your cell phone behavior, I will refer you to the office for class disruption.

Profanity

Slutty and profane language is not acceptable in my classroom. There will be consequences and parent involvement in the consequence. Saying you are sorry is not sufficient and usually insincere.

Sexual harassment

Students are aware of what constitutes sexual harassment and I will do immediate referral to the office for anything I overhear in the way of improper sexual comments or innuendos.

Semester Grades

I use the cumulative method to determine a semester average. The final exam is factored in as percentage of your semester average.

Cheating

Copying or using someone else’s work/answers without the permission of the teacher is cheating. Plagiarism of written work from texts or the internet is also cheating.

The first offense results in zero credit for the assignment. A second offense will require a failure for the semester.

High School Credit

Each semester of Natural Resources has a value of .5 credits. Passing both semesters will provide 1 credit of science. Presently 2 credits of science are required for graduation. Failure to earn this credit will require a student to take an additional science class.

If you cannot live within these classroom standards, then get a schedule change. By staying in my class, you are agreeing to follow them to the best of your ability.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CLASS DISRUPTION ASSIGNMENT

Write the following statement ten times and have this paper signed by one of your parents or guardians. Failure to do so will result in my assigning lunch detention or doing an office referral for class disruption.

Name ____________________________________

I have been uncooperative in my science class and realize that this type of behavior will have a bad affect on my grade. I have been wasting work time and distracting others.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PROFANITY ASSIGNMENT

You have used the word ___________ in my classroom. Write the following statement ten times and have this paper signed by one of your parents or guardians. Failure to do so will result in my assigning lunch detention or doing an office referral for inappropriate language.

Name ____________________________________

The use of profanity in the classroom is not only inappropriate, it also reflects badly upon me and my reputation. I must learn to show the maturity expected of a high school student and work to be less offensive in my vocabulary.

BTS Day

  Back To School Day

The first day of school can set the tone for the whole year.  Making a good impression is all important. But what is a good impression? I remember my first day of school that was also my first day as a teacher. It was January and I had been hired to teach math in a junior-high school. Three previous substitute teachers had walked out of the position. I was given fair warning and decided to take the “prick” approach. I was 21 at the time and my class of juniors had some eighteen year old boys with real attitudes.

I remember how nervous I was when I entered the building and was shown my room. The students did not know what to expect and were somewhat cowed for the first few weeks as I acted like one nasty S.O.B. Eventually I relented a bit and gradually lost control of the oldest class. However, I had made it into May before that happened and I managed to “hang on” until the end of school.

Having had my baptism under fire I started the next year with some confidence and once again exhibited a nasty, cranky disposition at the beginning of the school year. As a gradually eased up on the students the classes went along quite well. The students knew the boundaries within my classroom as far as behaviors were concerned. The only propblems were with some of the students from the previous year’s junior math class. I was teaching science but had to work with them in a study hall situation. It took quite a bit of effort to restablish control over these particular students, but I managed.

By my third year I was experienced enough to establish my classroom parameters with just a few weeks of frowning and as the years have passed I have managed to begin each new year with very few problems.

Most students want to work with their teachers and don’t think of their teachers as being “regular people”. They like to do things to please the teacher (especially at the start of the year) and don’t want to spend a year in conflict. Some students prefer to agitate and tend to disrupt the proceedings. Sometimes a teacher has a reputation that can either work to help or hinder the opening day process depending upon what it is.

The first couple of weeks are ther time to establish control and set the class parameters. Students are unsure of themselves, especially ninth graders, and can be easily taught how to conduct themselves in your classroom. In forty years, only two times did I have classes that were disruptive from the first time they walked in my door.

I remember Ray, a new teacher, who had it all figured out. The students and he were going to be friends and everyone would work together to learn. The first day he told his students to address him as Ray, not Mr. _____. It took three days for him to rescind that privilege and another three weeks to establish a good learning environment.

I recommend several ways to get started on the first day.

Greeting: Meet students at the door, make eye contact (most hate that), and introduce yourself. Shaking hands is an option unless it makes you feel too uncomfortable. Don’t be some sort of a smiling fool while doing this and don’t have a rod up your ass either. Have a welcoming expression on your face without appearing to be a phony.

Seating: Have seats assigned for the students on your original class list. Put the seating chart on the overhead or projector oriented in the proper direction so the students can see where to sit. Never let students pick their own seats.

Welcome everyone: Never complain to a student if he/she is not on your class list. Everyone needs to be made welcome and wanted by the teacher. Have a seating chart and assign the student a seat at the first oportunity.

Sincerity: Kids can spot a faker a mile away. Be sincere in welcoming students to your room. Wait a few minutes after the tardy bell for students still finding their classes.

Free Time: Don’t give them any on the first day. You are setting a classroom routine. Make it a good routine.

Introductions: After taking care of attendance, introduce yourself and talk about some of the more interesting things they will be doing while in your class. Be formal with them and any friendliness need to be done in a reserved manner. Have each student state his/her name and talk a bit about what they like to do when not in school (make notes).

Rules and Regulations: Set them out the first day. Be clear and concise and don’t overdo it. Give each student a copy and post them in the room.

First Lesson: As a science teacher I have some advantages. The first day I prepare some sort of a demonstration to focus student interest. I want them to look forward to coming to my class everyday.

No Wasted Time: Keep students busy that first day. It sets the tone for the year.

The Only Line Crossing is at the Alamo: There has to be a line drawn between the teacher and the students. That line will be a different distance from each teacher depending upon the teacher’s clasroom skills and personality, but it has to be there. A teacher is not there to be a friend to his/her students. That teacher is there to be a role model. Start being one the first day. Have that line be thick and firm on the first day and it can be moved toward the teacher as the year progresses. But always have it there.

Hard to Soft: It is a lot easier to go from being hardnosed and demanding to a more giving demeanor than it is to go the other way.

These are guidelines to help you survive the first day and to set the tone for the rest of the school year. Other experienced teachers may use variations upon these steps but I find they work very well for me.

The Winds of Change

This will be my last year of blogging so I decided to take a different approach. I tend to “get on my soapbox” and express my feelings about some of the things that are going on in education today. For the rest of this school year, I will be throwing the soapbox away and share tips and techniques I have used in my classroom to be an effective teacher (and survive).

That being said, I have just this one last rant from my soapbox. I will relate my feelings about teacher evaluations and seniority in this blog. There is a lot being said about poor teachers. There is no question at all that there are bad teachers. Every school has their share of them. They are not always the experienced teachers, since being new is no guarantee of competence and greater enthusiasm for the job. I am entering my fortieth year in the classroom and still look forward to interacting with my students. Likewise I have seen first year teachers who bored their students to death or had no classroom control and were driven right out of teaching.

The biggest recent complaint about teacher evaluations has arisen due to all of the RIFing (teacher layoffs) that are taking place across the country. The news is full of comments about finding ways to layoff the “deadwood” and keep the young, energetic teachers in the classroom.

Historically seniority has always been the predominant method of laying off people in any industry or profession. I don’t hear government workers being laid off according to any criteria other than seniority. How about having open heart surgery performed by a surgeon fresh out of medical school instead of a surgeon who has done hundreds of those operations. Which would you prefer?

On the other hand, seniority does not guarantee competence in any profession and RIFing in any job or profession should be based upon performance, not duration. However, the fair evaluation of people in any job or career depends upon so many different factors that it is a very difficult process. Not the simple process advocated by a number of simpletons (simpleton in their understanding of the educational process).

Let’s look at each of these factors as they apply to teachers:

1. Students

            a. Student opinions about teachers are nonfactors since most students like the friendliest teachers and dislike the teachers who work them the hardest. Of course parents hear all kinds of stories about what goes on in the classrooms and are infuenced by the stories that come home. Especially since their child would never lie about or embellish anything that goes on in school.

            b. Student test results are a poor gauge of teacher competence since all students have different learning abilities. Teachers who teach students with involved parents will see good test results no matter how incompetent the teacher may be. Meanwhile, students who see no value in school (for many different reasons) will generally show moderate to no test improvements. Of course the administrator will say that is the fault of the teacher who has not been able to interest all students in his subject.

            c. No matter what is done regarding seniority, there will always be a pecking order among faculty and the newer teachers will be predominantly given the more difficult classes, especially if student testing is part of the teaching evaluation criteria. I would prefer the advanced students if testing is part of my evaluation.

2. Principal

            a. Not all principals are competent. Not all superintendents are able to make the best choices when selecting principals. The principals and superintendents hire teachers and are able to evaluate teachers for two or three years with no tenure considerations. If a poor teacher is hired, whose fault is that?

            b. When evaluation criteria are changed and the principal’s evaluation determines who gets RIFed, almost all controversy regarding curriculum development and the teaching environment will go away. Who wants to aggravate a principal who is no longer held to a detailed due process to remove tenured faculty?

            c. Many, if not most, principals warn teachers in advance before doing a formal evaluation. It gives the teacher plenty of time to prepare a “dog and pony” show for the day of the classroom observation. Drop-in evaluations are looked upon with a “He’s out to get me” attitude on the part of the teacher. The exception would be if the principal makes drop-ins a regular occurance and focuses on the positives as well as the negatives taking place in the classroom.

3. Peers

            a. There is no way teachers will evaluate each other. Not only would personalities enter into the process, teachers don’t have the required training nor time to visit each other’s classrooms.

4. School board members

            a. Since most of them never visit classrooms at all, let alone on any sort of a regular basis, they base their knowledge about their schools upon what they are told by their administrators and any of their own children who are enrolled in classes. That makes them a nonfactor in evaluating teachers, not a very popular thing to say on my part.

5. The most ignorant groups who don’t know what is really happening in the public schools would be the politicians and big money executives who want to fix all of the problems in the educational system by tearing it down. They base their opinions upon what they hear from special interest groups such as conservative “think tanks” who use skewed data collected and evaluated by someone who would be “eaten alive” in a typical classroom. They know how to evaluate teachers and want to remove job protections to “kick out” the bums doing a bad job. If only it was so simple.

There are fair ways to evaluate people and those methods need to be developed to remove incompetent teachers, worthless government employees outside of education, and politicians who refuse to live within a budget. Why just focus on the easiest target?

Sacrificial Lambs

Another school year is behind me. I was invited to several graduation parties and was able to visit all but one. It is always nice to mingle with students’ parents, especially when they appreciate the work you have done with their “graduated senior”. At one party I was talking to a parent of a former student who graduated last year. I had her daughter in my ninth grade advanced earth science class (which I no longer teach, having assumed responsibility for two chemistry classes). She told me how much my class helped her be successful as a college freshman. I had discovered that my ninth grade students were woefully lacking in study skills. They could not outline a chapter, had no note taking skills, did not know how to studey for a test, and did not know how to take a test.

When I discovered this lack of preparation among the best ninth grade students, I did something about it. I would spend the first four weeks of my science class focused on study skills and I would use the science subject matter as the tool. She remembered a lot of what we had done and applied it to her college work. It made things a lot easier for her. I felt good hearing that for a couple of reasons. First, it showed that my efforts were successful with some students (for every one I hear about there are probably several others that I heaven’t heard about). Second, it helped her get over one of life’s hurdles.

I had good relationships with a lot of my students who have now graduated. I will be making new ones with students in my classes during the next school year. Hopefully I will have some successes and only a few failures. This past year I taught two sections of non-college bound ninth grade students. Three of the students failed every class they were taking. I would have liked to have gotten through to them that they were making a serious mistake. This year I will have two more classes of the same type of student. I plan on varying my methods a bit and being a “loving hardass”.

Since school is out I thought I do a couple of posts on the state of education from my point of view as an experienced educator who gets more good results than bad results. I’ll focus more on my classroom happenings when school resumes in September for what will probably be my last year as an educator in a public school (I will decide in January).

In education there are some groups of kids that go through the educational system who are what I call “sacrificial lambs”. They are sacrificed on the altar of “educational improvement”. For example, throwing high stakes standadrdized tests at kids that establish their “stupidity” cannot be a good thing. Those kids have an esteem disruption that the middle school with its excessive focus on esteem cannot overcome in a realistic way, especially when the testing continues. Then the waffeling of the politicians over how to use the test results only adds to the confusion. Eventually the tests are watered down and simplified so most students pass or the consequences of failure are put off for a number of years from the original schedule.

Then someone has the bright idea to use these tests to evaluate teachers since the student failures must be due to bad teaching. When that happens, then teachers “pull rank” to get the best classes where students will be successful regardless of the teaching methods. The schools in the tougher parts of town see more of an exodus of their most experienced teachers to schools in the higher income parts of the district or even to other districts. Then the youngest, least experienced teachers have the students that tend to show the least improvement on standardized tests.

“Sacrificial lambs” are taught self esteem in middle schools (replaced junior high schools) and have a disatrous year as high school freshmen. “Sacrificial lambs” are taught newly designed curriculum that ignores past successful teaching methods as being antiquated and out of date (modern math). “Sacrificial lambs” are not able to take shop and home economics in middle school (eliminated) and cannot take basic trade classes in high school since many have been eliminated for computer based trades classes and besides, they need to take remediation classes to pass standardized tests. “Sacrificial lambs” can’t take music or art because something had to be eliminated due to budget constraints and high stakes testing programs. “Sacrificial lambs” are created when our politicians adjust our educational system to try and catch up with Asian and European school systems that produce students who test higher than our students. That is such a farce as to be almost unbelievable.

I’ll go into that more in a future post. I also plan to blog about teacher evaluation methods and layoffs. Other topics will appear in my blog this summer based upon whatever public education bashing I read in the paper.

Another One “Bites the Dust” (Year, not person)

I have one week of school remaining before summer vacation. I have been away from my blog for a while since I not only had to finish the school year but also our plant nursery work was requiring extra attention and I had to finish working on a book about dwarf conifers.

A number of things have been going on at school- some good and some questionable. Students completed the science test (HISPE- might not be quite the correct acronym, but who cares?) They were told by a vascillating legislature that they had to pass it to graduate. We worked on revising the biology curriculum and my Natural resources class for next year to accommodate the students who don’t pass it. They would have to take it again, although then it would be an end-of-year (EOC- another g-damn acronym) exam that they must pass to graduate. I even coined my own acronym- PMS – for Primary Middle School.

Guess what? The legislature waited until a week after the test was given to postpone the passing requirement until the class of 2018. So the EOC will have no teeth to it, will not be used to improve the educational process, and will serve the role of an evaluative tool to demonstrate how bad our public schools are. Meanwhile, our curriculum changes involving Natural Resources are out the window since upper classmen will not have to take the class. Oh well, another day in the politically controlled public school system where we try to teach everyone to feel good about themselves and to go to college.

Graduation was last night. I have several graduated seniors who are returning to class tomorrow to take the final exam. I gave them that option as an opportunity to improve their grades. They are chemistry and physics students. That doesn’t happen very often. It’ll be interesting to see how many actually show.

Two weeks ago I had one of my ninth grade wastrels come to me during class (not on his own time) to tell me that I had to give him the twenty assignments he hadn’t done so he could make them up. His father had been in to the office about his grades and they told him that his “little boy” could make up any and all missing work. So I took two minutes to show him on his grade printout what he was missing. Surprisingly, the work still hasn’t been turned in.

One of the goals I have always strove for was to hold students accountable to deadlines. That disappeared this past year. It is now school policy that we accept late work as far back as 18 weeks, even if the student wasted class time and just screwed around instead of completing it. We are allowed to only give half credit. Students are now able to copy other students’ returned work and turn it in and we have no way to check to see if it was copied. That takes care of another life skill I tried to teach.

The latest buzzword at school is the Power Standard. (Actually two words but then I went to public school and have trouble with my numbers. Everyone knows the United States produces terrible math students). Someone wrote a book taking old concepts, relabeling them, and repackaging them as something new. Now he goes around the country presenting expensive seminars and sells books and videos about this wonderful new concept that I was doing back in the 1970’s. Meanwhile the district is spending all kinds of money on training and rewriting curriculum (copying old curriculum and relabeling it would serve the same purpose). We are not the only district doing this. The really sad part is that the book publishers and state standards committees have already spent millions of dollars doing the same thing.

The math EOC was given and the results will be back sometime in August. That will be just in time to rewrite schedules for thousands of students across the state who will have to go into math remediation classes. Unfortunately the problem is not that they cannot do the math. They can’t read, interpret, and apply their math skills because they are not trained to work with math in that way. I see that in science all the time. Whenever we have physics problems that only involve algebra, my students, many of which are on geometry and calculus have no idea what to do. They have poor written problem solving skills and they haven’t done basic math for one or more years.

I have to break this off and go to a couple of graduation parties. Both of these boys had issues when they started high school. One would not do any school work while the other vandalized school property and was always in trouble. The former turned it around in his junior year and did alright in my physics class as a senior. He just needed to decide on a goal and to go for it. The second student changed during his sophomore year, and as a junior became my regular TA in Physics (he told everyone he was in physics). He was still my TA as a senior and even became senior class treasurer. Two success stories: one is going to a private college and the other is going into a family business to work with his brothers.

If I get on my soap box once in a while, it is because I hate to see what happens to students because of political tinkering with the educational system. Too many well intentioned (and lots of self interested people as well) people who have no idea as to the realities of the classroom have their own opinions as to how to fix it all. Meanwhile it is the students who suffer.

I have been a classroom for forty years and have pretty much seen it all. I will retire in the next year or two and I am sure I will be replaced by some new teacher who will know all of the answers and will treat any suggestions or curriculum I leave behind as the ramblings of some old fart who was burned out and has nothing appropriate to the modern world (I’ve seen that happen more than once. Of course sometimes it was true!).

Next blog I might just ramble on about teacher evaluations and RIFing and I have a good story about a budget email I sent out to all staff.