Email from a student

Hi Ms. (I go with Ms. because I honestly forget if it is Mrs. or Miss) Fiddle, its Sam, (as you know) and I just wanted to write you some things that I wanted to talk to you about. Be warned: This will probably be rather long because once I get started writing I don't stop. Nothing really major will be in here though, so you can read it later if you want to. I got your back brah

Anyway, I pretty much just stopped working in this quarter as you can see. Yes, there has been a lot going on in my family this year, but I have had enough time to do work, I just haven't. Truth is, I just checked out once I got my B last quarter. I can't motivate myself to work, instead I just play Minecraft and write. You, being such a great teacher, deserve a better student and a better effort from me, so I am sorry about my actions. At this point it is too late, might as well just take my lumps and move on, and frankly, I still don't have motivation.

I really am a smart kid, I am just lazy. I always have been in school, even if early grades didn't show it. I rarely turned in all my homework, and skated by purely on my brains using minimal effort. Looking back I do wish I had tried harder, but I turned out ok anyway, so I can't harp on it, and try as hard as I can not to. My point is that my effort this semester isn't a reflection on you, but it is all on me and how I have been for as long as I can remember. I know once I go to college I won't be able to do what I have done, but I am not overly worried about it, I'll cross that road when it comes. (I am taking a year or so off to get healthy. I still have the same issues I had when I took the OGT's almost worse)

That little parenthesses leads me into my next thing. Thank you so much for how amazing you were back then. I wouldn't be graduating if it hadn't been for you, and honestly, that week changed my life forever. You made me want to become a teacher so I could help kids as much as you helped me. I want to teach at ECOT where I could work from home, which is better for me, and then I can take care of whatever kids I may have, which I will love doing. (I kinda dig babies) So I wanted to ask you how long did it take you to get hired at ECOT? I read on the site that they prefer high-prestige teachers who have teached before, so I figure I won't come out of college and join ECOT. (I want to be in elementary education for the record) I am just curious what exactly I should expect if I continue on my current career path. Homeschooling made me the person I am today and if I can help one student half as much as I was helped, the low-salary and late nights grading papers will be more than worth it.

Again, you are truly an amazing teacher, I don't have to be in your class forever to see that. I read your messages, and how you interact with your students amazes me. That time you invited everyone to come see you perform at a play made a rather large impression on me, it showed you genuinely care about each and every student that walks into your "classroom." You doing what you did for me, I think 2 years ago, literally changed my life. Even if you didn't have to go out of your way to accomodate what I needed, or if you think you were just doing your job, it did so much for my psyche and at the time I needed it BADLY.

I think that's all I have to say. I'll probably hit send and kick myself for not adding in something specific, but I highly doubt this will be the last interaction we have. I know this was random and out of the blue, but I'm not just blowing smoke out of my backside, I mean every word I just wrote.

Thanks Ms. Fiddle
Sam

My heartstrings are plucked

Last night's student call was a bundle of emotions. Casey got started with me and then moved homes so fast that she missed the packet work I sent her. That had me a little cross, but then we talked a little more. She's supporting herself, her boyfriend and their daughter by working 12 hour shifts in a car parts factory. She's turning 22 in July, so if she doesn't pass everything by the end of the semester, we cannot place her in any more classes. Her mother has nothing to do with her. I promised to do everything in my power to help her through this class. It'll be a major challenge.

Saying it to your face

If you want to see me talk about my life as a teacher and amateur performer, check out this school webcast interview here.

Those tire marks on my back? I was thrown under the bus.

Problems continue to mount with Sharon, the DEC teacher who has been working with my team. She claims that she felt overwhelmed and a little on the outside of the group. Instead of saying something to any of us, she complained to our supervisors. This is why our observations have been lower than usual due to inability to co-teach. She even continued to complain after another new teacher was brought onto the team and made herself immediately invaluable, which is what Sharon should have done.

I had tried to give Sharon the benefit of the doubt, to the point of doing part of her job by creating a rewording and simplification of the Canterbury Tales unit I created two years ago. Big mistake. This week, I was accused of creating a faulty rewording for Beowulf, a unit I didn't touch. Sharon kept insisting that she didn't do the work on modifying the text for our Special Ed students, and since I had volunteered to do it before on another unit, I must have on this one. Wow, so not only did Sharon admit that she wasn't doing her job, she blamed me for stepping on her toes and doing so badly. Yeah, I'm a little annoyed. The sad thing is that I could easily fix that faulty modification and make a better one. I won't. I'm done creating items that are Sharon's responsibility while I get negative reviews for being mean to her.

The saddest part of this whole mess was that it came a day after I had spent a half hour on the phone with Sharon, checking in with her, making sure she was comfortable with the team, asking about her sick son, the whole thing. Linda had warned me that Sharon was two-faced, but I believed her almost too late. Thankfully, the rest of the team believes that I wasn't responsible for creating the faulty pages.

Another lesson delivered to the teacher

My writing club had an amazing, fulfilling meeting last week. I'm still pondering how much it affected me and the students involved. One student in particular, also named Cat, shared a personal memoir. The content was painful as she discussed being bullied and how she reacted by... I'll let Young Cat speak for herself:

"I never really thought that one day I would think that suicide was the only way out of all the pain. I had always been the four-eyed freak I got used to it. The when people found out that I was in foster care I became the for eyed foster freak. No one ever really noticed the scare on my face until like fifth or 6th grade when I became scare face. When I was in Middle School, I walked home every day from school and when this one bus would pass me, the one that came up with the name scare face, threw stuff out off the buss window at me. Then in high school, my first year I went to McKinley and things got a lot worse. Then October of 2010 I was hospitalized for the first time. The things were good after that. The when It was getting close to my birthday things got bad again. I over dosed and was sent to the hospital again. Now in 2011 I was hospitalized February, March, and April. Then October 2011 was my last hospitalization. I am proud to say that it had been three months since I cut last. I am so proud of myself. I almost cut in December when my grandma died but I stayed strong and did not cut. I have had a rough past and I am a stronger person and glade for all the people that I have met. It has been a long journey that was tough but now I keep myself sane by my writing. "

Co-teaching blues

I think I've given the same set of instructions three times to this one new student. I finally insisted that he take notes. This is nuts. I've told him several times that he should be attending the tutoring sessions with my Sharon (my DEC counterpart) if he isn't understanding me, but I don't think that has registered. Hopefully my telling him mother helped.

Sharon, unfortunately, had a death in the family. She's been emotionally out of play all week. Somehow, the majority of losses I've had like this have been during summers. However, Sharon's been out of play for much of the school year, and working with her has been rough. She claims to be intimidated by our knowledge and reluctant to throw in her opinions. She's been teaching three times longer than I have and used to teach the teachers how to modify any and all curriculum. This shouldn't be an issue.

Sorry, just banging my head into a wall right now.

Suddenly, I'm needed

I have a list of all my students in order of the last time I called them and I do my best to work through that list. I've slacked horribly in the last couple of weeks, but my timing was perfect when I called Kate today. She hasn't been working in my class for the last couple of weeks because she's been in pain, the kind of pain that only teenagers can claim to have. Maybe it was just the timing or maybe it was some open tone to my voice, but she shifted the weight of a bad breakup and a family split off her shoulders and into my lap. We talked for at least 20 minutes about her anger and grief. Her sister called her trash and cut all ties with her over, admittedly, a tasteless joke on Facebook. Her boyfriend told her he didn't love her anymore after two years together. She's been burning everything she can that reminds her of him. This last one worries me a little, so I will keep an eye on her and continue to suggest she channel her rage more into her writing than her pyrotechnics.

There have been so many other things in the past week, including a full day of Professional Developement, which signified nothing, but this conversation with one lonely, isolated student with a beautifully dark humor is what brought me back to my own journal.

Happy update!

Linda got our principal on the phone and refused to take "no" or even "maybe" for an answer in regards to our need for support getting our students to work with us. I love her! At my principal's request, I have turned in the names of the 31 students who have yet to turn in a single assignment. Yes, 31. One young lady finally turned in three assignments this morning. I could have kissed her through the phone, but her voicemail was full.

I've also had a lively exchange with my supervisor, Kristin, during the course of the day. She and I seem to have a similar approach to working with students, and I think she's finally realized this. The main disconnect was her initial feeling that she had so much to teach us, but now she's started to learn from us as well. Well, that and the major disconnect of her use of pedagogical terms I just don't know. "Self-reflection?" I told her about this blog. No, I didn't give her the URL.

32 lost lambs, 1 lost teacher

32 of my students have yet to turn in a single assignment. It is halfway through the marking period. These two pieces of information have me in a terrified state. I've made phone calls and sent emails. Nothing changes. I've emailed my principal. That was two days ago. I used to be able to send a quick note to my Student Engagement Teacher to have the student's access blocked until I got a contact. That has been taken away. This affects my pass rate and the school's graduation rate. It may affect my ability to earn a raise for next year. I talked with Linda about this, and she keeps telling me to calm down and focus on the students I have working. I'm trying, I really am, but those 32 faceless students are in the back of my mind, mocking me without mouths and glaring at me without eyes.

I am sorely in need of this 3-day weekend.

Whan that Aprille

This is my favorite academic week of the quarter. I have worked so hard on making Canterbury Tales accessible to my students. Still evolving the lessons and adding cool stuff. My biggest hope is that my students actually do all three assignments, including the kooky creative writing assignment my mom helped me design. It has the students tell their own Prologue in modern times on their own imaginary road trip. Here's hoping.

Class count is 169 students. It should be down to 167, but two students who haven't logged in for over 30 days have some weird kind of reprieve. I also have 5 students who have rolled over from Admitted to Enrolled. We'll see how well they catch on to the swing of things.

General stats

• My class count is 168 students as of this moment. Seniors are enrolling at my school at an astounding rate, to the point that each of the three 12th grade guidance counselors have about 700 students apiece. This doesn't count all the juniors who will graduate in June because they're taking a heavy courseload.


• 11 of these students on my class list are showing as "admitted" instead of "enrolled". These students haven't logged into the school system yet but may at any minute. When they do, I have to scramble to figure out if they have transfer grades (I get a weekly spreadsheet but it isn't always up to date or accurate due to the student's former school withholding records) and where I should have them start the class. It isn't fair to ask a student to complete nine weeks worth of assignments in the four weeks I have them when they enroll.


• 38 of these students are Special Education (DEC in our school parlance). Most of the time, all DEC students are completely incorporated into the Gen Ed classroom with extra support provided by Sharon, who is an expert Special Ed teacher I'm lucky to have with me. In my case, I also carry the 16 12th grade English students (included in the 38) who need a self-contained class with one teacher handling all the material. All I do is input their grades. It makes my courseload look a little more inflated than it actually is. I don't mind.

Someone had an idea

Brit, the student I wrote about in my last entry, has been moved to a credit recovery class because he failed the English class he should have completed before starting my course. Why this wasn't done automatically is beyond my comprehension. At least I now know the guidance counselor does read her email, even if it takes her 24 hours to do so. Thankfully, she's one of the only counselors who gives me a headache. Most of the Guidance team are reliable people I know will go out of their way to help me, so I do the same for them. I'm very into mutual back-scratching.

I'm up to 162 students as of this morning. Three rolled over from admitted to enrolled yesterday (meaning they're actually ready to start working on academics) and a fourth did so this morning. So far, they're good kids! I'm having them skip some early material in the class so they can keep up with the main portion of the material I'm throwing at them. Some of them completed half a school year elsewhere but didn't do very well. I'm going to offer to let them finish the quarter and stop or to let them raise their transfer grades. The responses go either way depending on how much they enjoy the material in the course.

First snowfall in a while is making the view from my office window a gorgeous one. I heard the morning commute was a nightmare. Mine was ten steps in bare feet. On the other hand, I don't get those delicious snow days to frolic in the really heavy stuff, not unless it's so bad it wipes out my internet connectivity.

We need a bigger idea

I've mentioned before that we are supposed to be armed with Student Engagement Teachers (SETs) who help us deal with kids who are logging in but doing nothing with their time at school. My ability to handle students like this is limited. SETs are able to block a student from logging in until he or she makes telephone contact. SETs follow up with these cases and even visit the student at home, something I have been told I should no longer do (last time I did I put myself in danger, so I'm fine with this rule).

The problem? SETs are no longer doing this for us anymore. To be honest, I'm not quite sure what they do anymore, but I don't have that support I need so much. This is at a time when I'm getting whacked over my virtual noggin about my pass rate and the school graduation rate. It's tough to be held accountable for a student who has no working phones and who does nothing but log in and back out every 8 days, which is enough to keep Truancy from intervening more than sending out an 8 Day Truancy Letter.

Here's my latest example with the usual name change. Brit has had six 8 Day Truancy Letters sent out so far this school year. Another one will go out in two days and he'll restart his clock. He failed every class last semester but hasn't been scheduled to retake them. Instead, he's in my class and three others, doing nothing. I emailed his principal (he's in Grade 11 and has a different principal than my beloved boss) and guidance counselor. The counselor has said nothing. The principal emailed back, "I have no idea."

Anyone who knows me personally can probably guess what my reaction was, but I kept it verbal and within the confines of my home. The cat is still recovering on another floor of the house.

Finding my starfish

Ever hear the story of the old man, the young man, and the beach filled with starfish? Give it a quick read. Today has been a day of working with students who need help finding their way back to the water. Here are some of my notes in my teacher log, names changed, as always:

• Talked with Ms G. Becky is suffering from OCD and PTSD that seems to stem from abuse at her father's hands that left her scared to read and write. I suggested she look into the possibility of obtaining a 504 Plan through her doctor and sent her information on the subject. I also sent her a link to download Audacity so she can complete work orally when unable to write.


• Brittany call me for clarification of her assignments in Week 2. She is still in the center of a custody battle after her mother's recent death and is in semi-hiding at a friend's house. I will only call her one her cell phone until her aunt assumes custody. Meanwhile, Brittany is doing extremely well in her assignments and is very thoughtful about her work.

This is the point where my heart starts to reach out to these students, creating emotional faces that I cannot quite see but want to assure that everything will be okay.

BUSY couple of weeks!

Let me see if I can sum up things:

• Class count is 159 as of this moment. There is a backlog of applications of students waiting to enroll. The high school alone has hit 10,000 students with an additional 2000 K-8 students. We're a little top-heavy.
• I have a ridiculous number of students who have yet to turn in a single assignment. I'm on my second round of trying to contact everyone by phone. Sharon's having some weird issues and hasn't called any of our DEC students, at least not that I can see. I hate to think of all these students at a deficit because of a computer glitch.
• Students are definitely starting to show some personality. Kate has to let everyone know her opinion at all times, even if it isn't the most polite thing to say. Today a student tried to participate in a live class session with a baby crying in the background. Kate chimed in, "Wow, I'm glad I don't have kids." Nice. Amanda is very conscientious about her work and calls me often to go over her assignments for improvement. She's earning As. Jasmine just got out of the hospital but was afraid I'd be mad at her for falling a half week behind, so she had her mother email me with an apology. Jasmine is also an A student. Dustin, I swear, is trying to be The Ladies Man, straight out of the old SNL sketch. It wears thin when he's talking about romance and I'm trying to talk about Beowulf.
• Remember that Writers Read club I mentioned in the beginning of the blog? It restarted this afternoon. The talent is huge, but it is very difficult keeping the side conversations down. I would think that a club like this would have participants who would stop typing about ice cream and listen to their schoolmates. Sadly, they agreed that I should take away their chatting privileges when they can't be trusted to self-monitor.
• Speaking of self-monitoring, apparently this is a teaching term I didn't know but was assessed on in my last teacher observation. Thankfully, I'm somehow promoting it in my classroom without knowing exactly what it is in pedagogical terms. My new supervisor, unfortunately, has rubbed most of my teaching team the wrong way. She's told us we need to do things her way. This is after a month since she started handling our observations. Well, either (a) we already are and she hadn't noticed or (b) we tried it and found it didn't work for the majority of students we teach. I have less of a problem than most of my team seems to, mostly because I'm a big fan of Love and Logic as a teaching / discipline technique and my supervisor has been to several training sessions on it as well. Not sure.

Next week I'm assigning the first five-paragraph essay (aka the dreaded 1-3-1) to the class. I should keep a weekly running percentage of students who complete this essay. It's traditionally one of the assignments they skip. I don't mean to sound cynical, but skipped assignments are among my biggest challenges. When they can't be tracked down in person, they feel less accountable to me.

This week's announcement, where I apologize a bit

My dear students,

It's Week 2 and we are hitting our only grammar-intensive unit of the semester. My suggestion is to watch those Schoolhouse Rock videos, especially if your learning style is visual or musical. Call the Help Desk if you have trouble opening or viewing the videos. If you wish to have a quiz reset, please call me or email to set up a WebEx appointment to talk. We need to go over the material to find out what you need to correct, and I may retest you over the phone / WebEx.

It has come to my attention that the Help Desk hours were not posted in the classroom until late last week. This affected your ability to find information for your Scavenger Hunts. Please accept my apologies! They are Monday - Friday 8:30am to 8:30pm and Saturday 8:30am to 7:30pm. In the future, if you cannot find something in the classroom that you need to finish an assignment, please call or email me immediately so I can fix the problem. I may award some extra credit points for this help!

Speaking of the Scavenger Hunt as well as Extra Credit, make sure you can locate the Discussion Board under Classroom Tools. You can earn up to ten extra credit points this week by responding to the two Bell Ringers there. This is the last week I will have more than one available at once. After this, I close all Bell Ringers on Friday evening. Check it out and submit your thoughts!

Each week, a different English IV teacher will host the optional Back and Forth session. Get a new perspective of what we've covered and look ahead to what we're doing next! This week's Back and Forth host will be Ms. Dark. Join her tonight at 7pm in the usual place. I may stop in to say hello!

--Mrs. Fiddle

Till We Have Faces

It’s weird. When I start developing a rapport with a student and have no visual, I create a mental avatar for him or her. I don’t mean it’s like a game figure or anything like that, but I somehow decide, “I think Shelby has brown hair that’s very straight and that she dresses in rock concert t-shirts.” Whether or not these mental images are true is something I usually don’t find out until they hand in their final portfolio and include a photo. Even then, seeing the students walking and talking at graduation is a revelation in itself.

I don’t even have those avatars. I have 155 students (whoa, it was 153 this morning) who are names on a page and little else. I’m hoping to start reading more into their personalities and see what happens from there. Right now, they’re a chain of paper dolls, strung together in my gradebook. I need some crayons so I can start drawing in some details.

Gradebook update

It was repaired as of 9:30 this morning. Whew! I think once we did the troubleshooting and narrowed down where the problem was, it was an easy programming fix to go in and remove the one line of code, but it had to be done in Programming, not IT. I'm telling you, we may not have student behavior issues, but we definitely have our unique set of challenges.

UPDATE: NOW we know what happened with my Gradebook. I had 1st semester and 2nd semester open in different tabs in my browser. Somehow, one assignment JUMPED from one semester to the other, locking everything. Oops.

Topsy Turvy

It's the first day of the semester, and I only wanted to shoot my computer a couple of times. Thankfully, not because of the students.

There is a twofold dilemma in working on a semester basis. Not only do we completely change students, but we also change virtual classrooms. This means that all the work I did tweaking and perfecting my web pages from last semester has gone out the window and I have to start from scratch. Unfortunately for me, this has created a major computer glitch and I am locked out of my own grade book.

Here are the basics of what happened. On Tuesday, our Ed Tech gurus loaded our course (reading, assignments, etc.). They then found a bunch of errors and reloaded the course, but didn’t get rid of what was originally loaded. Meanwhile, one of my students decided to turn in a bunch of assignments but sent them to my Semester 1 class (the guidance department placed her there as a holding spot because she enrolled in the last week of the semester). Sure enough, I tried to enter her grades in the wrong places. Our IT department cannot repair this glitch and has kicked it up to the company that designs and runs the classroom software. Now things are completely locked up and will be at least for the rest of the day.

Fortunately, only one student so far has asked me to look at her assignments. The students I’ve been able to reach have been incredibly polite and keen to understand the workings of my class. One student has already looked ahead and started reading her independent novel, digging into Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in between her current assignments. Another has called me three times in ten minutes for help. I’ve told her that she’s working on a Scavenger Hunt and she needs to scavenge a little for the answers. She agreed with me, which was a relief because my phone has been ringing like mad all day with other calls.

It’s a brisk, topsy-turvy start to the semester.

My opening email to the new class

There are a few edits involved and links removed, but you get the general idea. If I could figure out how to attach my PowerPoint here, I would.

My Dear Students,

Here are a few quick items to get you prepped for your final English class of high school:

• I've attached some basic tips for how to truly succeed in this class. They're also in the classroom if you forget, but I think it's all common sense information.


• You have two teachers to call for help and advice! Mrs. D will primarily be grading students with an IEP (if you don't know what that means, most likely you don't have one), but we are both here to make sure you thrive in this class. If one of us doesn't know the answer, the other probably does.


• If you don't have Microsoft Word or Powerpoint, you will need to grab a copy of Open Office. It's free and extremely similar to Microsoft Office. Have I mentioned it's FREE? Go to http://www.openoffice.org/download/ and follow the directions.


• The first live session will be at 1pm on Thursday, January 19th. There are three other English IV teachers who will be sharing the session, so you'll get to work with students and teachers you wouldn't be able to otherwise. All sessions are recorded, but this is a chance for you to meet the English IV team, students in other English IV classes, and get a head start on your first few assignments.


• Check out the other features of the classroom! There is a Creative Corner where you can share some of your non-classroom writing. The Bell Ringers in the Discussion Board are worth extra credit points each week if you make the Friday evening deadline. Writers Read is an school club that will be starting up in February (I am the sponsor and would love for you to participate).

I am here with any questions or concerns. This is going to be a grand finale to your high school career if we work together!

--Mrs. Fiddle

I'm feeling old

Two of my students from last year got married yesterday. Technically they were Linda's students, but they were regular participants of my writing club, so they count us both as their English teachers. They never met in person until Graduation. By the summer, he was going to her church. By the fall, she had moved out of her parents' home and in with his family. They are expecting a daughter in June. I am easily old enough to be a mother to either of them. While I have plenty of students with children, this one seems to be affecting me more because of my deep affection for both of them. I'm worried for them but am hoping for nothing but the best. His family is providing a ton of love and support. They will need it but I think they'll be okay. I hope.

It's official

My class count for the upcoming semester is down to 154. Considering I still have the DEC students who will be working in self-contained classes (I'm just recording their grades), I suddenly have the promise of more time to give attention to each student. Frankly, I've never had this before. My class count has never been below 180! Considering one of the reasons I created this blog was to journal how an online teacher can form bonds with students who are distance learners, this creates a whole new window of opportunities. Well, at least until more students enroll and I'm flooded again.

SAVED!

This is still technically unofficial, but my class size is about to drop significantly. I had written earlier that our administration was trying to add another English teacher to my grade level to help with our swelling numbers. Linda yanked Keith and me into a conference call to inform us that TWO new teachers have been hired and will be joining us by Wednesday! Linda, Keith and I will have one new teacher on our team while the other one will work with the three teachers on the other English 12 team. Unfortunately, we are not adding any new DEC teachers, so Sharon will still be up to her eyeballs with our special needs students.

Most of me is thrilled. A tiny part of me is wondering what interactions I'll miss because that student will have someone else to guide them through the class. Ah well, this means I'll have more time to have meaningful interactions with the students I'll keep.

My first standout in the crowd

It's still six days until the new semester starts on the 17th, but I've already seen a flood of activity from one particular student. Janet is a returning student who "dropped out" last spring. In this particular case, she stopped logging in for 30 straight days and was withdrawn by our truancy department after several attempts to bring her back into the school fold. She didn't go anywhere else from here, unlike other students who stop logging in because they've gone to another school without informing us.

Janet, it seems, is back with a mission. She is technically in my upcoming class, which is down to 226 students (funny, it was 224 this morning). However, because she reenrolled within the last two weeks of this semester, she was placed in my current class just to hold her spot as a student. She decided to get a head start on the material by tearing straight through the first five weeks of my class, leaving only the major writing assignments to be completed later. She's done more in two days than some of my current students have in two months.

I had to call her and beg her to stand down for a few days. My teaching team is redoing a lot of the curriculum and some of what she's done may not make the cut for her actual classwork. She seemed frustrated that she couldn't finish the whole class at once and get on with her life. I think her year away from school taught her how much she wanted to be back in it, if only to finish.

Thank you, U.S. Government!

This news came in yesterday and is a big honking deal for the future aspirations of a lot of my kids:

"Graduates of all online charter schools... who plan to enter the military have historically been classified as “second tier” graduates in the eyes of the United States Military. Many... e-schools and advocacy organizations, have been fighting for our graduates on this issue since the very beginning of the school. We’ve had many graduates make the decision to enter the military after their time with us only to learn that they would be on the same level as a G.E.D. with less pay and, in many cases, unable to join. On December 31, after passing in Congress, the FY12 National Defense Authorization Bill (HR 1540) was signed into law by President Obama. The bill includes language to resolve this inequitable recruitment issue."

In the past few years, one of the reasons my class count dropped at the end of the year was that students who wanted to join the Marines or Air Force found their schooling choice to be a problem. They left my school and went back to their home school just in time to earn their diploma from, in the eyes of the military, a more legitimate institution. That always made me feel like my work was considered a sham. I work hard to educate my students!

Thank you, U.S. Government, for getting your collective tushes in alignment on this issue.

Looking ahead - some basic stats

There are two weeks before the next semester starts, but here is how my class stats are:

• I currently have a total of 238 students. There is hope that we will add another teacher to our team before the new semester starts, but that will probably still leave me with over 200 students. At this time, there are 6 English IV teachers.
  
• The birth dates of the students range from October of 1989 to November of 1996. I'm guessing that youngest one was put in my class by accident, but the guidance counselors, like me, are still out on Winter Break. Yes, my oldest students are 22. As long as they are 21 when the school year starts, they have one final year to graduate high school with a diploma. If they are 22 at the beginning of the school year, they are not admitted.
  
• 9 students have yet to officially enroll and are listed as "admitted". Once they log in for the first time, I will have to get them to hit the ground running wherever we are in the class.
• Unless something drastic happens, 4 will be expelled due to truancy before the new semester begins. My school tries to intervene and get them back on track for 30 days. After that, they are expelled and the courts are notified. If they log back in on Day 29, the clock is completely reset and there are no disciplinary consequences.
• 40 of these students have an IEP. Before your head starts to spin, let me explain a couple of things. I am the teacher who carries the responsibility of entering English grades for all of the senior students who are in the self-contained or Multiple Handicapped (MH) classes. I do not teach them directly and have actually been told to minimize contact with them so I don't confuse them too much. My hope is to figure out which of those students these are before I start sending out early emails. As for the others with IEPs, we have a great system in my department. Our Department of Exceptional Children (DEC) teachers are embedded, for all intents and purposes, in our classrooms. One DEC teacher is primarily responsible for handling the grading and accommodations for three of the six classes while another DEC teacher handles the other three classes. We work as a team to educate the students in live sessions online and through phone calls. My partner in my class is Sharon, who has been with my school for 8 years. She is one of the most knowledgeable resource teachers I have ever met. This is her first non-administrative position in a long time, but she has adjusted to being back in a teaching setting like the pro she is.
• Because Sharon handles 2 other teachers' DEC students, the 4 of us work as a team in our live teaching sessions. Linda is the team leader and has been in the classroom longer than I've been alive. Keith is a second year teacher who originally worked at our schools technical help desk while finishing his certification. I'm in such good company! The other 4 teachers work together in a similar fashion, but there's been some rollover on that team. A new teacher was added in November, taking pressure off our increasing student load. Another teacher gave notice and quit as of New Year's Eve. Unfortunately, her replacement won't start until after January 13th. We may have to split the resigned teacher's students and grade their remaining work while finishing our own work. I will know more about this tomorrow.

I think that's enough background for now! Please note that all names are and will be changed or at least obscured.

More background info

Aside from teaching 12th grade English, I also run one of the few student clubs the school offers. I wrote about it last year when it first started and am reposting it here for your enjoyment:

We were given a challenge to create student activities and clubs while remaining in an online environment. My brain spun figuring out how to have our kids do something together but while remaining physically separate. It quickly occurred to me that we have a chat room / classroom program, Elluminate, where students could chat together. However, just sitting around and typing back and forth is not an activity.

Finally, my brain latched on to the last online class I took as a student. It was a creative writing class where students commented on each other’s work but never met in person. The only time I ever met my teacher was when I was required to attend an open mic reading night on the physical campus. At the time, I wanted to complain that we could have had our own reading circle if we had used microphones…

“Our students have microphones! They could have a virtual open mic reading group!” I immediately called my principal with this idea. In his quiet but affirming way, he urged me to iron out any details and write a formal proposal. My mentor teacher proofed it and suggested the name “Writers Read”. The proposal was submitted… and approved. Now what was I supposed to do? I had never sponsored a club before. My school had never run clubs before. I was stepping into complete foreign territory.

I created a PowerPoint presentation for the English department to send out to their students, asking for their participation. Over the next few weeks, the trickle of student interest turned into a dozen confirmed readers. I started to get even more nervous because they were actually enthusiastic. What if the microphones didn’t work? What if they forgot to show? What if they wanted to show and we had a technical issue with Elluminate?

The day of the meeting, students started calling me to make sure Writers Read was still happening. I assured them if they had signed up and cleared their writing with me (no profanity, no over the top violence), all they needed was their microphone. About 20 minutes before the meeting started, I logged in to prep the Elluminate room. There were already a dozen students waiting for me! My jaw dropped so hard it almost took the microphone off my own headset. I clicked on my mic, thanked them for showing up so early and asked for them to be patient while I got settled. Thankfully, my mentor teacher arrived online soon after me and started turning on chat privileges and chatting with the students while I loaded the club graphics.

The Elluminate room started to swell with students and curious faculty. By the appointed time to start the meeting hit, we were at 28 people logged in. Considering only half the student population was currently enrolled in an English class to even hear about this, and considering most Elluminate sessions only have ten attendees at the most, I was hopping up and down in my chair. I explained to the group that we had a list of students ready to read and turned on the microphone of the student who was listed to go first. We heard a sharp intake of breath before he burst out a rhythmic poem called “Love Strong”. The wave of applause icons flooded the chat room and the compliments poured in before I could ask for feedback.

This continued for an hour. One girl rapped about her running ability. Another read the first chapter of a novel she has written. We closed with a haunting poem of a young man with a deep voice, imploring his friend to not attempt suicide. He let us know the poem worked, which I believed with that amount of eloquence.

I started to wind down the meeting, asking for suggestions. As a unit, they all roared demand more meetings than the monthly ones I had scheduled. They wanted more time to talk with each other and to share their writing. They told me this first meeting was what made their school experience feel perfect because they knew they weren’t alone in a virtual vacuum. I made promises to change the meeting schedule after the next one in February and let them chat with each other for a while longer. They had, within a little over an hour, formed a community.