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.