Have You Ever...

Have you ever wanted to do this?

Listen To This

This guy sits in the first row of my first period class. Yeah, it's a commercial, but it's true all the same.

Do you have this kid in your class?

Great Day Times Two

Today was my lucky day!

First, I got a note from a parent asking what I was doing to her daughter. She said this is the first time she's enjoyed an English class. Not only was I honored, but I was surprised. We're studying A Tale of Two Cities, which is not normally a fan favorite.

Secondly, I was asked to attend a union meeting with a few of the local big-wigs, but this meant I had to get a sub for the second half of the school day. Not only did I get my favorite sub (and her grandson is in my class--odd, eh?), but when I arrived at the meeting they told me I was mistakenly invited and I should go enjoy my afternoon. They already paid for the sub, so woo-hoo!

I'm now caught up on my grading!

Class Size Update

I just learned some new information about why our classes are so big. The special ed. department stopped servicing 38 students in English, so those students were added to English with no additional support. Not only that, but those students were placed in groups of 9-10 into four classes taught by two teachers.

This completely changes the dynamics in those classes and creates an additional burden on those teachers.

Also, we did not get an extra class (we normally get one class per 32 students), and special ed. did not lose one. We take on additional load with no help, and they have less to do with fewer students. Grrr.

I've been asked by a couple teachers to follow up on this with the union on the grounds of workload, burden, and number of special ed. students per class (we usually limit this to 2-3).

This does not serve the students well at all.

A Break

I'm going golfing today. No work today. Posts will be forthcoming, probably this weekend.

Students are More Than Numbers

My wife sent me this. From where, I'm not sure.

Pack 'Em In

I attended a meeting today with one of the assistant principals about the size of classes around the building and in English in particular. We have six classes around the building overloaded. In English we have 15 classes overloaded, all Freshmen and Sophomores.

The district has decided to simply add a credit retrieval class during the day to take 30 students out of the Sophomore English classes. This means that instead of those students getting instruction from a teacher for the Freshman English class they failed, they will sit at a computer with an online program to complete.

Here are my concerns:

a) The core classes are still massively overcrowded. Class sizes have risen from an average of 26 to 32 in five years.

b) The students in the credit retrieval class will not be instructed by a teacher but learning from an online program. We have data showing this sets them up for failure because they don't get the aligned curriculum, so they often fail the next course in the sequence. The online courses do not have the rigor and do not align with our curriculum.

c) The teacher conducting the credit retrieval is a math teacher, not an English teacher. Regardless, he won't be assessing student work anyway; the computer company does that. Essentially he just helps students keep going, so the kids get no extra help.

d) This is a stop-gap measure hoping that fewer students enroll next year.

Besides hiring more teachers I'm not sure what the answer is, but I know this isn't it.

The cynic in me says to let the state test scores drop this year to get the district's and community's attention, but this would hurt the kids. When teachers work extra hours with the larger classes and keep the scores up, no one feels compelled to intervene. However, we're reaching a breaking point.

Next Monday's final student count meeting will be interesting.