“Age Appropriate” October 3, 2007

Today’s topic is age-appropriate classes.

Development and Philadelphia history dictate the following:

An 8th grader is 13 or 14; no more than 15.

A 7th grader is 12 or 13, no more than 14.

A 6th grader is 11 or 12, no more than 13.

A 5th grader is 10 or 11, no more than 12.

There is a practice in Philadelphia that if a student is the “no more than” age, they get bumped up to the next grade to keep them “age appropriate.” This is done in conflict with a practice in Philadelphia that if a child fails a grade and does not attend summer school, the child will have to repeat the grade.

We have been dealing with this again at Jones this year, as with every year. It’s a way of pushing the kids through the system faster but it ends up making no sense.

A child struggles in 2nd grade, so he is failed and retained for a year. He continues through 2nd grade again and does fine; maybe he’s now in the middle of his class in performance rather than at the very bottom.

Then, the student reaches 6th grade and someone decides that because he is *already* 13 because he was a struggling student at one point and was retained, he must be moved up to the 7th grade so that when he is in 8th grade, he will be no older than 14. Even if the child has caused zero behavior problems and is learning in his 6th grade classroom just fine with no appearance of grade-inappropriate behaviors.

So, the kid jumps a year (having been retained once) and immediately falls behind because he missed a WHOLE YEAR of educational instruction, reinforcement, and practice.

Why, I ask, did we retain this child in the first place? What did we hope to accomplish in the first place? And what message are we sending about school when we jump kids entire grades like that? I have two answers, neither of which is very pleasant:

“6th grade isn’t that important?”

“Your age is more important than your ability?”

Counter-intuitive to our goals, no?

Thoughts on the Ending of Week 3 September 28, 2007

As of tomorrow afternoon, we will have been in school for 13 days.  This time next week, 10% of the school year will be over.

Not that I’m a math teacher or anything.

Here are some thoughts on those first 13 days of school.

Things I have Improved
As a teacher, I have gotten much better at many things.  One of those things is recognizing my own strengths and weaknesses as a teacher.  I do not need to be the primary “explainer” in my classroom.  Each of my students can be empowered as teachers.  If I’m working with a student who just isn’t getting it the way that I’m explaining it and someone near her gets it, I can ask that person to try to explain it more clearly.  More often than not, the student does and both students continue doing their work productively.

The next thing is that I have gotten much better about data and record keeping.  Much better.  I have always been organized, but this is ridiculous.  I have three ring binders for:

• Recording parent contacts
• Discipline forms
• Student Data
• Lesson Plans
• Curriculum Notes
• And much, much more.

I never have to go searching for anything anymore.  If a student gets out of line, I know where my detention letters are and my running list of students who have been assigned detention with me.   I have a Detention Wall outside my classroom door for posting the list of students who owe me time and what day that time is scheduled to be served.

It is making a difference in discipline.

I am also running a field trip for the entire school.  Seriously.  The entire school.  We’ll see how this works.

Things the District Still Sucks At

• Understanding that retaining a child one year does not mean the child should be socially promoted two years later.  I have had two struggling students bumped up to the 8th Grade because they are “over age” (14 in the 7th grade).  One of these students has expressed concern to me that the 8th grade work is too hard for her.  Of course it is.  She missed 7th grade.
• Understanding that special education students have IEPs and that IEPs are legal contracts that *must* be followed regardless of other issues within the school.
• Understanding that in order for teachers to create discipline in their classrooms, the school needs to back up the teachers.  If I assign a detention and receive parental permission to hold a student (in the form of a signed letter) I should not have to send my students out of the building at dismissal because of some perceived threat or fight.  These children owe me time and we both agree on that.  Let them serve their time; don’t fight it.  Especially when you keep telling me to assign detentions for misbehavior.  Assigning detentions does NOTHING if you never let me HOLD DETENTIONS.  Seriously.  I would think that this one wouldn’t need explanation.
• I cannot be in two places at once and you have no right to my prep time unless you are paying me extra for it.  I shouldn’t have to spend 10 minutes every day walking a class from Lunch to CAPA when they aren’t my responsibility during that time.  Yet, somehow, you schedule meetings on my prep time when I have to walk the kids.  Is this magic time?  Seriously, is it?  Because I can’t Apparate or Disapparate without splinching myself and N.E.W.T.s were not required for teacher credentialing.

Oh, and children are fundamentally insane.  So am I.  It works well.

The Real Day 9 of School September 25, 2007

Yesterday, my team and I had a meeting.  We are becoming the team that is getting the special ed inclusion class.  We will have to team lesson plan with the special education teacher because we are going to have a bunch of part-time special education students mainstreamed into one of our three classes.

Logistically, I feel a nightmare coming on.   The students move classrooms next Monday.

Roster? I hardly know ‘er. (Day 4.5) September 10, 2007

Upon trying to write out my students’ roster for them so that I could copy it and bring it to the classroom for the first day of school, I realized something.

The roster has my kids going to two places at once.

Bad. Not complete roster.

I have a headache.

School. No School. School. Team. No Team. Team (?) Days 2 and 3. September 7, 2007

Yesterday, I was so exhausted after school that I couldn’t bring myself to detail the events of the day. I told myself that when I got home today, I would make a post explaining what happened yesterday. Then I would make a post explaining what happened today. Then I was exhausted when I got home. Now I’m finally making the post.

Day 2: Jones loses the Annex (Alternative) Building

On Tuesday, I mentioned the possibility that my school might lose its alternative building due to the district wanting to move an outside group (CEP) into the building to lease the space. On Tuesday afternoon, that became a reality. All of the teachers at Jones Annex were to pack up their classrooms and move into the first floor of Jones. Any regular classrooms on the first floor of Jones were to move to the second floor of Jones. My Special Education Colleague had to move her stuff from 112 (where she moved it at the very end of last year) to the Assistant Principal’s office on the 2nd floor–which was to become her new classroom. The AP was moving to the Counselor’s Suite (which is an incredible sacrifice due to the obscenely small space available in there). By the end of the day, Tifanie had her boxes and materials out of the classroom, but still needed to move her furniture upstairs. Meanwhile, I was continuing the battle to have my classroom materials organized and finish moving furniture.

Of course, prior to all of this happening, we had the privilege misfortune of sitting through a professional development DVD that stopped at 7-8 different points where we had “activities” we needed to complete. This took two hours. It was mind-numbing. And it didn’t tell me anything that I hadn’t also learned in Teach For America Literacy Support sessions in Institute last summer.

We, as a school, resigned ourselves to our fate for at least the first week of school. Our principal began drafting a letter to parents in hopes that they would be able to continue the fight where we failed. Everyone agrees that this decision was among the worst things that could be done to our student population. Our Principal is continuing to fight it, but all seems lost.

Day 3: What all logic and powers of persuasion fail to do, legalese does

This morning, we all show up at school and in our announcements meeting, we are told that the Alt is moving into the first floor and so the classrooms on the first floor (including the rooms that have been used as storage) are being moved out and organized today. Somewhere in all of this, someone finds all of the unused math materials from the after school program (Power Hour) and summer school for 2-3 previous years. I go downstairs and claim “dibs” on the 7th Grade math materials on behalf of the 7th Grade math teachers. Jackpot. I have plenty of material now to use for instruction and assignment if a student is out sick for an extended absence. While I’m downstairs claiming dibs on lots of stuff and bringing it upstairs, the Alternative School Principal gets a call from Our Principal telling him to stop moving classrooms and furniture and claiming an hour moratorium because of things going on in the region.

About 45 minutes later, we get an announcement: The Decision to Move the Alternative School to the Main Building has been Reversed.

The Alt is staying at the Annex. We have our first floor back. And now, all of the teachers who moved their classrooms from the first floor need to move back.  My special education colleague gets to once again return her stuff to 112. Again. Sheesh. We’re teachers, not a moving company. Shouldn’t we be paid extra for this? Of course not.

All of this happened by about 10:30 a.m. this morning. You might wonder: why the sudden reversal? Did our regional superintendent finally see reason and space constraints? Of course not. This is the School District of Philadelphia.

The grand scheme was ultimately defeated by the lawyers. The Annex already held a non-profit group that did work with students and the district has been given them that space for some time. CEP wanted to lease the whole building; the non-profit group would have had to pay CEP rent. The non-profit has no maintenance/building funds because they work in conjunction with the district. I assume the district has a contract with them for that space even though they don’t pay. So the district can’t kick them out onto the street. The plan ultimately fell through because the District couldn’t house a non-profit and for-profit group within the same school building.

No logic. No reason. Not in our students’ interest. Pure contract law and prior rights to the space. Welcome to a district run as a business rather than a system of schools. (We don’t have a School Board, we have a School Reform Commission. We don’t have a Board Chairman, we have a CEO.)

That wasn’t the worst part of my day. Or really, the day of any of the 7th grade teachers.

Downtown struck again at around 11:00 a.m. when they called the school and said that due to enrollment, we had to cut at least three teachers — we were overstaffed. Cutting teachers at this point screws everyone over. Especially those teachers.

My Teach For America colleague who has been planning for 7th grade social studies got told that she’s our new 8th grade social studies teacher. She has to move classrooms. The 8th grade teacher, it seems, is gone. The 7th grade isn’t getting another teacher. Our class sizes are too low (22-25 students each; contractual max is 33). So, instead of having six groups of kids, we have five. Instead of having 20-25 student in our classes, we are starting the year with 26 – 29. Oh, and the entire roster needs to change because somehow between the two math teachers, the two literacy teachers, and the science teacher, we have to teach all five sections social studies.

There are three ways do this (Math1, Math2, Read1, Read2, Sci). A block of M/R is 90 minutes. A block of Sci/SS is 45 minutes.

(M1 + R1) and (M2 + R2 + S).

Option 1: Best for Behavior Management and Classroom Instruction

M1 and R1 teach their sections only math and reading. M1 teaches math and science, R1 teaches reading and social studies.

M2, R2, and S group. M2 and R2 teach Math and Reading to their three sections. S teaches science and social studies to their three sections.

Option 2: Best for Certification Issues — in this case, M2 is me. In the previous case, the Ms and Rs were interchangeable.

M1: Three sections of Math (M1, R1, S)

M2: Two sections of Math (M2 and R2) and two sections of Social Studies (M2 and R2)

R1: Two sections of Reading (M1, R1) and two sections of Social Studies (M1 and R1)

R2: Three sections of Reading (M2, R2, S)

S: Five sections of Science () and one section of social studies (S).

Option 3: Worst for behavior management, instruction, and certification. This of course was the one that was first proposed and the only one I’ve heard on the table. (M2 is still me)

R1: Three Sections of Reading (R1, M1, S)

M1: Three Sections of Math (R1, M1, S)

R2: Two Sections of Reading (R2, M2) and Two Sections of Social Studies (R1, R2)

M2: Two Sections of Math (R2, M2) and Two Sections of Social Studies (M1, M2)

S: Five Sections of Science (ALL) and One Section of Social Studies (S)

In the last option, you might not see it, but R2 is seeing R1’s kids — kids she never sees otherwise. And M2 is seeing M1’s kids — kids she never sees otherwise. That kind of schedule spells management disaster at my school; I know because I had to deal with it at last year. It was miserable. Management is hell because the students think of themselves as X’s kids and it requires a lot of conversations, trust, teamwork and cooperation to pull off the kind of discipline required to make that kind of cross-team connection work. My school lacks a lot of that and forcing us into that situation would make it worse, not better.

Hopefully there will be a viable solution when we show up tomorrow. I have to have trust in the Leadership Team. Most of the time, they know what they were doing. I just wish they would involve the 5 teachers it actually affects into the rostering conversation.

School starts Monday.

Back to School: Day One September 4, 2007

Last year, I was horrible about updating my livejournal to reflect the events and cultural moment of my school. I was barely surviving daily life — blogging, it turns out, is not one of the basic necessities of life. I am going to try to be more consistent about it this year, in part because there appears to be an unfurling story that I want to have documented for posterity.

Today, we returned to school. I have been planning for the past couple of months, but today was the day that you actually bring all of the plans and materials back into the school and start setting up your classroom.

Well, theoretically. . .

What I did Today

At the end of last year, I moved all of my stuff from room 323 to room 329. I had been told that my classroom would be moving there and all of my materials needed to be moved to my new classroom. Both of those things were true, but over the summer, they changed my classroom AGAIN from 329 to 324. So, I had to move all of my belongings from 329 to 324.

In addition, I had to go out and clean out 324 from the materials that the previous teacher (a long term substitute) and apparently another teacher left behind. Things I found today include:

(1) Nearly all of the teacher guides to all of the seventh grade math text books.
(2) The entire set of 7th grade science materials (that were apparently chillin’ out in this classroom last year. It seriously filled up a cabinet. I found them at the end of the day today.
(3) The roster binder (attendance documents) for the old 7th grade science teacher’s sixth grade class.
(4) Old math computation workbooks, unused.
(5) 8th Grade Math PSSA workbooks.
(6) 2 each of the following: 7th grade math curriculum, 7th grade science curriculum, 8th grade literacy curriculum.
(7) Literacy across the curriculum workbook sets for 6-8 science and 6-8 math (3 total)
(8) A whole set of Global History textbooks from at least before 2003.
(9) A classroom set of dictionaries.
(10) Lots and lots of colored construction paper. I mean, lots.
(11) Two copies of <U>The Best American Short Stories – 1987</U> (?)
(12) Two broken overhead projectors.
(13) A lot of trash including old, outdated science workbooks.
(14) 5th grade social studies materials (WHY?)

My cabinets are now empty (except the one full of science materials, which we will address tomorrow) and ready for me to move around tomorrow.

What I am Doing Tonight

(1) Purchase a piece of wood that is approximately 26″ by 12″ to nail into my locker door so that I have a secured locker.
(2) Acquire milk crates for storing supplies.
(3) Purchase table buckets for putting classroom materials into.
(4) Pack up my car with the last of my school materials so that I can do classroom organization and set-up tomorrow.

Anyway, that’s the least interesting part of the first day back at school. No return to school would be complete without discussion of state testing.

So here it is.

My school didn’t make AYP. We are still in Corrective Action for the millionth year in a row. But we did reach our targets for more of our student population. In 2006, we met 19 of 29 targets. This year, we met 26 of 29 of our targets. (Among other things, our white kids failed to meet the target in Math and our English Language Learners failed to meet the target in literacy).

However, our school growth leader made an excellent double bar graph that represented the data from year to year. She compared each class to itself and demonstrated that every class that comes into Jones performs at higher and higher levels each year. The longer they stay with us, the better that they do. We are making a difference; we just haven’t gotten to the state target yet.

None of our target categories or target areas slid backwards this year, either. EVERYBODY grew. THAT is amazing. That means I didn’t screw my kids over last year as much as I feared.

The Bad News

The Region (districts within the District) decided unilaterally and behind the back of my school’s administrators this summer that they were going to close our alternative building and lease the space to CEP. So, we now have to figure out how we’re going to house 6-8 more teachers and 200 more students at our main building next week. Chances are, by then, the district will realize that this is an impossible task to accomplish because Jones simply does not have the instructional classroom space to house that many more students. Even if we held classes in closets, there wouldn’t be enough.

Ultimately, what the Region is trying to do will have no direct benefit to our students. CEP will be a resource center for young adult education throughout the district and the region and our students will have to suffer for the existence of that resource center. It is a horribly conceived, horribly implemented plan and the fact that the Region is trying to do it behind our backs SUCKS.

This isn’t going to happen on my principal’s watch. If it does, he might very well leave this school — which would be a damn shame. The only reason I was willing to risk sticking around this school for a second year was because I serve under one of the best principals in Philadelphia and I’m privileged enough to know it. Whenever he speaks, he renews my belief that administrators can be in it for the children and can expect their teachers to be in it for that same goal as well. I trust his decisions because I know he is making them with the same best interest in mind that I make them everyday in my classroom.

If this was to get to the point where my principal would actually consider leaving my school, I might very well lead the teachers into the revolt down to the alternative building and have us chained to the building until they are willing to make the decision this year that is in the best interest of our students and their families. For so many reasons — overcrowding, separating students, violent offenses — this is not.