Recently my partner teacher and I split our classes. She took the top 15 students and I took the remainder. The good news is that 4 of our SPED kids went with her!! The bad news is I forgot how exhausting it was to teach SPED by myself 5 periods a day. So far the results are fantastic, and it is definitely enjoyable and rewarding. I love those kids to death. Bonus - I get to teach the kids who struggle with math but haven't been identified as SPED. So they get the instruction they need that if it weren't for the co-teaching, they would never receive. It makes their chances of improving their test scores and understanding increase greatly. But, it is truly exhausting. I feel I could sleep for 10 years. I am teaching at the community college this morning. After that I have an appointment with my shrink and then I need to go across town to get my computer and a new charger. After that I need to get some medicine for my daughter, who I suspect has an ulcer, because she is broke. She also needs some non-solid food to eat while the medicine takes effect. Luckily I got a community college paycheck that I didn't realize was coming, so I have the money to do it.
Yesterday I didn't teach. I had the day to write education plans for my SPED students. I am way far behind and definitely out of compliance as far as the law is concerned regarding these plans. I went to go in and finish a plan that I had started last month, and saw that the idiot department head at my school, who doesn't know how to write a proper plan, had re-written the entire thing so that it was completely out of compliance. I spent 2 hours re-writing and finishing it. Luckily I had printed a copy beforehand, so I didn't have to re-analyze the data. I was so pissed. I finished 2.5 plans. While I was working, 2 teachers emailed me to complain about my sub. I deleted and kept working. WTF? I should stop working and go take over because the sub is incompetent? Just because I am on campus? I don't think so. They absolutely refuse to let me work from home on these days, even though I could get twice as much work done. Idiots.
Another interesting thing that happened yesterday: I had analyzed the data for our 1st period math intervention classes following the most recent standardized test. The results were absolutely dismal. I met with the principal and one of the women from the district office who is supposed to help us get our school get its collective act together. There are 4 math intervention classes. Every student in the 4 classes fell far below the state standards in math at the end of testing last year. In other words, these kids have gaps in their understanding. They are not working at grade level and they need help. In January, I split the kids into four groups: falls far, far, far, far below; falls far, far, far below; falls far, far below; and falls far below. I used test scores to divide them up. (I have no special authority - I am not the department head and I don't lead in any assigned way. The principal let me take charge of this thing because I wanted to, and he knows everything I do is data driven.) When I analyzed the data, I found that the top two groups of kids had shown significant drops in their scores between the 2nd quarter and 3rd quarter benchmark tests. Almost all of the kids' scores went down. I'm talking about kids who were falling far below are now falling far, far, far, far below. In the bottom two groups of kids, the higher of the two groups showed a modest average gain in their scores. Half of those kids had increased their scores, and the other half decreased. The bottom group, which is my group, showed significant gains. Every single one of them. Now, this isn't about me, it's about the program I am using. The kids are the ones that did the work, not me. It's not about my teaching. It's a direct reflection of the effectiveness of this program that I learned how to use while working at one of the top districts in the state.
When I shared this data and my thoughts about what was happening, both the principal and the woman from the district reacted by telling me what a good job I was doing. I kept saying it's not about me, and the reason I am telling you this is because we need to get the other teachers to use this program because then we won't have to get these takedowns like we did on Wednesday. I don't know if they got the message. It's really frustrating. We can help these kids. We can fill in those gaps and get them up to grade level, or at least closer. It's such a simple program to follow. All the work is already done as far as the teacher's job. All the teacher has to do is administer. Time the drills, give the kids stars on their charts when they earn them, etc. EASY AS PIE!! If only I ruled the world.
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