We just became a "Corrective Action School"

Whatever that means. It kills me. I love my school and my students. We (meaning everyone: teachers, parents, school aides, janitors, and yes, even administration) work so hard to make a difference for our students. Just because we are a community school and we take EVERYONE who walks in the door, including children from a transitional shelter that is in our catchment area, we suffer the consequences of having low-performing students. It is not a reflection on the actual teaching or achievement of our "home grown" students, the ones we keep from Pre-K through 5th grade. What do they want schools to do? Shut their doors? Only let in a select few? I am proud of the fact that we educate everyone equally. I am proud to have over 80% ELLs in my class. The media always puts down these "underperforming" schools and it's so sad that my school has been categorized this way. I actually think that some of these schools are actually the best schools in the country because of all the hard work and dedication it takes to keep everyone learning. Talk about differentiation!!!. I won't give up. I just hope that we can at least maintain our "Well-developed" rating that we got on last year's quality review, I feel that this recognition at least helps us keep our heads above water and have faith that we are doing our best every day. The British guy said so!

Illiteracy update

For those of you who read my blog regularly, you know that I am really concerned about literacy with my first graders. Some of you who have followed my blog from the beginning might remember a post where I talked about being trained for a one-to-one tutoring program that we were supposedly going to implement for at least 30 first graders this year. I remember when I posted it, feeling so hopeful that maybe, just maybe we were finally going to do something to help our strugglers. In the back of my mind, I worried that it wouldn't happen, that it wouldn't get scheduled. Everytime I had my doubts, an administrator would say "we're still ranking the kids," or " don't worry, it's all taken care of," etc.

It's December. This program was supposed to start the first week in October. We still haven't started. I am so desperate to get it off the ground that I have repeatedly inquired about when I am tutoring and which kid I will be tutoring. I even made up a possible tutoring schedule using times when a school aide could be with my class (like right when they come up from lunch), which I now can't even offer because I need to use that time for oral storytelling. I offered for them to pay off my preps and tutor then. I have tried all I can so that this training, which probably cost at least $15,000 can actually be put to some good use. Why does administration waste our time and money like this????? It's ridiculous. It makes me so angry. I can't count on administration to do ANYTHING for my students EVER!!!! It's all up to me. That's the honest truth.

Is this in my job description?

I spent about 30 minutes today chopping 3 inches off about 500 copies of reading logs, writing paper choices, homework assignments, etc. You see, we are having another copy crisis at my school. I was told that this crisis is city-wide. Apparently (according to my AP), the chancellor has put a "freeze" on all new purchases, including copy paper. We have been without white paper for almost a week right now. At first, no one said anything (communication anyone?), so the aides were doing our copies on colored paper, which is a complete waste of precious resources, plus a waste of paper since I can't have the kids doing their writing workshop pieces on pink paper. The copy machine for teachers, the one that is still my nemesis (This one), has been making really funky copies lately. They are all messed up and scrambled. Anyway, I discovered that if you choose "Tray 2" with 8 1/2 X 14'' legal size paper, the copies come out normal, plus I have plenty of the legal size paper. So, I spent an entire prep making all of the copies I need for the week on legal size paper and then I had to chop off the 3 inches to make all of those copies usable. Don't worry, I saved the 3 inch extras to make little mini-books for the kids to write in during choice time. What really gets to me though is that we are expected to have ample writing paper and reading logs and consistent homework, yet we have to jump through so many hoops just to provide the basics. I feel like I need to be a magician sometimes and make things appear out of thin air. When my "office" friends ask me what my job is like, I tell them, imagine being the CEO of a small company where you are expected to oversee employees, communicate with associates, and make a profit without email, copies, a phone, or any office supplies.

I'm writing a letter to the parents this week asking for a donation of a reem of copy paper for those families who can help. I hope I get at least 5.