New to the Neighborhood

  

This is about at close as my city kids will come to wildlife.  In fact, they refused to have their backs up to the cage to have their picture taken.  They decided to hang out with the armadillo while I went to Valencia yesterday to pick up all of my textbooks and have a brief training for my new J-O-B.

P.S.  Don't worry.  They didn't touch the creature.  They just looked from afar and PRETENDED like they were not nervous to be so close to it.

So what are they going to do . . . not rehire me?????

I am so highly annoyed.  In fact, I don't even know a word that even comes close to describing my feelings right now.  We have to submit our yearly lesson plans before we are allowed to leave campus and officially check out on the last day of school.  That is all well and good.  I totally understand that.  You see, because there might just be some teacher out there who chooses to show "films" daily or have "free time" and heaven forbid, not teach bell to bell.  However, I teach intensive reading.  And it is INTENSE.

My student population is taken from the lowest performing 20th percentile of the school.  When given a choice between Choice A:  Scribble down my lesson plans so that I understand the targeted benchmarks, essential questions, learning objectives, vocabulary and formative assessment for each day or Choice B:  Write formal lesson plans and upload them onto the school server, I choose Plan A.  I teach THREE different classes/curriculums which according to my contract is ONE too many.  My focus has been on moving students and getting them out of the lowest performing bracket.  My focus has NOT been on how fancy shmancy  my lesson plans look and whether or not someone else can read them.  They are FOR ME.

Here I sit . . . with my laptop . . .  rewriting one year's worth of lesson plans and transforming them from informal lesson plans to FORMAL lesson plans . . .  so that I can officially leave my job in 6 days from now.  These lesson plans are going to be kept forever.  You see, someone might just sub-poena them.  They are a public document.  But they better hurry and sub-poena them quickly.  They will be deleted from the school server by August 12, 2011 if I don't return as an employee for the school system.  O.K.  Venting done.  Back to writing lesson plans.

Can I tell you how excited I am to be treated as a RESPONSIBLE adult in my new J-O-B???????