Germs are the Devil

So, one of the downfalls of being a kindergarten teacher? You're exposed to SO many yucky germs and are susceptible to getting sick. Case in point...

I was sick back in December and saw a doctor. She determined I had bronchitis and gave me a breathing treatment and a round of antibiotics for the ear infection that I had also incurred. After taking the medication, I thought I had gotten better and actually felt relatively decent through the holiday season.

However, last week (Wednesday, to be exact) I felt myself getting sick again. I managed to get myself through the rest of the week (and a formal observation that I had with my principal on Friday) but I didn't have the time over the weekend to nurse myself back to health - I was working at my part-time job - and I think that's what did me in.

I woke up Monday feeling terrible but decided to tough it out and go to work. Low and behold, I didn't make it past 9:30 that morning. I asked my principal to go home and I've been in bed or parked on my sofa ever since.

I went into the doctor on Tuesday and she sent me to the hospital to get chest x-rays, thinking that it could be pneumonia. On top of that, she gave me a steroidal shot to "kick start" my immune system along with another breathing treatment and an aggressive antibiotics and medication treatment - five different medications in all!

It's been horrible. I hate being sick and being away from my classroom and the kids. But I know this comes as a warning - that I need to slow and take care of myself and not work myself to death with two jobs and school. So my doctor gave me a medical leave of absence until next week so that I can fully recover.

Although I don't mind all the extra rest I've been getting, the antibiotics that I was put on are incredibly strong and make me sick to my stomach. I just want to be better already!

So forgive me if I have been lagging on the posts...I will try to get back into the swing of things soon. Till then...

Movie Review: Won't Back Down

As I was sitting at home this evening, lounging on my sofa in front of my TV, and relishing in the fact that I don’t have to tutor tomorrow, I decided to peruse the current Pay Per View listings. Low and behold, Won’t Back Down had an early release and since I’d heard mixed reviews about it, decided to see what it was about. (It’s a “teacher movie” and I’m a teacher…can you blame me?)

For those of you unfamiliar with the movie scene, Won’t Back Down was a movie that was released back in September that met disappointing box-office numbers and even worse reviews. Starring Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight and Mona Lisa Smile) and Viola Davis (The Help and Eat Pray Love), Wont’ Back Down tells the story of two determined parents that will fight against all odds to get their children the education they believe they deserve. Set at an inner city school in Pittsburg, the movie chronicles the challenges of Gyllenhaal’s character – a single mother, working two jobs in order to provide for her third grader – whose attempts to get her failing child into a different classroom and school fall on deft ears. Along the way she meets Davis’ character – a third grade teacher at her child’s elementary school – who is also searching for an alternative school choice for her young son. The two women band together in an effort to get both parents and teachers alike on board and ready to take on the teacher’s union and the dissenting school board.

Photo courtesy of Walden Media

The movie’s premise is based on parent trigger laws – laws that enable parents to change the administration and staffing of failing and under-performing schools and essentially “take over” the school in question. (Prior to this film, I knew very little about such laws but after reading more about them after watching this movie, found out that my home state, California, was the first state to pass such legislation back in 2010.)

Overall, I thought the movie was moving and I applauded the tenacity and drive of the two main characters. Fully aware that Walden Media’s major backer is a money man who’s pro-school reform, I thought the movie touched on some relevant topics that I, as a teacher, face on a daily basis – teacher union bureaucracy, the pitfalls of teacher tenure (i.e. protecting bad teachers), and parent/teacher collaboration…or lack thereof. Although the film wasn’t all “union bashing,” they made one point very clear: teacher unions are failing both the teachers they serve and the students and families that ultimately employ them (because without the families and students, teachers wouldn’t have jobs).

Photo courtesy of Walden Media

I just wish that more parents were like the two depicted in the film. I’m lucky if I get ¼ of my families in for Back to School Night or Open House…let alone a parent who wants to consistently volunteer and help out in my classroom. Many parents are uneducated – especially when it comes to special education – and they aren’t sure how to help their child, which does them a huge disservice when the student is not getting an education fit for them. And God forbid that the school district or administrators would actually give them information that might help them! Yet, I risk my job security when I attempt to do what is in the best interest of the child.

Schools are failing and, unfortunately, one teacher speaking her mind is not going to move mountains. Schools do need change – desperately – but it needs to be strategic, district-wide, explicit and it needs to start with the men and women who are in positions of leadership and power.

Ho, Ho, Holidays

Argh, so I know it's been a while since I last posted. Time has been getting away from me lately...quite a bit more than it already had been. As if working full-time as a teacher, taking two graduate courses at the university, and being involved in a plethora of activities on my work job campus (i.e. being Technology Facilitator, being on School Site Council and our Instructional Leadership Team, and being Waterford Coordinator) wasn't enough, I have gone back to tutoring part-time for a tutoring agency, working an additional 10-15 hours per week. Add to that the stresses, challenges and intricacies of being a special education teacher and you get an idea of what life has been like for me the last few weeks.

So to say that I have been busy would be quite the understatement. But I did want to post something - especially with the holidays coming up and all the hustle and bustle that brings with it!

Christmas is my most favorite holiday! Not only do I get two weeks off from the little "angels" I teach, but it also means that I get to spend some much needed time with my family. My mother's side of the family has a tradition of getting together every Christmas Eve and having a nice dinner. Our Christmas Eve is spent entertaining the younger kids, eating my mother's yummy meatballs and lasagna, and exchanging gifts with my mother, sister, and grandmother.

Here are some photos from Christmases past...

A Christmas gift from my mother, wrapped like a teacher's desk - ruler, post-its, apple and all!

My Christmas break this year will be spent doing a little less relaxing and a bit more working. Although I am off from work, my tutoring continues throughout break. Boo.

Anyway, I've been getting into the Christmas mood at work, as well. We started Christmas decorating in mid-November...before Thanksgiving even hit. Here are some photos of crafts and holiday decor that has been seen strewn all over my classroom...

I will try and post some of our Christmas crafts during the next week. My students are getting so excited about Christmas! We are doing a Secret Santa gift exchange and even having our PTA dad come in, dressed as Santa, for our Christmas party. I'm probably just as exited as my kiddos!

Until then friends!

Just a Reminder

Pointing Fingers

I know I haven't posted in almost 20 days and I'm sorry! With all the drama that's been going on in my classroom, I haven't had the time - and even less motivation - to talk about the things that are going right.

So, to give y'all a brief recap of the "challenges" (and that's putting it nicely!) I have been having in my classroom...I had a parent complain to my principal that my classroom staff and I - and the school as a whole - were not implementing and following her child's IEP or BSP. In short, she made some pretty hefty (and false) allegations about the classroom. She then proceeded to pull her child out of school and was requesting a non-public school (NPS) for her child because she felt the district was not doing an adequate enough job. 

We ended up having an IEP meeting with my administrator, the mother, an aunt, our school psychologist, the speech and language assistant, an advocate from the Regional Center, along with the special education director, program administrator, and myself. What usually is a one or two hour meeting turned into a four-hour ordeal - just to give you a scope of how long and tedious this meeting was.

To sum up the meeting, the aunt went on a wild, inappropriate tangent multiple times during the meeting and completely detracted the team from focusing on a resolution to the situation rather than just blaming someone (and when I say someone, I mean me). She even had the audacity to question my credentials as a special education teacher. 

And here's the kicker - the mother didn't even sign the amendment meeting paperwork. 

Now, I am - apart from my students' parents - my students' top advocate for the education they receive from our school district and for any additional services or resources that I think that the child may benefit from. However, a NPS - in this particular case - is not the answer...nor is a more restrictive environment. (To be honest, I don't think the mother even knows what a NPS is and how they are usually reserved for the more "severe" students.) 

The meeting really upset me because - despite what they thought they were trying to accomplish - the family is doing a disservice for the child by requesting services that are completely inappropriate for him and will detract from the progress he has already made in the two and a half months he has been in my classroom. I was also really upset about some of the family's disillusions about how I should run my classroom (i.e. the mother wants to monitor the books I read in class, eliminate time-out for all the students, and do away with my behavior clip chart) - but I can deal with some highly opinionated parental bullsh*t. 

Anyway, the meeting is over and while I should be spending my Thanksgiving week-off break celebrating with my family and indulging in some much needed time off, I get the stress and anxiety of wondering if the mother is going to decide to send her child back to school come Monday or not (and all the stress that entails). 

My heart really breaks for my student. Because ultimately his education is what's at risk here and the parent can't see past her misconceptions about what my classroom should be like (in her opinion) to realize that he's already in an environment that is nurturing, professional, and uniquely tailored to his individual needs as a student and a child. 

The Aftermath

I know, I know...I'm behind on my posting schedule but I swear I have a legitimate excuse. I've been up to my eyeballs busy with parent-teacher conferences, field trips, classroom Halloween party plans, and getting sick. 

Our kindergarten and transitional kindergarten (TK) classrooms have an annual Halloween parade and this year we actually had it on Halloween...rather than the Friday after or the Friday before. Most of my students showed up - I had one stay home because he does not celebrate it, and another student was sick. I loved seeing my students so excited at getting the opportunity to walk around and parade with their kindergarten peers. 

I even dressed up. Can you guess what I was? (I apologize for the picture quality - the picture was taken with a cell phone!) 

My class got to go over to one of my colleagues classroom's and spent an hour participating in Halloween activities; they kids were making popcorn hands, cereal necklaces and bracelets, decorating Halloween cookies, and making ghost pops. My aide also had a station where the general education students could make ghosts out of paper plates...and that turned out to be a hit.

After that, my students came back to our classroom and our parent volunteers showed up for our classroom pizza party. The students had fun eating pizza, enjoying Halloween treats, and grooving to the Halloween music we had playing on my iPhone. 

After our party, the parents decided to take their kids home (because we had a short dismissal day), and so I had no students by 1:00. My aides helped clean up the classroom and put away all the Halloween decorations we had strewn up. (I TOTALLY forgot to take pictures for y'all to see!) Here is just one of the things we had up...

For Halloween Night, I ended up staying home with a date and my dog. Not wanting to waste my Halloween spirit, I had my dog dress up and we took her for a walk for all to see. She was quite popular as a bee.

Since Halloween, I haven't had much down time. We had a field trip to the farm yesterday and although I am sick, I still went. (I didn't trust my kids on their first field trip with a substitute.) That probably was not the smartest thing for my health, as I woke up this morning feeling worse than I did yesterday.

However, I don't have much time to be sick - I've also been planning our class reunion, which is this coming week. I invited all our students from my class last year to come back to our school for a reunion and pizza party. I can't wait to see all my kiddos from last year and see how they are doing in their first grade classrooms! I have so much planning and prepping though before our reunion on Friday.

So, for now...I leave you with a picture from last Halloween and my older sister's Halloween party. Note my costume (I'm big on recycling) and my younger sister's make-up - I did it! Until next time...

My New Favorite Blog

While I was perusing educational blogs this afternoon before class, I stumbled across Miss Allison's Class blog and was blown away by some of the stuff she had up. It is rare that I find blogs that garner my attention, let alone special education blogs that pique my interest but Miss Allison's really did.

Not only does she have some AWESOME ideas and blog entries (taco recipes and a blog on paraprofessionals...sounds vaguely familiar!) but she also put together a resource packet that had my jaw on the floor as I was looking through it!

The majority of students coming into my classroom have speech and language impairments, but this year I have two students who are diagnosed with autism. And while I've worked with students with autism before in both the private and public sectors, I am at a loss at what to do with one of the students in particular, who seems to be having sensory issues.

Low and behold, I come across Miss Allison's blog and find that she has created an entire "must-have sensory supports" packet, including pictures (for us visual learners!) Hallelujah! I immediately printed it out and will be taking it into my classroom tomorrow!

If you're a special educator and want some great ideas, I suggest browsing Miss Allison's blog. The least you will come away with is a slow-cooker recipe for chili chicken tacos!