First days of school with a twist

[beanielips]

I love teaching.  I love the interaction with the kids, and don't teach the little ones, I teach the big kids, the ones that drive and the ones that can votes.  High school students.

It is weird becuase the first week is normally a whirl wind... this year is no different.  My babies are in the 1st and 2nd grade.  They are sooooo cute.  But, the part that I am talking about is my side of the first few days as a teacher.

I was so excited and I now I am completly dejected.

I had my plans, I knew what I wanted to improve on, I was getting kids that I haven't had before.

I went to the first staff meeting and they handed us our school scores for the STAR test.  This is the standardized test that gets counted for No Child Left Behind.  I teach math.  High school math.  All types.  We have been having a 30ish% pass rate, the target right now is about that... this past year it dropped to 9%!  Are you kidding me?????  I worked my butt of last year.  And for what?  So we are in professional devlopmnt to try and figure out what went wrong and what can be done to make it better.  This is going to be a long year.  I can't sleep at night, I keep getting up and thinking, maybe this will work.  I re-arrange what I am going to teach and when.  This is goin to be a long year.  I look up conferences, I talk to my principal and ASK for evaluations.  This is going to be a long year.

Then these last 3 days with students one of the members of my department is trying to change students classes.  In short, a lot of the kids have been behavior problems,they failed the class last year, and have to retake it.  He is trying to push them up t the next level.  HELLO, we are having poor test scores, those same kids tanked the STAR and you want to bump them up to the next level.  Are you kidding me?  And he has done this a few times.  This is going to be a LONG year.

So, these are the things that happen behind the scences (well, some of them).

I am so frusterated.  I am not sure what this year holds, but I can only hope that it will get better.  In the meantime, I will do my best and I will not cry over it.