As some of you know I took the Arizona High School Math test at the end of January. I found out I passed the end of February. Just before I got my scores I went to the job fair for Phoenix Union High School District. I was offered a job, IF I passed my test. I knew I would.

Well here it is August 8, 2008; the Olympics are starting tonight, I finished the first week of school this year and had the first happy hour of the year. Things are definitely different this year at the Prep. There is a new Principal and a new Vice Principal. There are fewer students, but I have more kids in each class than last year, and we there are 5 longer classes this year (last year there were 6 classes a day).

Well, I can't believe another school year is almost over. A lot has happened here the last couple months. The Principal and two Vice-Principals resigned in mid-April. Actually, they were forced to resign. We (my coworkers) knew there was a strong chance the Principal was not coming back next year,we are not a performing school according to NCLB (no child left behind). That means he would be replaced if we did not pass the state test. But to have them leave before we even find out is just wrong in my opinion.

There are many many teachers we are not returning to this school next year. I thought I would be one of them, but I am coming back and most likely I will be the Math Deparment Chair. As of today (May 13, 2008) I am the only teacher coming back as a teacher. One other teacher is returning but he is going to be the Math Coach and not in a classroom.

I did have an interview with School District "A". I acutally interviewed with them back in Portland and was offered a job at one of their schools. Well, the HR Director remembered me and said "You want a job?" about five minutes after we started talking. She even called the Principal at one school on his cell while he was in San Diego. I thought I had a great chance.

So, I have an interview at the school after playing phone tag for a few days. I don't think I did great on the official questions but rocked the get to me part. I even made Ross go to their carnival the next day to show my face and that I really do want to work there. The school is K-8 but the 7th and 8th switch classes. I can walk there in less time than it takes me to drive to work now and they pay more money.

The problem---they never called my back after the interview. They told me they had more interviews to do and they woudl ge tback to me. My interview was May 1st, I had to sign my contract here (or resign) on May 9th. I told them that at the interview and the message I left on May 7th. I did finally hear from the school on the afternoon of May 9th asking if I could wait another week. I called them back yeaterday (May 12th) and told them I signed here already.

As time went on the less and less I wanted to work there. I mean if they are like that now what would it have been like when I worked there. I am going to stick with the plan I had at the beginning of this year. Take as many classes as the district offers, take some math classes and get my High School certification, then apply at High Schools for the 09-10 school year.

I already signed up for a 3 day class this summer. Oh summer I am so ready for you to be here. we are done on May 29th and it seems like it is taking forever to get here.

I play music for my students through a site called Pandora. It is a great site. You put in songs and/or bands and it plays those and stuff like those. I had it on, a song was playing, a male student asked me if it was Brett Michaels (or some other late 80's rocker). Boy was he wrong, I looked at him with a smirk on my face and said, "No, it's Cher". The guys sitting near him busted up laughing. 

One of the counselors at my school saw this reply in the New York Times. It was in the Voices part of the paper. We believe it is a response to someone else talking about how "easy" teachers have it. I love this response.

Sick of those highly paid teachers? Their hefty salaries are driving up taxes and they only work nine or ten months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do…..baby-sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage. That’s right. I would give them $3 an hour, and only the hours they worked, not any of that silly planning time. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with 45 minutes at lunch). Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now, how many do they teach in a day? Maybe 30? So, that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585 a day. But remember they only work 180 days a year! I’m not going to pay them for any vacations. Let’s see, that’s $585 x 180 = $105,300 per year. ( Hold on ! My calculator must need batteries!) What about those special teachers, or the ones with master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage just to be fair, round it off to $7 and hour. That would be $7 x 6.5 hours x 180 days = $245,700 per year. Wait a minute , there is something wrong here! There sure is, isn’t there?

I did the math: I have 79 students a day (I know that is not a lot) , I have each for 1 hour a day. I have a Masters of Arts in Teaching as well. Here are how the numbers work for me...

79 x 7 = 553 553 x 180 = 99540 According to this article I should be paid $99,540 a year to "babysit" my students, not teach them any math mind you just babysit. At least if I made that paying off my student loans would not be that big of a burden anymore. Imagine how much I would be worth if I had 120 or even 150 students a day. WOW!

Makes me think I should not have given up babysitting in college for a real job :-)

I am such a dork sometimes. I have to take an Arizona Constituion class and a US Constitution class to be certified in the state of Arizona. The great thing is I can take these classes on line. I took the AZ Constitution class and passed no problem. What can I say, I like making power points :-)

As for the US Constitution class, there was a paper to write that I did not see. So, I got 49% in the class. OOPS! That is a $166 mistake I wont make again. At least I will be more than ready for the next class and will pass with flying colors.

I am sitting here writing this shaking my head becuase I can't believe I didn't see there was a paper to write.

What a great day, Friday November 2, 2007 will go down as one of my best days ever. I slept great. I did not wake up till my alarm went off--that is rare. I got to school, met one of my students while I walking in the building and she offered me a donut. Of course I took one. Before school started the 7th grade counselor told me that student were coming to her asking if they could switch to me for math class. They heard from their friends, who have me for honors math but do not have other honors classes, that I was really good at explaining things and that they liked me. That made me feel really great.

The lesson I did today I had talked over with the math coach and he gave me some ideas. The lesson went so well the first hour I e-mailed the coach and told him he should come check out my lesson. He came by 4th hour and liked what he saw. He was impressed with how hard the kids were working and how one girl got the answer boom! right away because she had been working on her nines yesterday.

And to top it off when Ross and went to Chilis for dinner we got carded for our drinks. The waiter said "you guys look great". Now is that a good day or what?!?

Another point to add: Yesterday I found out I am the teacher most kids said they would trust and go to if they needed to talk to an adult at school. Cool huh?

We had an assembly today at school. It was spilt up so the seventh and eighth graders went at different times. It was called Charting Your Course, and as you can imagine it was about making the right choices and looking towards the future. It had pretty good music though and the kids seemed to be paying attention.

There was the story of the 13 year old male arrested for fighting who turns his life around in time for high school. The girl who dropped out of high school, then at 21 her mom takes off so she has to raise here younger (12 year old) sister. She goes back to school and graduates. And lastly the guy who gets paralysed playing high school football but does not give up. Rah Rah!

Personally, I thought it was hokey. I do wonder though why it is cool to fail. I didn't get that when I was in high school and I still don't get it.

Anyway, my students were laughing, "it made me think about my life", it was alright, thought it was nice, better than sitting in class, that sort of thing. At least one kid got something out of it.

So, here it is the fifth week of school and a student almost cried in my class. I gave them their first test on Friday August 31st. Right before a three day weekend. I gave them their scores back on Tuesday September 4th and they were not happy. I was looking across the room and noticed one of my student was looking at me and it looked like she was about to start crying. I realized I did not explain strongly enough the grade they had in their hand was a test grade and not the grade in class (total).

I got up and addressed the class explaining again how this was the grade for one test, the first test of the year. Class grades are higher than the test grades. Although, some may have gotten a F on the test no one, repeat no one, in any of my classes has an F in class. Also, the first test of the year is always the worst test in any class. They will get used to the tests I give and get better at them. And when I do a review and tell them they can use their notes they will take notes from now on! She felt much better after I re-explained about the grade she was holding.

I also decided to give some extra credit. These students really care about their grades. The extra credit is worth seven points and is the same type of problems as their test.

Let me tell you, the hardest thing to teach in math is adding and subtracting negative numbers. I can't think of a way to teach it that clicks with them. I tried number lines and other manipulatives. They just get stuck the a negative is subtract and go from there. Oh well...they get adding and subtracting fractions and we have moved onto graphing. I hope they can keep their x-axis and y-axis straight.

Well, it is Monday August 27, 2007 and tomorrow was going to be the first "No Uniform Day" of the year. Notice I typed was. We had a "fun day" on Friday August 24, 2007 and it got a little out of hand I guess, so the administration canceled the no uniform day for tomorrow. Let me tell you the students are not happy. They think it is unfair they all get punished because some messed up. Personally, I think it is great they are taking action and not letting things slide this year. It's a bummer for the kids. And I didn't even know about it until I heard it on the announcements this morning either. I like seeing what they wear. Now we will all have to wait until the next no unifrom day in Septemenber. Oh well...