"Is the NAACP that thing for astronauts?"


"...you mean NASA?"

What's the Plan, Stan?

Yeah. Today we were supposed to start standardized testing. We had this big meeting last week where we found out the revised schedule (testing for 3 hours, 45 minute periods afterwards.) We were strictly told not to plan lessons because the students will be tired from the testing. Today was supposed to be "Sports Day" where we take the kids outside and played sports trivia inside. Tomorrow was "Game Day", etc. It was a big plan and a big deal and everybody had it all worked out.

At 7:30a.m., we got the announcement that we aren't starting standardized testing until TOMORROW, so go ahead and "practice skills" for one more day. Considering we started the morning with not a single teacher having any idea what they were going to do with children all day, I'm just glad we all survived.

I Should Feel Bad But It Serves Her Right

Apparently some kids heard my little dispute with the 8th Grade Asst. Principal. (I guess they were in around the corner or something...if she had been using a normal person's voice they wouldn't have heard.)
And they told the entire 8th grade that those kids aren't being moved because I fussed out Ms. Belton.
HA.

Second Worst Parent Conference Ever

Yesterday was a half-day for students. Teachers stayed for parent conferences. We do this every quarter and nobody ever comes. About 30 of my old students showed up though and it was pretty great.

But in the early afternoon, the other 7th grade teacher came to get me because Keenon's mom was there.
Keenon is in my first period and he's been at our school for about a month. He's most definitely ADHD but he's not a bad kid. In my room at least, he talks ALL THE TIME. To himself, to other kids, to the wall, whatever. I do like him though. He's one of those kids where you know they don't really respond to yelling, so you just kindof have to "Keenon, sssh." "Oohmybadmissvinson". Sometimes I have to sit beside him so he'll focus.

Apparently in Language Arts and Math, he's a holy terror. I guess they don't really get down with the whole "no yelling" thing and this makes Keenon lose his mind. The Language Arts teacher is the kind of person who always has to win and assert authority. I guess it gets pretty ugly in there.

I came in and said my piece. "Keenon's a talker. He's not disrespectful, he's a nice kid, but he distracts himself and others and he really needs to focus."

Language Arts Teacher: "Well, I don't know what kind of perfume Miss Vinson is wearing to make you be so good for her..." (WTF?)

The teacher and Keenon started arguing. That lasted for about ten minutes with lots of teacher looks to the mother: "you see what I mean?" and a lot of Keenon saying, "she lying on me, ma!" The math teacher joined in (there were EIGHT adults in this meeting. I'm the only one who said anything remotely positive...hmmm, maybe it's not my perfume?)

Towards the end, Keenon's mom starts yelling, Keenon starts crying and she says,

"YOU ARE GOING TO BE NOTHING! NOTHING! YOU WILL BE NOTHING IN YOUR LIFE!" while chasing him around the room. She then said she had to go to work and was leaving him there and she hoped he had a way to get home.

Semi-Annual Verbal Altercation With Administration? CHECK!

WHEW.
Okay, so.
Today the acting 8th grade Asst. Principal decided that 5 of the eighth graders were acting so terrible that they were going to be put back into 7th grade. Go ahead and re-read that sentence so it's full meaning can take effect.

And can you believe I had the nerve to be upset about this? And not only did she decide this, she didn't even TELL us. This kid shows up in my room yelling something about how he "got a paper to be here, ya heard?" Um...what? He then says, "it don't matter cause I'm suspended anyways but when I get back I'm this class." And he left.
I step into the hallway as this Asst. Principal is walking by. "Ms. Belton, can I talk to you for just a second?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Are you seriously putting 8th graders back into 7th grade?"
"Yes we are."
"Ms. Belton. First off, it's March. And it's not fair to me or my students to h---"

(She holds her hand up to me and does the "shut your mouth" motion with it")"No. No. No. No. You don't know what unfair is!"

"You can't keep screwing these kids over like---"

"NO! If anybody gets screwed over in this building, it's ME and you don't know what you're talking about!"

"Ms. Belton? Can I spea---"

"No You CANNOT SPEAK. NO."

"Maybe we can have this conversation when you realize I'm an adult and not a child?"

At this point, another administrator came up and told me that she would take care of the situation and we can talk about it later. I thanked her for helping me out and understanding my point.

After school, the 8th grade team went to Principal and bitched and moaned because now they can't get rid of these kids. Principal was actually reasonable for once in her life and told them it was too late in the year for such a move. They left all huffy.

Ms. Belton was in the office. It was around 4pm, about 3 hours after our little altercation. I went to her and said,

"Ms. Belton, I know we disagree, but I don't want to have any ill feelings toward you and I want us to be okay. I'm sorry for what happened earlier and I hope we can talk about this without---"

She turns to me, looks me in the face and says, "The NEXT time I tell you to shut-up, you better SHUT. UP."

"You know what Ms. Belton? I'm going to give you some time. I'll come back to you tomorrow and see how you're doing."

Small Talk

Yesterday, do you know what I did instead of teaching? I sat in the corner of my room with Raekwon and talked with him about his weekend.
I've talked about Raekwon before (and one day I'll learn to link to previous posts...) He's the one who's two different people.
He was super mega crazy off yesterday. He got suspended, but again, they couldn't get in touch with a parent, so he was sent back to class. Actually, he was pushed into my room by an administrator who then slammed the door in his face. Awesome.
He then proceeds to attempt to fly around my room (arms stretched out and running) all the while shouting at no one "Suck my dick!" "Fuck this shit!" "Sonofabitch!" "Fart Fart Fart Fart" I finally corral him into a seat but he's still spazzing out. I step back into the hallway and say, Uhhhhhh administrator? Looney Tunes over there is really not working out. Since he's already suspended, do you think you could do something with him so I can teach my kids?

"Just ignore him. That's why he's doing it...he wants attention."

I'm sorry, but my couple of sweet, wonderful kids really shouldn't have to try to work through his craziness. They deserve to be in a room without profanity and insanity.

So, my only option was to give him what he wanted--attention. I put the kids to group work and sat down with him. "How was your weekend?" "What'd you do?" "What's your favorite TV show?" And he was calm and collected and talked to me the whole time. He didn't say another curse word or do anything inappropriate. I mean, what else was I supposed to do?

Oh, Well, If He SAID So...

So there's the big mystery/drama going down at the school. Someone has paintball pellets, and they are throwing them at people/walls/anything. This person threw one during class change time and hit one of my students in the leg and splattered paint everywhere. I took the evidence to the office and reported the situation.
Principal came around to all the 7th grade classes and bitched them out ("WHEN we find this person, not IF, you will be EXPELLED. If you know who it is, tell them and you can get a reward.etc.,etc.) Nobody said anything. We weren't even 100% sure it was a 7th grader.
Until lunch when somebody threw some more, and only 7th graders were in there. So, we've narrowed it down. During 3rd period, three boys came to me and said, "Ms. Vinson, we don't want the reward or anything, but Quamonta is the one with the paintballs. Don't tell anyone we told you."
So, I go to Principal, tell her what the kids told me.
She calls Quamonta to the office and soon afterward he goes back to class.
I see her in the office this afternoon:

"Well, he said he didn't do it so it wasn't him."

Wow. This detective stuff is way easier than I thought.

Help Wanted

I talked about Eric in another post. He's the kid with the ridiculous Behavior Intervention Plan. He brought a knife to his previous school and got kicked out. The school before that, he threatened to kill his principal.

Two weeks ago he put bruises on my arm trying to get his hat out of my hands. He then tried to steal my computer ("You have something I like, I'm going to take something you like.") He also took things off my desk and threw them on the floor and ran over and pulled down books off my shelves. It was the craziest thing that has ever happened to me. I could go into great detail about what happened (I had to retell the story 3 separate times already anyway: once for the office referral, once for the long-term suspension forms and once for the police report) but that's not really the point. He went crazy. That's the gist. At one point, me and the entire class were just standing there in shock as he's screaming and yelling and running around saying gibberish.

Want to know what Principal said when I told her he had hurt me? "Good. You are our ticket to get him out of here." Thanks for your concern. (On a side note, this has happened before. Once I was breaking up a fight and one of the girls accidentally hit me with a book. The second she did it, she stopped fighting and said, "Ohmygod, I am SO sorry!" The administration tried to force me to press charges on her so she could be removed from school. When I refused because I knew she didn't mean to, they were very upset with me.)

Anyway, here is my problem. Clearly, this child has issues. He and I get along fine. He came in late and was already agitated about something and I was just the person standing in his way. I don't hold any ill will towards him. HE HAS A PROBLEM. And I feel like it's my job as an educator to find a way to get him help. The administration just wants to push him off on somebody else and make him their problem (just like all the other schools before us.) and THAT'S NOT FAIR. He's a child. He deserves to be helped. (Oh, another side note: When his mother came in for the meeting, she brought his sister. His sister is two years old, still wears a diaper, sucks a bottle and called her mother a bitch...yeah.)

We had to have a manifestation meeting two days after the incident. Eric has an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) because of his diagnosed disability, which is ADHD. The Special Education Team had to have this meeting to determine if the incident with me was a manifestation of his disability (if it is, then he can't be suspended.) Well, clearly physically assaulting your teacher is not a manifestation of ADHD. Even so, it took us a good hour to get through this meeting. But in the end, and after several go-rounds of arguments, the social worker and I got a request in to have him tested for Emotionally Disturbed (ED) which means he would get the help he needs. So, hopefully this kid will get some kind of assistance and be able to become a productive member of society. Who knows though, I'll never see him again.

Johns Hopkins Is An Asshole

So this is a Heather's Career Update for those of you who are interested.

First of all, I got an email ASKING me to be in the Counseling Fellows Program. I emailed back and forth with my advisor (who is also the person in charge of the Fellowship) about 10 times regarding said fellowship. Should I join/Could I join/What about the 4 classes I've already taken/blah blah/blah blah.

I still was on the fence about the whole thing, but leaning toward quitting my job and getting it all over with.

Then I get an email (not from advisor lady) saying that I can only transfer two of the classes I've already taken over to the fellowship. This means I would have to take two of these classes over. EVEN THOUGH IT IS THE SAME SCHOOL. I think to myself, "that is stupid." I email these people back and they say I can get a waiver from my advisor. Well, since we had already talked about this, I figured she would be okay with it.

Friday, I get an email from the registrar. Since I have already taken 4 classes, I am not eligible for the Fellowship THAT THEY INVITED ME TO JOIN. I copy this email into an email to advisor lady. It goes something like, "Hey, you know how we've been talking about this back and forth for 3 weeks now? Well what is this crap from the registrar?"

She emails me back and says that I will "disrupt" the other students and the schedule since I've already taken 4 classes (there are 16 classes needed, plus a year long internship). WHAT THE FUCK. I highly doubt the other students will be affected if I'm not around all the time. (Also, one of the big bonuses to this program was that all the classes were scheduled for the Homewood campus, which is 15 minutes from my house. Whereas, many of the other counseling classes are scheduled at "satellite" campuses...one of which is a 2 hour drive one way. Advisor lady: can I take the cohort classes but not be in the cohort??)

So I have to go meet with her sometime soon to talk this out and figure out how to get this counseling stuff DONE and also to explain to her what a moron she is.

Stay tuned.

Alex, I Believe I'll Take "Things That Are Stupid" For $1000 Please

Lots of craziness in the past few weeks. None of it is good and it usually takes me awhile to get around to writing about the bad stuff. So here it is.

We had a meeting last week about the state of our school. As we all know, my principal got fired at the beginning of this school year because of our low performance on standardized tests. She was replaced by a milder version of herself. We haven't even taken this year's standardized tests yet, and The Powers That Be have already decided firing old principal wasn't good enough.
We were told at this meeting, in not so many words, that we're all fired from our jobs as teachers at this school. In April, whoever the principal for next year is going to be and whoever they appoint to be their administrative team will begin interviews for next year. If I (or anybody) want to keep working at this school, I have to interview again. If I want to go to another school, the voluntary transfer fair is April 14.
I think I mentioned this before, but we're also being paired with an "outside partner" to assist us in not sucking.
My question is, when are we going to find out about this new principal and administration and outside partner? I would like some sort of information about the school before I decide to stay there or move on. What if they partner with a company or program that I disagree with? What if they partner with a company or program that is my perfect ideal of how a school should be run? This is information I could use to make my decision.
I'm not going to focus on the fact that I find it incredibly insulting that I have to interview for a job I already have (which I do), but I'm going to focus on the fact that somebody I don't know is going to decide in a 30 minute interview whether I deserve to keep the job that has a body of work that spans five years is beyond ridiculous. Why wouldn't you consult the people within the building? We KNOW who works and who doesn't. Oh, right. Nobody cares what I think.
If I don't sign up for voluntary transfer and then I don't get invited back to my school, I will be assigned to any random ol' hell hole in the city that has an opening. So, do you preemptively take a job at another school so you don't run the risk of being assigned somewhere terrible, or do you wait it out and hope for the best--that you can keep your current job? Now, we all know that said current job isn't all rainbows and butterflies, but it's the devil I know. And with the possibility of a new, less sucky principal and an outside partner (i.e. $$$$$$), things could be looking up for this school.
I just don't understand why the whole process has to be so shady and secretive. Are we so worthless that we don't deserve to know what's going on?

Oh, and P.S. they had a "community forum" to let the parents know about what is going on with the shut-down. We've got 500 students...less than 30 parents showed up. Can a girl get some parental involvement?