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  1. #221
    Okay... been a while, but got a reward and a frustration

    Reward: Well, once again I used my mini-grant from the PTO to buy books for my classroom. But this year I also lectured my class... I told them I did not want or need any holiday gifts. It won't help their grade, and I don't need any more darned ties. Now, if they STILL wanted to get something for their amazing, handsome, smart, and modest teacher, there is only one thing I would consider... Barnes and Noble gift cards.

    And they came THROUGH. About $400 of gift cards. So I went to B&N and, combining my 200 grant, my 400 in gift cards, and my 20% discount, I bought every darned book in the PLACE. I was there for HOURS, went through five baskets... It literally took an hour to just go through the books with the kids, telling them a bit about each. They were almost fighting over the books Some good ones, too... The Book Thief, Liar and Spy, Breaking Stalin's Nose, Shabanu, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Dead and the Gone, The Running Dream, Rules, Wonder, another copy of Hatchet and the Phantom Tollbooth and Inkheart and The Mysterious Benedict Society and Julie of the Wolves... holy cow. My receipt was over four feet long... it was taller than some of my students (we checked). It was excellent... they are still buzzing over the books two weeks after I got them.


    Now the frustration.

    On the heels of the Newtown shooting, they've implemented two new policies. First, kids may not work in the hallways. Ugh. Kids have ALWAYS worked in the hallways. We prop open the door and kids who need space can work there, kids who are distracted can choose to work there, kids who need to make up work in quiet can work there... the hallway is like another room, especially for my sixth graders, where we are on a floor all by ourselves with a quiet, nicely carpeted hallway and only our four rooms.

    But then, to make it worse... they are now requiring that we have our classroom doors locked at ALL TIMES. Oh, and we'll have to figure out how to make it work.

    So. When kids get drinks and go to Basic Skills and Gifted and Talented and get called to the office and go to the bathroom and go to Occupational Therapy and music lessons and speech and have to deliver messages... now I am going to interrupt my instruction to go open the door for them? Maybe 100 times a day or so? Holy cow. It is like administrators never stop to consider how their decisions will actually be implemented. I understand the need for security, but it takes me about three seconds to lock my door with the key I wear every second around my neck. I am furious... we are already drowning in state requirements, in endless hours of lesson plans we type and no one looks at, in online classes that we are required to take, in meetings and paperwork and endless emails about how we are out of paper so have to cut back on our paperwork. And now I am literally going to interrupt my teaching an endless number of times a day, leaving writing conferences and book groups to open the door? Or we are going to have KIDS, who are hard enough to get to focus, do it? It is just ridiculous.

  2. #222
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Back in Vegas... again.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Ash View Post

    But then, to make it worse... they are now requiring that we have our classroom doors locked at ALL TIMES. Oh, and we'll have to figure out how to make it work.

    So. When kids get drinks and go to Basic Skills and Gifted and Talented and get called to the office and go to the bathroom and go to Occupational Therapy and music lessons and speech and have to deliver messages... now I am going to interrupt my instruction to go open the door for them? Maybe 100 times a day or so? Holy cow. It is like administrators never stop to consider how their decisions will actually be implemented. I understand the need for security, but it takes me about three seconds to lock my door with the key I wear every second around my neck.
    Sooooooo, I'm just wondering... what exactly does the fire marshal have to say about this? This new rule seems to violate fire codes in too many ways to count. Unless those are crash doors that you have, where it's locked from the outside (hall) and the kids in the classroom can hit the crash bar to open the door to get out, I don't see how this is going to fly. If there's, heaven forbid, a fire, and something happens to the teacher or the key is lost or doesn't work, well, I don't even want to think about that scenario.

    I understand the thought behind locking the doors but there's another whole can of worms here that it appears (some) people haven't thought about.

  3. #223
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Ash View Post
    But then, to make it worse... they are now requiring that we have our classroom doors locked at ALL TIMES. Oh, and we'll have to figure out how to make it work.

    So. When kids get drinks and go to Basic Skills and Gifted and Talented and get called to the office and go to the bathroom and go to Occupational Therapy and music lessons and speech and have to deliver messages... now I am going to interrupt my instruction to go open the door for them? Maybe 100 times a day or so? Holy cow. It is like administrators never stop to consider how their decisions will actually be implemented. I understand the need for security, but it takes me about three seconds to lock my door with the key I wear every second around my neck. I am furious... we are already drowning in state requirements, in endless hours of lesson plans we type and no one looks at, in online classes that we are required to take, in meetings and paperwork and endless emails about how we are out of paper so have to cut back on our paperwork. And now I am literally going to interrupt my teaching an endless number of times a day, leaving writing conferences and book groups to open the door? Or we are going to have KIDS, who are hard enough to get to focus, do it? It is just ridiculous.
    We have a similar policy in the middle school I work in with maybe one important difference: the door must be locked but if does not have to be closed at all times. Many teachers will prop the door open or for some doors they can simply not push it all the way shut. That way you don't have the instruction interruptions to open the door but if a lock-down or other situation were to occur it would take no time at all to kick the doorstop out of the way and have the classroom secured. Is this an option your administration would be willing to consider?

  4. #224
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Ash View Post
    Now the frustration.

    On the heels of the Newtown shooting, they've implemented two new policies. First, kids may not work in the hallways. Ugh. Kids have ALWAYS worked in the hallways. We prop open the door and kids who need space can work there, kids who are distracted can choose to work there, kids who need to make up work in quiet can work there... the hallway is like another room, especially for my sixth graders, where we are on a floor all by ourselves with a quiet, nicely carpeted hallway and only our four rooms.

    But then, to make it worse... they are now requiring that we have our classroom doors locked at ALL TIMES. Oh, and we'll have to figure out how to make it work.

    So. When kids get drinks and go to Basic Skills and Gifted and Talented and get called to the office and go to the bathroom and go to Occupational Therapy and music lessons and speech and have to deliver messages... now I am going to interrupt my instruction to go open the door for them? Maybe 100 times a day or so? Holy cow. It is like administrators never stop to consider how their decisions will actually be implemented. I understand the need for security, but it takes me about three seconds to lock my door with the key I wear every second around my neck. I am furious... we are already drowning in state requirements, in endless hours of lesson plans we type and no one looks at, in online classes that we are required to take, in meetings and paperwork and endless emails about how we are out of paper so have to cut back on our paperwork. And now I am literally going to interrupt my teaching an endless number of times a day, leaving writing conferences and book groups to open the door? Or we are going to have KIDS, who are hard enough to get to focus, do it? It is just ridiculous.
    Ignoring the fire codes brought up by others - and the predictable over-reacting to a tragic, but extremely rare, event - I have to look at it from the logistics perspective.

    Lock my door? Okay? My new policy is nobody leaves the room - period. No G&T during my classes. No Basic Skills during my classes. Don't even bother calling someone to the office. I will send them up at the break. Will you tick some people off? Yep. But it has been my experience that your statement is absolutely correct - that people implement policies without thinking about how implementation will impact people.

    It doesn't just happen in education. I worked for a California company once that started calling all-hands meetings on Fridays. The idea was to build teamwork, disseminate information in a roundtable environment, and on certain Fridays, give everyone an early day. So they scheduled it for 3 - 4 PM - in CALIFORNIA. The first meeting took almost 2 hours. Well, the 38 employees NOT in California are sitting in our home offices on a conference call where the other end is drinking beers, laughing, having a good time. Meanwhile, our wives (and husbands) are waiting for us to go to dinner on Friday night until 7 or 8 PM.

    My next trip to Callie, I asked one of the VPs if they realized that this "happy" thing was essentially infringing on non-H! personnel's personal time. His response was "omg - I dont' think any of us even thought about the fact that most people are 2 or 3 hours ahead of us".

    Needless to say, the meetings were changed to 1 PM. They could still drink a beer or 2, but they didn't get to give the afternoons off anymore. My point is, they really DIDN'T think it through. They just saw the trees. No forest.

  5. #225
    Hi all,

    Not sure how the fire marshal would feel... but no, there are no crash bars or anything.

    Mentioned this to my principal today and he blew me off with a "If you don't like it, write the Chief of Police a letter." Said we absolutely cannot prop the doors. So I think I will (although I will actually write to our Superintendent). Already keeping track of how often kids come in the room, and between 8:25 and 10:20 we had 21 times. And this is really, really light; no Basic Skills, no Gifted and Talented, no music lessons, no my-one-kid-who-is-CONSTANTLY-peeing. I am so frustrated by this, both because it is impractical AND illogical... every door has a window right next to the door knob! A shooter could just use a round or two to shoot it out, and there you go.

    The sacrifices in time and interruptions in instruction do not, in any way, shape, or form make up for the extra three seconds it takes for me to lean over and use the key on my lanyard to lock the door as we have done in the past during our lockdown drills. I understand changes, but I hate when people go overboard.

  6. #226
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Walnut Creek, California
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Ash View Post
    Hi all,

    Not sure how the fire marshal would feel... but no, there are no crash bars or anything.

    Mentioned this to my principal today and he blew me off with a "If you don't like it, write the Chief of Police a letter." Said we absolutely cannot prop the doors. So I think I will (although I will actually write to our Superintendent). Already keeping track of how often kids come in the room, and between 8:25 and 10:20 we had 21 times. And this is really, really light; no Basic Skills, no Gifted and Talented, no music lessons, no my-one-kid-who-is-CONSTANTLY-peeing. I am so frustrated by this, both because it is impractical AND illogical... every door has a window right next to the door knob! A shooter could just use a round or two to shoot it out, and there you go.

    The sacrifices in time and interruptions in instruction do not, in any way, shape, or form make up for the extra three seconds it takes for me to lean over and use the key on my lanyard to lock the door as we have done in the past during our lockdown drills. I understand changes, but I hate when people go overboard.
    If you have a teachers' union, has the district discussed this with them? It looks to me like the new rules have a direct impact on teachers' time and teaching effort. There may be an avenue for rethinking there. And what about the PTA's POV? Again, another forum to assess whether locking is the proper approach for your school. [BTW, I like the fire marshal approach; it's worth exploring. I'd bet the PTA will be receptive to that as well.]

  7. #227
    The fire safety issue is the very first thing that popped into my head. As a parent, I would be FURIOUS if I found out my kids were being kept in a locked room unless there is some alternative escape route. The risk of fire is much higher than the risk of a shooter.

  8. #228
    Ash, you're right, that's absolutely ridiculous. Maybe try to get some support from the parents / PTO? As a parent, I would be furious if administrators took such a dumb action. I value my daughter's safety as much as the next guy, but not at the expense of completely disrupting her education (even if only for 10 seconds) 50 times a day, every day.

  9. #229
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by Reisen View Post
    Ash, you're right, that's absolutely ridiculous. Maybe try to get some support from the parents / PTO? As a parent, I would be furious if administrators took such a dumb action. I value my daughter's safety as much as the next guy, but not at the expense of completely disrupting her education (even if only for 10 seconds) 50 times a day, every day.
    That's the thing. I think this puts the kids more at risk. As Lid mentioned, the risk of fire is much, much higher than the risk of a shooter.

    According to the National Fire Protection Association (the first hit I could find that wasn't about school boards firing people), in the period 2003-2006 there were 6,650 "structure fires" in schools. link. That seems like a much bigger concern to me.

  10. #230
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Skinker-DeBaliviere, Saint Louis
    Having managed to steadily build the enrollment in her middle school German program (in a nation that hates foreign languages, no less), my wife just got a larger classroom for the first time in six years. The two pieces of evidence that convinced the principal were as follows:

    1) She has two semi-permanent bruises on either side of her legs from constantly running into the childrens' desks, which are packed absurdly closely together.
    2) One kid did the math and demonstrated that the present arrangement was, in fact, a fire code violation.

    And this is in a fairly well-resourced district.

    Anyone who isn't familiar with what teachers face has no idea what a boon this larger room will be. Job one is crowd control, before any learning whatsoever can occur. The kids sitting far enough apart that they can't touch each other is a HUGE step towards crowd control.

    Next time one of the copious teacher-haters tells me that class size doesn't matter, I have a mind to slam a desk into their legs precisely where my wife's bruises are.

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  11. #231
    *sigh*

    Well, a bad week just got worse.

    They are now saying that no former students are allowed to visit the school.

    This is just so completely heartbreaking that I almost cannot put it into words. Having my former students come back to visit, to share how school and life are going, is SO damn important, both to me and, I think, to them. I have former students come back CONSTANTLY... pretty much every day a group of kids (middle school kids, high school kids) is visiting to share what they learned on a trip to India (and give me an Indian Big Mac carton... btw, it is the "Big Maharajah" and it is two chicken patties, for those Pulp Fiction fans who are curious...) or to tell me about a great book they are reading or to show me a report card they are proud of or to get some advice about asking someone out... and to me it is SO important that they know there is this adult who, even if they don't see them like they used to, still loves them and cares about them and yes, is still demanding of them... that is just irreplaceable.

    And to top it off I know there are teachers who will love this policy, teachers who maybe haven't had the same impact and don't get visitors and I know are all bitter and snarly about it, and the fact that they will get such pleasure out of it just makes it worse.

    Damn. I cannot remember ever being as frustrated and upset by this job.

  12. #232
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Ash View Post
    *sigh*

    Well, a bad week just got worse.

    They are now saying that no former students are allowed to visit the school.

    This is just so completely heartbreaking that I almost cannot put it into words. Having my former students come back to visit, to share how school and life are going, is SO damn important, both to me and, I think, to them. I have former students come back CONSTANTLY... pretty much every day a group of kids (middle school kids, high school kids) is visiting to share what they learned on a trip to India (and give me an Indian Big Mac carton... btw, it is the "Big Maharajah" and it is two chicken patties, for those Pulp Fiction fans who are curious...) or to tell me about a great book they are reading or to show me a report card they are proud of or to get some advice about asking someone out... and to me it is SO important that they know there is this adult who, even if they don't see them like they used to, still loves them and cares about them and yes, is still demanding of them... that is just irreplaceable.

    And to top it off I know there are teachers who will love this policy, teachers who maybe haven't had the same impact and don't get visitors and I know are all bitter and snarly about it, and the fact that they will get such pleasure out of it just makes it worse.

    Damn. I cannot remember ever being as frustrated and upset by this job.

    What possible rationale could be motivating this? Is it a security issue (i.e., an attempt to restrict on-campus visitors solely to those who "need to be there") in the wake of Newtown? I guess I could understand that being a concern, but still -- this seems like an overreaction.

  13. #233
    Yeah, a security issue I would wager. My guess is it is a response to the fact that some shooters are former students, but also because we had a lot of former students who came to visit when our kid were dismissed and just came into the building to visit without checking at the office.

  14. #234
    I'm sorry for this change. It does seem short sighted as they aren't considering how valuable these visits are to the returning students and the teachers. Maybe they could set up a regular visiting time and be sure there is enough help to enforce the sign in process during that period of time.

  15. #235
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Ash View Post
    Yeah, a security issue I would wager. My guess is it is a response to the fact that some shooters are former students, but also because we had a lot of former students who came to visit when our kid were dismissed and just came into the building to visit without checking at the office.
    The new policy may be overly broad, but if old students were in fact coming into the school without signing in, it at least makes sense. I imagine not everyone currently at the school recognizes all the old students, which means that there are strangers (at least to some folks) roaming the halls to go visit old teachers. That is exactly the type of thing schools are trying to protect against; that is how one psycho can easily gain access to the school.

    Perhaps a policy not allowing any former students to visit thirty minutes before or after the school day starts or finishes would work better, as that would force visitors to go through the check-in process.

    While some of the other policies you mentioned do, in fact, sound ridiculous, this one doesn't seem so far off base, at least in theory.
    My Quick Smells Like French Toast.

  16. #236
    Nope, it isn't wildly off base... it just sucks. The secretary just told me that a bunch of kids came by today and stopped in the office to see if they could visit, and were turned away. It just sucks. They come all the way over here to visit, you know? And it just makes me so sad that that connection with so many years of former students, a connection that I value over just about anything short of my wife and kid in my life, is suddenly and out-of-nowhere cut off, and that's it. I won't hear from these people again, people I have seen regularly for years. Viola.

  17. #237
    Hey all!

    Okay, its been a while, but had a few new bits!

    On the plus side, students are once again allowed to visit, as long as they email ahead of time... the principal actually said he didn't want to see so many important relationships cut off. So that's a huge plus, although since so many kids used to just drop by when they could find time it really still cut down a lot Still, it's something.

    I could write ten pages about our state monitoring which recently passed... we spent months preparing for it... MONTHS of paperwork... and then they never even came to our school It was insanity. And then the week after we had both report cards and conferences... let me tell you, everyone was SUPER thrilled that we wasted hundreds of hours of paperwork that in no way, shape, or form impacted our jobs and then wasn't even looked at.

    But the real reason I wanted to post was this one:

    Sixth grader working on a writing prompt. The prompt is about these two girls who are in an attic and open a mysterious box. The prompt then asks the student to write a story about what happens.

    The kid reads the prompt aloud with the teacher. She circles the important sections (the girls name, the problem, what the prompt is asking). They teacher and student review what she needs to do. She then proceeds to write a story about a girl and her pet cat having a playdate.

    *sigh*

    And this is a kid who we've been pushing to have tested now for several years, but we are repeatedly told it isn't an academic issue... the girl just suffers from anxiety. So we can make accommodations for her (for example... sitting and reading the prompt with her, having her circle important parts) and that's it. If there is anything deeper... well, who knows, and the parents aren't interested in hearing that there might be a learning difficulty.

    So what on earth can you do with a student like this when no one will check to see if there is anything really wrong?

    Kills me.

    Good times!

  18. #238
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Walnut Creek, California
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Ash View Post
    Hey all!


    But the real reason I wanted to post was this one:

    Sixth grader working on a writing prompt. The prompt is about these two girls who are in an attic and open a mysterious box. The prompt then asks the student to write a story about what happens.

    The kid reads the prompt aloud with the teacher. She circles the important sections (the girls name, the problem, what the prompt is asking). They teacher and student review what she needs to do. She then proceeds to write a story about a girl and her pet cat having a playdate.

    *sigh*

    And this is a kid who we've been pushing to have tested now for several years, but we are repeatedly told it isn't an academic issue... the girl just suffers from anxiety. So we can make accommodations for her (for example... sitting and reading the prompt with her, having her circle important parts) and that's it. If there is anything deeper... well, who knows, and the parents aren't interested in hearing that there might be a learning difficulty.

    So what on earth can you do with a student like this when no one will check to see if there is anything really wrong?

    Kills me.

    Good times!
    You might want to be careful here. If this kid is otherwise on the ball; can spell, and write subject verb object sentences or has arithmetic skills, she might be ahead of where you are, preferring her imagination to yours. Of course, if she doesn't have these qualities then you may be right about the learning disability. Sometimes school regimentation is detrimental to a kid's development, hindering rather than inspiring. IIRC, here's even a song about it (though I can't bring it to mind).

    And, just because she prefers her way to yours does not mean that she gets to refuse to follow instructions. She needs to learn to do it your way first.

  19. #239
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim3k View Post
    If this kid is otherwise on the ball; can spell, and write subject verb object sentences or has arithmetic skills, she might be ahead of where you are, preferring her imagination to yours. Of course, if she doesn't have these qualities then you may be right about the learning disability. Sometimes school regimentation is detrimental to a kid's development, hindering rather than inspiring.
    I had a similar reaction here -- without knowing more, I can easily envision scenarios in which this scene could play out and there's no learning issue.

    As a parent of elementary-age children, I view regimentation as a necessary evil to some extent. I spend a fair amount of time encouraging my children to do what they need to do to satisfy their teachers, but not to let those sorts of exercises dampen their spirits or their love of writing/learning/etc. I'm lucky that my kids test well, but I see them limiting themselves much more than I'd like because they've gotten in the role of doing what they're asked to do and then receiving praise for being compliant. Just a thought. Maybe this girl is motivated internally instead of externally. That's something that can be channeled effectively in life and is exceptionally valuable in self-education.

    I was hesitant to post this because I come from a family of teachers and don't want to appear critical, especially since we only heard part of the story. I hope I'm not being insensitive.

  20. #240
    No no, no problem But yeah, if this was simply some daydreamer creative type, that would be one thing (although not a GOOD thing; a person needs to be able to respond to a task when asked to do so... the inability to do so is pretty serious, regardless of the reason) but this particular student also produced a story that rambled with no particular point, had terrible grammar, and made very little sense. She struggles with almost every subject, has little to no retention when it comes to facts or information or instructions, and has no attention span. Skills that are taught are not retained for any amount of time whatsoever. Unfortunately, she is an outlier in every possible measurable way

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