3rd Term with a Vengeance!

It is 3rd term.

I have been terrible about updating, but let me make a bunch of lame excuses why.

Christmas.

Finals two weeks after Christmas.

Planning an entire new curriculum for a class I've never taught in a three week period.

Are those excuses sufficient?

I hope so. Now it's time for elaboration.

Christmas was a wonderful respite, but not entirely a respite. While Christmas is a great time to not have to go to work, it's always a busy time of year with this family function here and this family function there. And then there's the fact that teachers never really take time off. I allotted several hours every day to do lesson planning and prepping for the rest of the year.

Our school district is also a little weird with their schedule. Finals happen to be two weeks after we return from Christmas break. It's kind of nice, because once the finals are written, the job for me is easy, but it's stressful on the kids.

And I am teaching a new class this term. We have several juniors/seniors who need 1/2 or a full credit of math, but they are not really college track so we don't want to set them up to fail in Algebra II. I have been developing a Business Math class. While the math side is easy, I had no resources to speak of when I started and have had to scrounge/beg/plead with other teachers for resources and materials. They have been a wonderful help and sent me TONS of materials to go through. Because of the immense amount of help I got from teachers at the main campus, I have been able to piece together something that I'm actually pretty proud of.

And here we are, two weeks into 3rd term. We accepted some new students, so we have acclimated them to the environment of our school. The other teachers in the building have decided to implement some more standard procedures across the board. I think it's great because now we have consistent procedures throughout the whole school. It gives the kids more security and that's just what they need. I think it's added a lot to the positive environment of the school too, because the kids know exactly what is expected of them at all times - no matter whose classroom they are in.

The only hard aspect of coming back is that our attendance is starting to drop. Some kids (especially the seniors) are starting to slip in attendance. For a lot of them, that was their main problem at the main campus and now it's starting to be a problem for them again. We keep encouraging them not to go down that path. Some of them are listening, some of them aren't. What else can we do but encourage?

I've been sick this last week. That coupled with the exhaustion of the work load have made the last few weeks very difficult, but my overall outlook about the program is still good. We have made some real progress with kids that the mainstream system had given up on. I'm so proud of them.