Category: Current Status

It is so funny — my friends, my husband and my family have been worried since I have never taught summer school, that I wouldn’t like it.

Okay, this is ONE day, but so far, I love the hours 7:45 – 1:45 — okay, I’d like it better if it started at 8:00, because I always feel like I have to get to school about an hour before the kids (but I can never stay after).

And today was long because I have ACP writing after words (more on that on a seperate post.

But the class size is great. Right now below 25 and below 15 but I haven’t taken a full count.

Classroom management is great so far, precisely because the class size is small.

But this is the fun part for me.

The people who are worried about me teaching summer school are some of the same people who thought that I got TOO much time off when I first got into teaching, and that teaching was over paid.

Well, to start with, when I went into teaching 14 years, ago, I was making $42,000 a year, and I quit and later went back to school and started at $21,000 a year (I remember these numbers well). Of course, a lot of people, including my husband thought that the long time off made up for the $21,000 I lost.

Hmmm, how. You really can’t get a job in the summer as you are only available for 12 weeks. And sometime in that twelve weeks you have to get some training in. Most AP teachers (I am one), have to get a week of training in. And let me tell you that 4 1/2 days of training is intensive and you have no energy to do anything else, because you are cover a year’s worth of material in 36 hours.

So now you are down to 11 weeks. Again, there aren’t many part time gigs that are going to pay $21,000 (in 14 year old dollars, so think closer to $30,000 today). And of course, they occasionally juggle our start dates.

Now don’t get me wrong, I make just under $50,000 a year now. That includes math and/or AP stipends, I get one or the other. It also includes the extra money that I get for having a master’s degree, and the best news on that, is that the district paid about 2/3 of the tution. It also doesn’t include summer school or my ACP money. Nor does it include tutoring money. Any of that is an extra $20.00 on hour.

I think I do get paid a fair amount for my 187 days a year. I also think that our starting pay, which is just about $38,000 for a new teacher, is also far. However, my district is paying substantially more than the state does. I think, but I’d have to look at the union tables again, that we do about $4000 a year more than the state minimum.

The fun thing is, the general public who doesn’t know what teachers do, do think that we get paid too much. Of course, they are thinking that we get somewhere around 15 weeks where we could make more money, if we needed it. I’m sorry, but that money just isn’t out there. Nor do I think it would be fair to my students if I were working a part time job during the school year — and a lot of teachers do that to make ends meet. It’s also hard to find the continguous days to make up a 50% difference — and honestly, I do believe if I had stayed in the non-educational workforce, I would be making $100,000 since my husband’s salary compared to now and then is comparable.

Students can still register through Tuesday I think … so we won’t have our full enrollment until then.

I’m looking forward to it, even though I had my normal — can’t sleep the night before new students.

I’m teaching Algebra I, and the plan is to kill as few trees as possible, though I killed a bunch for the first two days. That means I have to figure out something before Wednesday for Wednesday and Thursday.

I am already planning to have each student keep a folder in my classroom of all their work for the six weeks, so that will be one of the first things I let them do — decorate their folder. I’m going to have them pull them each day, and put them back each, rather than hand work out and back.

I also plan to have them keep a folder on the computer. I’ve already got two days worth of Measuring Up questions in Examview, and plan to have them finish each day by answering those questions. They are multple choice or free response.

As to setting up my room. I think my first priority is going to be to cover and design my bulletin board since I can get to that one. Darn, I should have thought a bit further ahead and gone by Lakeville and gotten something for it. Of course I can do that anytime.

And I’ve got my tape measure in my summer school stuff, so we can measure before we start doing things.

The biggest plan is to set up the room so that switching between desk work and computers is very easy.

Right now, I am in the process of starting summer school and I am teaching Algebra I. I like teaching Algebra I, especially to repeaters. In fact, last year ALL of my Algebra I students were repeaters.

I am hoping summer school will be easier. I got a lot of divergent type of students.

The first group are good kids who just didn’t do what they were told to do. Those kids are great, don’t give any problems and just crank out the work and get it done.

The next group are kids who have minor problems that are keeping them from being successful. At lot of that is attendance. They are frusterating because you know if they would just come to school everyday, they could be successful. And of course, they never make up the work.

The last group and the one that was in my face every day, were the ones that have major problems. I had a bunch of Katrina kids. They had problems BEFORE I met them. Before Katrina even. Every one of them presents a different complex set of problems that have to be dealt with.

I am thinking seriously of ripping Jimmy Buffet’s Math Sucks off the CD I have here, and have it playing continously when the kids come into the classroom on Monday and Tuesday morning (I won’t see all my students until Tuesday).

Right now, my classroom is split. Half of my room is overcrowded with desks, the other half of my room is overcrowded with computers. The plan is to have the students help me move the furniture so the room “works”. That means bringing a tape measure so that we only have to move things once.

My dream is to move everything so that the computers are on the outer perimeter of the room, and I have desks in the center so I can teach “both” ways.

Actually I was planning on teaching 100% technology, but that kills major trees. I hadn’t thought of it until my principal mentioned that I ought to wait to move the room, and leave it as it is so I could teach “both ways”.

The reason that teaching 100% technology kills trees, is that a) we don’t have a book and 2) I have this weird belief that the kids need to have a hard copy of what we are doing. I’ve done that for the first two days, but I’m going to try to change that. Other than the fact that it kills trees, it means I have to stand in front of a copies for hours and I hate that.