AYP

We had department meetings today after school. Usually they are quite productive because our department chair, JJ, is very organized and ends the meetings with complete punctuality.

Today was our first department meeting since we met before school started. She sent us all an e-mail telling us what the agenda was and asking us to bring something to share that we've done so far. She also said we'd keep the meeting to 30 minutes. Sweet.

I got all ready to go and put together something short to share. We started promptly at 1. JJ said that about 2 minutes before school got out, the principal came to give her the results of the Language Arts portion of last year's CRTs.

Our school did not make AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress). The Language Art's scores missed AYP by about 2%. This is not good for our school as a whole, because now we are on "probation" or "warning" status. Next year, if we don't make AYP again, we will have to allow students to be bussed to other schools, we loose funding of some sort.

This news was kind of discouraging (well, really discouraging). We tried to set some goals on areas to improve and students to help. Hopefully next year will be better.

Picture day was yesterday and it went swimmingly. I had the sub in my room all day and I was down helping organize the kids. It was kind of a nice break, but the day sure went by slow. I'm not used to just sitting there.

3rd period is turning out to be my biggest class. I had two students transfer to my class yesterday and now there are 3 students without desks. It tops out at 38 students. They are loud, but hard workers if I can get them to stay focused.

No more tidbits for today. Mostly I'm just tired and glad to have the weekend rest.