Yearly Evaluation

School/The Good: Woo-hoo! I'm at school during my planning period. I just finished my post-observation conference with my principal.

As this is my first year at this school, this was my first formal observation by this principal. Quotes on my observation assessment include:
"Noticeable gains" regarding my students' reading levels.
Teacher shows "high fidelity toward Read180."
And my personal favorite, "outstanding rapport with students." Hooray for me! :)

School/The Bad:
Continuing my county's bass-ackwards way of coordinating language arts with reading, I just this morning received the 3rd quarter "curriculum pacing guide" for language arts. (3rd quarter started 2 weeks ago on 2/20.) Sighs. At least it's only 3 weeks late this time...1st quarter we waited nearly 4 1/2 weeks for any curriculum. My department and I are getting good at "winging it" without formal plans.

School/In General:
Florida is making HUGE educational budget cuts for next year. Duval County is voting on many policy changes by the end of this month. I have decided to stay at my current school for 2 main reasons: 1. Job security (I know they need reading teachers here, and I am not "lowest" on the totem pole so would not be cut if a reading teacher does have to be laid off.) 2. As much as the ELA/Read180 combination gets on my nerves, it is more important to me to be at a school with a principal and faculty I believe in. :)
Possible budget cut ideas include:
--Changing student hours so they only attend school 9:30 - 3:30. Teachers would continue to attend 9:15 - 4:15 with all planning periods being held before or after school. This would save $$$ because they could cut teachers. By not having planning periods during the school day, ALL teachers would be teaching at ALL times. There would not be "planning" periods when teachers would be off duty and getting paid. (Note: I think this is ridiculous! Florida is already falling behind much of the nation with regards to public education. I can't believe they are actually considering sending our students LESS time than average. Ugh!)
--Changing bus routes to only students who live 2 miles or farther from school. (Right now it's a mile and a half.)
--Mandated cuts of art and music classes (Note: I also think this is ridiculous. Research has shown how much students benefit from art and music. Why are they always the first to go?)
--We've already been told our school will move from 4 assistant principals to 3. It is possible we'll also have to move from 2 guidance counselors to 1.
-- Possible change of employee benefits to a contributory health care system. (Grateful I have DH for insurance. My single teacher friends are freaking out!)

DH: His first day as a supervisor was this past Saturday. I had to chuckle when he told Emma last night, (after she asked him to "come here" for the 100th time) "I'm not going to get up 87,000 times...I'll be doing that all week long." HAHAHAHA! I wanted to say, "Try being a teacher!" We never get to work without being interrupted... But I held it in.

Gotta run, my planning is almost over.