TAN-TAR-A!!!!!

Recently our school got a secure network which means I can no longer do ANYTHING online! While I can no longer play on facebook (sad face), I also can't use the google image feature, look up lesson plans for any music that might be considered naughty to the server (even though it's not) and I can't read my damn CNN.com news stories! I also can't update this lovely piece of non-fiction. It makes my computer painfully slow and I now have to listen to the art teacher complain because just this week he can no longer listen to AOL radio or something close to that.


Other than that work has been slow and rather uneventful. I still only see about 13 students for the entire day. I recently started helping the discipline team by taking pink slips and entering them into student logs so we have files on some of our frequent offenders. It's been a pretty funny job. I love reading the stories that go along with each write up. One teacher went so far as to write out a conversation between some students that involved the word "dildos" and some absolutely horrible sexual references that I'm spare everyone else from having to read.


The most exciting thing right now lately is that I went to the annual Missouri Music Educators Conference at Tan-Tar-A resort. This year I actually stayed on the resort with my friend from Jewell Melissa and you've never seen two more excited girls than when we got our room. A two bedroom suite right off the lake and two minutes away from the main building. In the past years we've stayed some where in Osage Beach which is never close and usually means we have to park a mile away and wait for the shuttle to get to the resort. It wasted lots of time and since we're lucky enough to have our conference at the lake, in January, it's also freezing cold. But this year the conference was great! I literally loved every minute and it was all thanks to having a room on the resort.

Stupidity on Massive Levels

I hate writing up students for stupid behavior because they exhibit it all the time. I'd be wasting my time if I wrote up every little thing that went wrong in a given day. Today however, I wrote 4 pink slips, which are discipline referral sheets. They don't take long but can become tedious because you have to write descriptions about the incidents and so on. 4 is probably a record for me since I usually go weeks without writing up students. Lately as part of the discipline committee we've been working with students to development conflict resolving techniques. Students assigned Saturday schools for their misbehavior have the chance to go to teachers who have wrote them up and work at a solution they both agree upon. Once the solution is figured teachers can forgive the Saturday school and students no longer have to serve it. I've only resolved one and my deal with the student was that if they act out again I talk to the assistant principal and the student has a 3 day suspension. I liked that deal. However, since then because our students feel entitled to their behavior and constantly feel we teachers are in the wrong I've decided to no longer resolve anything. Saturday school can be fun...... I hope.

Back from Break

I've tried to post this two previous times now, but I've gotten distracted, forgot what I was doing and by the time I remember the page has refreshed about 700 times and nothing was saved.

Wednesday, back from break now, and I'm exhausted. Staying up late over break is a horrible thing for me to do, but I can't stop it. I am fated to stay up late after my boyfriend gets off work, sleep in late no matter how early I went to bed or listen to my crack head neighbor downstairs get drunk and high and party it up allllllll night.

I've seen 13 students for the past two days now. My numbers are down from before break. It worries me that my classes are so small because with a lack of students attending we're not getting enough funding and that ultimately means staff cuts. I'm afraid that my classes would be one of the first looked because no one is here and thus there is no need for me. Looking through my rosters each period and at the end of the day though the students are really gone. They're not skipping and honestly I do try to call after a couple days just to find out what's been going on, but still. 13 a day is extremely boring for me and the students. The ones showing up are very smart, hard working kids so we get our work done early. Maybe if each class wasn't 72 minutes long........

Speaking of which they're thinking of changing our class schedule and calendar for next year. One the of the ideas on the table is year round school, which would just blow hard and I would seriously consider finding employment elsewhere, even though I am job hunting as we speak......