Friday, May 11, 2018

Hello summer... I am almost in you!

I teach in Georgia and we start pre-planning the last week in July most years. This means students come back the first week of August. It always seems so early. However, we get out before Memorial Day, so that is quite nice! It is May 11th and there are only 8 full days of school left. I teach 8th grade and our finals are next Thursday and Friday. The last 3 days of school are a wash for us- two days are for awards- yes TWO days, and the last day of school is almost like babysitting 30 kids each period. That being said... I can practically SMELL the chloride of my pool that isn't even open yet. But it will be soon and I can't wait.

If you aren't a teacher, you probably don't understand. Teaching has a beginning and an end and that is one of the many reasons why I love the career I chose. If you have a terrible year (too many preps, weird schedule, or rough/annoying students) you can always start fresh the next year. It is awesome!

This school year was a bit different for me. Last year, my whole 8th grade math department was new. Some were new to the county, some new to the content, all were new to the school. I was the department chair and I constantly had teachers in my room asking for help. I was more than happy to help, but that meant I was taking WAY too much work home. Grading papers and writing lesson plans. Oh, I also had two preps last year (algebra 1 and ACC Algebra 1). So when the time come to turn in our preference form for the 2017-18 school year, I wrote in the comment section that I would like to be a math coach. I really felt like I was doing that already, but without the time chiseled out. I was surprised when my AP said he loved the idea. So this year I taught 3 classes of Accelerated Algebra (all of algebra 1 and the first semester of geometry) and I had one "off" period to be a math coach. Our school has never had one before, so I had flexibility in making it what I wanted it to be.

Everything was great for the first few months of school. Then October happened. A math colleague of mine decided that she was going to retire... in the middle of the school year. The kids were just too much for her this year and her memory wasn't the sharpest anymore. This ended up making the rest of first semester super busy for me. I quickly lost track of how many subs were in her room. Each day I would check in on the sub and ask them how they felt about math. Most were honest and said it wasn't their favorite (insert tears). Then I would run back downstairs to my room and try to embed videos into the lessons for the sub so students wouldn't fall behind. Oh- did I mention this happened at the beginning of the quadratic unit? Worst timing ever. The struggle was real for those students and their parents. And me. After interviewing several candidates, we realized it was going to be impossible to find a replacement in the middle of the year. The best solution? Moving a part-time teacher that had been displaced into that classroom T, W, Th each week and having a retired math teacher be there every Monday and Friday. Was this ideal? Nope. But the kids needs some sort of consistency and this was the answer.

Each week during my coaching period I had to teach the main teacher the math. She had never taught high school level math before! If I didn't have that time with the teacher, it would've been a train wreck! We folded patty paper together and she learned her triangle centers, I refreshed her on geometry proofs and trig. They were definitely productive sessions! 

I just found out my admin team wants to keep me in the same role next year. Hooray! I'm just hoping no one decides to retire before May of 2019!

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