Sunday, September 2, 2007

More to Stress About!

Okay, here's a continuation of the crazy stuff that's been happening! Our district's 5th grade enrollment is unusually low this year. My grade level partner, David, and I each have 20 students! It sounds great until you take into consideration that schools don't get funding for lower class sizes in upper grades. Most districts try to fill up their upper grades as much as possible. This past week, we found out that our school is receiving about 100 new students on Tuesday morning. All of these kids are from other schools around the district. Their schools don't have room for them, so they're being sent to our school. None of those 100 students are 5th graders. 18 of them though, are 6th graders. Our 6th grade classes are completely full, but not our 5th grade classes. So how does a district save some money? They combine the two! We will now have one 5th grade class, two 6th grade classes, and one 5th/6th combo class. Originally, my principal wanted David to do the combination class since I'll be leaving on maternity leave pretty soon. The more I thought about it though, it just seemed to make more sense for me to do the combo class. So, I volunteered to do it. Here's why: First of all, I just felt really bad that David was being assigned to the combo simply because I was going on maternity leave. The two of us have spent many, many hours planning for this year, and we both feel like the year is "ready to go." He's a 2nd year teacher, still involved with BTSA (beginning teacher stuff), and he coaches after school. It'd be a lot to ask, having him completely switch gears now to do 6th grade. Also, since we've put so much time into getting ready for 5th grade, it would be nice for at least one of us to see how it all turns out. I won't get to anyway since I'll be on maternity leave for 3 months. In addition to thinking about how all of this affects David, I couldn't imagine leaving my long term substitute to teach an entire grade level completely on his/her own- with no grade level partner, with no help (since we're a new school, programs are slowly being implemented), no deployment... Teaching 6th grade would mean joining a team of two other 6th grade teachers. In October, we will begin deployment for Language Arts- all 6th graders would be leveled by ability levels, receiving Language Arts instruction at their level. Each teacher would focus on one area. As well, in 6th grade, Science, Social Studies, and Writing would all be departmentalized. That means that my sub would not have to learn Social Studies or Science, instead focusing only on teaching Writing to 3 classes. In the end, I decided that this was the best way to go. This decision was so incredibly hard to make. I was extremely overwhelmed when reality finally hit and I realized what I had gotten myself into. Fortunately, I now have two grade level partners who have already helped me out a great deal. Thank goodness!
I had to say goodbye to my class on Friday. I was so sad to let them go- in such a short time, I have really connected with them. I had scheduled to visit 13 of them at their homes this weekend, but since most of them won't be in my class after all, I ended up only visiting 4 homes. I was able to keep 7 of my students, and I will be getting 18 new 6th graders on Tuesday morning. It won't be a 3 day weekend for me- I'm definitely going to school tomorrow to get ready! You could pray that I'll be able to find a good long term substitute... especially if on Tuesday, my doctor tells me I'm going on disability leave at the end of the week. There is much to do from now until then. Sorry for these long posts! I promise to try and post about Gracie and Jason in this next week.

2 comments:

Lisa said...

Jane, I continue to be amazed by you! I am so impressed that you intended to visit all of your kids in their home environment! I've never heard of a teacher doing that. Way cool. I will continue to keep you in my prayers regarding changes in school and your pregnancy.

Di 9 Chu My & Kids said...

Wow Jane,
Where do you find the time?
Janallyn and Dyllyn are in the Program called Cogito that is really good Jane, Kids are in uniforms and that means NO frighting with what to wear.!!!!
It's geting more and more popular as the year go by. Entrance exam is enforce for all level from K-9.

:0)