Saturday Morning Fun

This summer I plan on reading a lot. This normally means that I'd spend A LOT of money buying books; however, this year I am going to be more realistic and utilize the library. Although I have a thing with the smell of old books and libraries in general, I have to make this work.
Melissa and I took Mom to the Downtown Riverside library and got our very own library cards and spent a few minutes looking around. We each found a few books to check out.

Mom reminded us about when we got our first library cards :)

On our way home, we stopped at the Downtown Riverside farmers market. It was small, but we found a few things to buy for lunch and dinner.

The strawberries smelled good and tasted even better!

We also picked out white and orange nectarines, asparagus, and squaw bread.

Master Bathroom Update, Part VII

All of the drywall is up. A few electrical issues were found...The room was emptied.We "taped and mudded" the corners, seams, and holes.Somehow I managed to burst a blood vessel in my thumb.

It hurt, swelled, and turned black and blue, but thankfully only lasted two days.Then we started the process of sanding, re-mudding, re-sanding, cleaning, sanding, re-mudding... the process has seemed to go on forever.

This is AFTER vacuuming it clean three times...

We may be done tomorrow, pictures to come!

Looking Back

For Mothers Day and Dad's birthday, we went as a family to Disneyland (May 2--I'm way behind).

It was also our last trip of our annual passes :(

Recent Happenings

Been busy and been lazy--sorry for the dramatic delay in words and pictures.

Here's the happenings in no sort of order:

• I finished my Masters of Arts in Educational Administration. This included finishing fieldwork hours, a portfolio and comp prep class, hours upon hours of studying, and one nasty hand/finger cramp. Des and I studied for three weeks this year (as opposed to the one from last year) and rocked the flashcards, mnuemonics, and hand motions. Last Saturday (5/22), we sat down at 1 pm and wrote! My comps consumed three hours and forty-three minutes of my time and used 38 pages of paper. We celebrated being over with a ice cream cone from McDonalds. Just waiting for the letter confirming that I passed.
• My dad was called as the senior pastor at Faith Fellowship in La Palma (Orange County) on the 23rd of May. It was pretty inspiring to be there, listen to his sermon about trusting God, and then get to watch him and mom walk down the isle with a standing ovation. His first Sunday is this weekend. The moving from San Diego decisions are still in the works.
• Finished up at Liberty as I helped them run their first ever Career Day. The event went well and the kids overwhelmingly loved the experience (thanks Brenda!); I think that they can handle it next year without me.
• Dave has been working at a contract job for the past four weeks (he has a few more to go) setting up a network and computer system for the new Kohl's distribution center in San Bernardino. He's been working 8-5 and coming home tired.
• As you can assume, work on the house has slowed down to a crawl because Dave's been working outside of the house. However, we've been working each weekend and some evenings on the master bathroom/bedroom. I understand why the do-it-yourselfers on TV hire people to come in and tape and mud the drywall. It isn't particularly hard work, but it is really, really, really annoying and time consuming. I think I'd be willing to pay someone the next time. Hopefully by the end of Memorial weekend, I'll be able to post some pictures that include paint color :)
• I didn't get a pink slip this year and I can't be moved because I was last year; so I'll be a lion again. Working with students to get a student spirit club up and running and wishing/praying that Yearbook will land in my lap. Not sure what I'll be teaching next year (it seems to change every time I talk to someone else), but hopefully I'll be in a different classroom.
• Melissa moved in and has taken over the extra space we d idn't know we had. Because of the extra person and the work in the master bedroom, my clothes are on a rack in the living room and the queen bed is sitting in the dining room. A folding table is set up to "hold" stuff. Every nook seems to have something in it. Melissa also comes home to tell some disgusting stories about what she's experienced at work. I keep telling her that she should write about them because they are downright hiliarious--seriously, just ask her about poop, she has about 15 zingers so far :) She bought a car last weekend and will be finding an apartment of her own soon.
• Working with a few WW friends to plan a 5K for June 6th. Super excited.
• Robyn's baby shower is coming June 12th. Elegant and PINK--love this girl thing.
• I'll be teaching ninth grade English in summer school at Poly HS (all summer school is there for the entire district) from June 14-July 16th. Hopefully the extra paychecks will help get the house done!
• Even though I don't teach yearbook this year (sniff, sniff), I'll be teaching at Yearbook Camp again July 26-29th.
• My parents are celebrating 30 years of marriage this August 16th and to celebrate we're going on a family vacation. Much cheaper than the Hawaii trip, we'll be cruising the Mexican Caribbean in August.

Feel updated?

Grrr-Rant Ahead

There are a lot of issues with California public schools (duh!); the greatest issue at the moment is financial, to the tune of 374 RUSD teachers receiving final reduction in force letters today. These 374 teachers are not all super star teachers, but MOST of them are--they run our schools from their classroom and lead students to success across the board.

I mourn for them; their loss of a "job" is really a loss of career, and for some, a loss of passion. Pray for them and their families.

That said, here starts my rank (stop reading if you don't care, I won't be offended): With that in the back of my mind all day, I was a bit snippy with a few students today--here's why...

Important Premise #1: Everything about school is meant for the students. Everything. Well, at least everything is suppose to be meant for them.

Important Premise #2: Accountability is important for education as a while.

Important Premise #3: We talk about accountability, testing, and making them bubble until they can bubble blind, deaf, and dumb (not my saying, I assure you), but we never talk about true accountability for them.

Important Premise #4: Our system allows, and I could even say ENCOURAGES, students to fail over and over again.

Think about this for a second:

• Students learn and test.
• Teachers are held accountable for their individual scores (great idea, I think)
• Schools are held accountable for their API growth and subgroup targets (benefits and challenges presented here too).
• If students do well--teachers and schools benefits.
• Students are praised over and over again for reaching their goal. We usually even "reward" the student with a Popsicle...
• If students do poorly--teachers and schools suffer.
• We try to figure out how to be a better teacher, how to adapt instruction to meet their needs, how to improve their experience, we talk and talk and talk about what is missing (all good and important).
• Students are moved on to the next grade and the next class without a consequence and definitely without a conversation about how they need to be a better student, how they need to adapt their learning and home environment, how they need to improve their own personal school experience. Simply, students don't talk at all about it...

WAIT! Do you see the break down here?

Do I blame the students? NO. They have never had to talk about it, why would be expect them to naturally and spontaneously start? I blame the school system that has put more money into building "confidence" in students who don't make an effort, than those who do...

Case in point:

Summer school for RUSD:

Those who failed a class get to go to summer school for free (limited subjects, but still, free); whereas, those who want to take a class to get ahead or to make room in their schedule for an college-prep elective (foreign language, science, higher level math, art, yearbook) have to pay!

The paying part isn't what bothers me (frankly, I think they should all pay), but if we're going to make it free to some, don't you think we should make it free to those who did what they we are supposed to during the school year? We're rewarding the losers, plain and simple.

I get really mad when those losers have the audacity to COMPLAIN that they can only take summer school at Poly, or that they can only make up 10 credits at a time, or when they say something as ignorant as "it's my RIGHT to take summer school."

That is when I turn into Scylla.

Odyssey reference for those of you still reading (Scylla=6 headed snake like monster who eats people for the fun of it)

Next Year

I cannot believe it, but it is time to start planning for the next school year. I saw on a teacher's board today that we have 22 days of school left...

Although I'm exhaused and ready for a break, it doesn't seem like the end of the year is here already. Testing is over, but is wasn't a big deal here for the entire school so it didn't seem that major to me. I've started my "last" unit, but I've hardly covered the pacing guide this semester (Romeo and Juliet sideswiped my energy).

Maybe because there is no yearbook party to plan, no frantic last minute people to sell to, or excitement of a finish book arriving in the mail, and no overjoyed and exhaused yearbook students to "play" with...

Anyway, reguardless of how ready I feel for this year to be over, it is now time for me to fill out my teaching "wish list." Selfishly, I've written down that I only WANT to teach ninth grade Intro to Lit (again), have the SFS cluster (special ed kiddos in mainstream English classes), and yearbook (I can dream right?!).

I have left the SELA spot blank... I have until tomorrow to decide what I am going to put. If I put that I want/would be willing to teach it, I will have the class for sure. We've been pretty successful this year, but those kids are SO much work!

What should I do?

(not that I will have a say...)

Master Bath, Part VI

It's been almost a month since I've updated the blog on the Master bathroom progress--so here you go :)

From the bedroom door looking into the room--Dave finished removing the horrid word paneling from the house.

The junk pile grew (and was taken to the dump)

Brenda came over and helped Dave finalize the new subfloor. Dave taught her how to use the nail gun! The floor and walls are completely insulated which should dramatically increase the warmth in this room! After a successful inspection of insulation and (new) rough plumbing, David came over and helped Dave hang drywall on the ceiling. I wouldn't say that they had fun... but it was fun to watch them. David using his head to hold up the drywall I even "got" to help at one point...The sitting room area is completely drywalled now and the door is temperary in place.

Coming soon (hopefully by May 15th):

1. Toliet useable in bathroom
2. Taping/mudding drywall
3. Bedroom walls cleaned, cracks fixed
4. Walls textured in sitting room and bedroom
5. Door installed completely
6. Bedroom and sitting room painted

Coming in the nearer future:

1. Drywall in bathroom
2. Shower stall prepared

Uggghh--Teacher Rant ahead

Week two of testing has begun--my testing group (10th and 11th graders that I don't know) is wonderful and has not caused any issues.

My students are a bit more squirmy than normal, but other than fifth period's normal hoodlums, no major problems.

The real problem today?

The cranky teachers who feel the need to complain about everything, including the unreliability and waste of time of testing. The ones who want to say that they are a great teacher and their test scores don't matter because it isn't an accurate test. Everywhere I went today on campus, this cranky complainingness (a made up word for you Nicole) followed me. The one who told me at lunch that my "trust in the system truly scared" him and I was "naive" to believe that my students scores would improve it I worked hard.

I said, "oh well" and left the staff lounge (I know, it was my fault for being in there; however, I have had no prep today and really needed to get copies made and didn't feel like standing in line this morning).

I haven't stopped stewing over this (two hours later), but there is no point in bringing up my thoughts to these types of teachers. Here is what I wanted to say, but didn't (mom, I'm trying to practice choosing my battles):

• You're just complaining because your test scores suck and you don't know how to make them better.
• You've never been taught how to use the scores to improve your day-to-day instruction, thus you see them as numbers with no importance.
• Because you've never been taught, and I have, my scores are higher than yours and this threatens you.
• You need to figure out that even if you don't like multiple choice tests, they are and will continue to be used as a major part of the education system. And buddy, sooner than you realize, you'll be seriously judged upon them. Who am I kidding, you're already judged on them and that is why you're complaining in the first place.
• You like to complain.

Of course, this mentality fills the education world and of course, it is another one of those things I'd like to change as an administrator.

Rewards

Four of my five eleventh graders have finally passed the CAHSEE!

Woo Hoo!

In order to reward their hard work, each student was given one of these three inch tall "super cheesy plastic trophies" (address levels work for a lot of projects). We also celebrated with giant cookies!

Although they are so totally worthless plastic prizes, the kiddos were so excited. After taking and failing the test three times, they were pretty proud of themselves for passing and officially getting to be part of the Class of 2011. I gave them out during second period and later, during lunch, I saw one of the kiddos with her friends showing off the trophy.

The fifth student, who did not pass, increased her score by 48 points. She is only 8 points away from passing. Although she was really upset (to the point of tears), we had an encouraging conversation and looked at her giant improvement and the small jump she needs to make by May. She has only been living in the US and speaking English for three years; that said, she works incredibly hard and is self-motivated. Needless to say, her tears broke my heart and I have another four weeks to help her pass.

Teachers--I found these beauties at Alin's in a pack of 8 for $2.99.

Bribery and Competition Works Wonders

FYI--If you're not a teacher or don't really care about a genius CST prep program, feel free to scan down and look at my bright classroom walls and move on.

The CSTs are coming and my students are prepared. In order to prove it and do some "fun" review, the annual team competition has started. This genius plan was not my complete creatiovAlthough the chart above makes the system look pretty complicated, the game is pretty simple.

Some of the basics:

1. Each class has eight teams
2. Each team is made up of four students of all levels (one high, one low, and two middles--based on last years CST scores and modified based on the semester final and class grades).
3. Each team works together to answer released CST questions in a packet.
4. From the state website, I took all the released questions and broke it down into five packets.
5. Teams are encouraged to talk about WHY they chose each answer, holding mini debated when they disagree with each other on a question's answer.
6. After a set time (2 minutes per question), we show our answers one at a time and I mark down which groups get the questions right/wrong.
7. If more than two groups get the question wrong, as a class we go over the answer choices and volunteers can answer proving questions (ie: who can tell me why answer a is a better choice than answer c? who can tell me the defintion of ambiguity?)
8. As soon as we grade the packet, we start the next packet and the cycle continues for seven school days.

Why do my burnt out ninth graders (who have taken CSTs every year since kindergarden) want to participate in this competition??

Bribery and Competition (period)

Bribery is the most important aspect: There are some pretty kick butt prizes!

• class party
• pizza party
• breakfast with me
• a super cool team who gets to come to all three

Competition is the second most important aspect for all people, let alone ninth graders and more specifically ninth grade BOYS (who tend to be more difficult):

• Everything they do well earns them points.
• Their points help the class as a whole and their team as a whole (up and down and across on that big chart).
• If they have the most points in their period or in the team, they get stars.
• Stars get them the "big" pizza prize.
• Also, the team that gets the most questions right, gets to come to everything!
• Their scores, points, and stars are posted instantly and updated daily. All I have to do it walk over and give one team a point and everyone copies that team (positive recognition works people!)

Some "working" pictures for you during team time.

Can you tell Spring Break is over?

The posts have totally stopped :)

I haven't had a great week at work, but I'm determined to see the positives. On that note, I have a few cute stories to tell you about my kiddos.

My CAHSEE students (as I've talked about before here) are a joy. A pure joy. Amazingly enough, I look forward to this period and don't really want them to leave when the period is over. They are unique individuals with great personalities, personal dreams, and a lack of self-esteem. They range from 14-17 years old, freshman through seniors.

Over the course of the past ten weeks, we're read four novels (I know this is against the rules, don't tell the novel-police), planned 40 body paragraphs, written four essays, read the newspaper front cover to back cover, and significantly improved in many areas!

Anyway, the real thing I wanted to tell you is that on the Friday before break, they participated in an egg hunt (like my 7th grade kids did last year and my 9th graders did the day before). They worked together pretty fast and had about fifteen minutes left of class.

Maggie, 11th grader, decided that we should play "heads up, seven up" and proceeded to convince all the other kids to play. Her "convincing" took about 20 seconds. They proceeded to set the rules for play (only 3 people were up, instead of 7) and play! They were so stinkin' cute. It made my day.

Easter at the Bennetts

Mom and Dad

(yes, Dad has a broken arm... yes, he broke it while golfing, but that is a whole different post)
Melissa, me, and Mom
(yes, Mom is showing off her new tiny body)

The Easter Bunny

(yes, Reese let me put this on her and ran around the backyard a cute as a bunny)

Easter Bunny left a few presents for each of us

(no, we are not too old for the Easter Bunny to come and yes, he even brings my parents presents)

Kick Butt Graduate!

Yesterday was a beautiful evening to celebrate Dave's hard work! The warm 78 degree weather was perfect for our walk in downtown to the Riverside Municipal Auditorium.

We found a full row of seats towards the back, but right by the center isle

(where they walked in and out).

Kay, Mom, Dad, Desiree and I started the evening together and Melissa joined us when she got off from her first 12-hour shift at the hospital.

Dave in the entry processional

Little did we know, Dave was getting a "few" awards. First, he was given the Quarter Project Award for his 115 page capstone project (didn't go on stage this time). The second time his name was called (picture above), he went onto the stage to receive a Alpha Beta Kappa National Honors Society pin and acceptance certificate.

The third time, he was awarded the Valedictorian Award for the Bachelors of Science, Information Systems Security program (two pictures below).

This award came with fancy metalian and plaque.

The fourth time Dave climbed the stairs he was actually getting his

Bachelors of Science diploma (well, empty diploma folder)

Dave on the exit processional! Excited to be "grad-ma-cated" (his joke, not mine).

Although his main party is next Sunday (if you accidently didn't get an invitation and you want to come, feel free), we had a mini-party with cheesecake and a grad bobble-head!

The proud grad with all his awards and highest honors cords!

Dave and Mom laughing!

The proud wife!

The proud family

Lifetime Member

At Weight Watchers, once you reach your goal weight you enter the "maintenance" phase for six weeks. At the end of this, you are rewarded with a "lifetime" gold key. This means that you can attend meetings for the rest of your lifetime for free (well, as long as you stay below or within two lbs of your goal weight)!

As you know and read about here, here and here, I declared goal seven weeks ago. Last Wednesday, I celebrated becoming WW's newest lifetime member!

This wonderful person is my WW leader, Donna. She is the best leader there is (and I'm not just saying that to be nice, literally I've seen good, bad, and horrible leaders over the past three years) and has been a part of my journey since July 2007 when I started WW. She made me cry during the meeting as she introduced me to the group and I made her cry in return with my thanks!