12/09/06 Cruise Continued ~ Pirating Bananas DIS Geekorama Part 2 Part 2

[klineyqueen]

Brack - how did the weekend go? Are you and DW getting ready for the big move? Good Luck.

 

[lbgraves]

Good morning everyone! DS woke up feeling worn out. I guess so after screaming for an hour. This is going to be a boring week for both of my kids at school. EOGs are like that for K-2. DD will be spending 2-3 days outside at the park down the street from the school. They have the 5th grade & Kindergarten on the same hall across from each other. This works well for their adoption program where the 5th graders work with the K students BUT when EOGs happen they want to get rid of the poor little Ks. DS is on the hall with the 2nd grade so noise isn't as critical for them BUT they wont have any of their specials this week...science, art, music, PE. UGH! I am going to be tempted to keep DD home one of those days if it gets too hot. Last year I drove by and ended up going to get ice, water, & cups for them as well as books to read them to keep them quiet in the shade to cool off.

 

[BuzzBoyMom]

Sorry Lisa - what is EOG?

 

[MrsMork]

Angie look below, lol!

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Penny

THANKS, PENNY!!!! Glad you are here for me when Mark is not!!

 

[MrsMork]

199 Days.... 2 Hours..... 16 Mins.....29 Secs......

And then Mark come through too!! THANKS, MARK!!

 

[lbgraves]

Karen, that stands for the infamous End Of Grade tests that 3-5 (& I think above) must take to move on to the next grade. It is also critical to the incredibly useless NCLB (no child left behind) thing that schools stress about. The program is doomed! Politicians cannot do mathmatics correctly...why should they expect our children to do well on such a program that is set up for failure? Sorry, that program really upsets me.

 

[GoofyFD]

~Karen, How is the thing at church going? Have you heard anything yet about the position?

 

[lbgraves]

ARG!!!!! I am so upset right now!!!! DS came home with a conduct grade of 2 today. The reason..."not writting words correctly." They have the spelling words for the week written on the board, read over them together, then go to their desk & copy the words into their agenda book. He wrote "dose" instead of "does". I am livid!!! I have emailed his teacher asking for clarification of this as well as write a note in his agenda. If this turns out to be true, I will be at the school at 8 am to meet with the principal. This is absolutely rediculous. This lady has opened up a can of worms now. I have been quiet about the lack of instruction that he has received this year since his teacher left on maternity leave & the sub took over. I am going to have a list of things ready to turn in.

 

[MrsMork]

Writing dose instead of does is a conduct issue?? Don't blame you, I would be sitting on someone's desk too!

 

[brack]

Brack - how did the weekend go? Are you and DW getting ready for the big move? Good Luck.

The weekend was great ... for the women. They loved it and I got some kind of virus. I still was able to get all the sound and video stuff working but most of Saturday and Sunday was a blur. I saw my family doctor today and he said just rest and drink lots of fluid ..... right! :

We have started packing up our Disney stuff to get that out of the way. We are using the POD system and they deliver our POD tomorrow. We can then take until June 15th to load it. That's the day they have to pick it up to get it to the house in Baltimore by the 26th. There is a lot to do but we have friends to help.

 

[goofyforlife]

I have been quiet about the lack of instruction that he has received this year since his teacher left on maternity leave & the sub took over.

Oooh my DD had that problem in 4th grade. The sub started in like February and was really underqualified for the kids in that class. (there were like 5-6 add kids and some just behavior problems) After three weeks of no homework and no idea what was going on, i told the principal to switch her to one of the other 4th grades. The complied and things were 150% better.

Apparently some schools are so desperate they'll let anyone substitute.
(My DD had a sub last month who in her very poor judgement encouraged the children to play a game of "Your mother's so________ that she ______" Where the children were to think of the best insults they could.
I was mortified and went to the principal." She was just reprimanded I think. So much for no tolerance.)

 

[klineyqueen]

There is a lot to do but we have friends to help.

Thank the good Lord for friends!

 

[klineyqueen]

It is also critical to the incredibly useless NCLB (no child left behind) thing that schools stress about. The program is doomed! Politicians cannot do mathmatics correctly...why should they expect our children to do well on such a program that is set up for failure? Sorry, that program really upsets me.

I could not agree more with the No Child Left Behind issue! What a disaster. We are not striving for excellence. It is mediocrity for all! AHHHH!!!!!

 

[klineyqueen]

We have a huge problem with subs in PA. On my maternity leave with my son my sub was horrible!!! He ran the music program into the dirt in one year! This leave my sub is qualified and cares about the kids. I have much less worry this time.

In PA all you need is a 4 year degree in anything and you can get a "guest teacher" certificate. We have had some real doozies at our school over the last few years! They don't come in for long term but they are in for day to day. It really is a bad situation. There just aren't enough teachers to go around.

I could go on and on about this but I will leave it with what I wrote.

 

[lbgraves]

Well, I did consider taking the sub qualifying class here to become a sub & get paid more. You just need a degree here too. I was only going to take short term assignments in K-1 because while I can follow a lesson plan, I don't want to be responsible for teaching them a huge block of work. This sub is actually a retired teacher. She is the one who complained about the egg hunt as well...so I have put up with alot from her already...too much IMO.

DS is already out of the loop since he is at a third grade level for reading & math in first grade. They don't care. He will score at grade level. They don't care until the kid is below grade level. If they would just change the NCLB scoring to each child's score being counted one time...it would be fine. Instead... they count the majority of the kid's scores more than once (once for each subgroup they are in -- minority, english as a second language, free lunch program, LD). UGH!!!

 

[MrsMork]

I talked with Jordan today. Definately meeting at DL next week and we do look forward to seeing him again! I will try to remember to have DrHug take photos this time. Although I hope he is not going to be taking his "big bag"!

 

[lbgraves]

That is great, Angie! Do take a picture Dr. Hug!!!

I just got an email back from DS's teacher & he is right. The only thing he did was misspell that word. She says that she has been doing this for a couple months now. I am beyond upset. I forwarded it to DH. I think that he will need to talk to the principal about this & our other concerns. I am so upset about this year being a total waste of his time. DH asked him if he wants to go to a different school where he will learn more last night.

 

[BuzzBoyMom]

Wow. I guess every school has their problems. I'm so sorry about this, Lisa. It is the parents who care that look like they make a big deal about such things. Well - we care!! I'd be furious. Sounds like everyone is ready for school to be over. My oldest is coming home crying from a "bully"

 

[lbgraves]

Did you call & report this kid? We have a zero tollerance policy on bullying. Last year when DS was in K he started crying on the way home & saying that he didn't want to go back to school. This is my child that would go 7 days a week if they let him. By the time we got home, I had questioned him & found out that a 5th grader had told him that he was going to go to his home & punch him in the face. This was with a couple kids inbetween them on the carpool bench while there were teachers right there!!! I called the office because I had him give me a complete description of the kid & the head of the carpool line has a great memory so I wanted to ask him who it was right away so that I could report him. The principal answered the phone & when she couldn't reach him, asked if she could help me. This was the principal who left us this year...she was wonderful! Anyhow, she had me bring DS into her office the next morning and both the carpool teacher & the VP talked to DS. They said that they were playing a detective game & needed clues. He was great...even though he had been afraid to go back to school. They had him watch some of the kids coming in who it might have been thru the window & he eliminated them so the PE teacher took him to each of the 5th grade classes to talk to the teacher so that he would have a chance to find the kid. They worked out a secret signal and everything. He IDd the kid, who was then taken to the VP's office. After they got him to admit to everything that DS had told them...and more!...they asked DS to tell the kid how it made him feel to be threatened. The principal came out & told me that they didn't think there would be any more problems. The kid was on ISS & was "crying like a baby." It was funny after that because he made a point to be nice to DS. DS would point him out to me & say "look mom! There's the bully. He's my friend now." OY!

 

[MommyMinnie]

I talked with Jordan today. Definately meeting at DL next week and we do look forward to seeing him again! I will try to remember to have DrHug take photos this time. Although I hope he is not going to be taking his "big bag"!

Hmmm.... I only remember a Petite Bag.