They've lost their minds

It should be easier. I made it to Thanksgiving, I made it to Christmas. I'm on the home stretch. Magically the first semester went fairly well. The second semester is starting out badly.

First, on the administrative end, they've now decided we're having in-school SATP tutoring Mon-Thurs, which means am activity schedule from now until April, where you hold kids who are not on the tutoring list. Ok, I can deal with that. I'm teaching U.S. History tutorials once a week (a subject I've never taught, to kids I don't know). Ok, I can deal with that. Then, last thursday, just before the activity period, they got on the intercom and announced that during the activity period, we would all be doing informative writing with our classes. The students should fill up the sheet (what sheet?), the teachers should use the rubric (what rubric?), at the end of the 25 min we should collect what they have and give it back to them next Thursday since this will take more than one activity period (except for this Thursday is B-day and next Thursday will be an A-day...which means every teacher in the building knew this wasn't going to work except the administrator on the speaker).....I wander up and down the hall. I talk to English teachers, I talk to veteran teachers, I talk to my mentor....eventually we realize that the paper we were handed at the end of the day yesterday by a student worker and simply told to initial for is what we are supposed to have out and copied for the students to use. We run to the copiers upstairs...they're both broken. We run to the copier downstairs and just grab pages as they come out. On the way, I see the principal..."Oh yeah, you were on duty yesterday, so you weren't at the staff meeting."....1/4 of the school is on duty each week...the teacher next door who WASN'T on duty didn't even know what was going on. My kids had JUST finished writing a page essay for me....Now they must write a 5 paragraph essay. That will be counted as a grade in World History (with a rubric from 1-4...how do I enter THAT in the grade book....and why am I punishing my children in history for being poor writers)........I could go on and on about this cluster-f*&k, but the point is: it made no sense then and we haven't heard anything about it since. The same thing will happen this Thursday, only we will have a completely different class and someone will have to figure out what to do about that (they only change every single week---seems someone would figure that out).

Second Problem: My students have lost their minds. It may be the administrative insanity. It may be that report cards just came out. It may be that I'm putting out wierd vibes and they've decided to simply disobey and hate me. I sent 6 referrals in 2 days. Nine of the 15 kids in my A-3 class friday got something past a warning. I've gotten 1 kid back from alternative school in that class and now a completely new kid (who just got out of prison). They're not the worst of the bunch though...the old kids must be putting on a show. My A-4 continues to be ridiculous and I wrote a kid up in one of my angelic classes on Thursday. The whole class was stunned. I think it was the first referral I've sent in that class. I'm going on a serious telephone rampage this week and I'm not going to stop until every kid in that class knows how to act. I refuse to take children to lunch who DISAPPEAR on the way there and then walk off when I try to talk to them after class or who refuse to sit up in their seat and do work, and when I give them a second chance, tell me to shut up. I know it's not supposed to make me angry. But honestly, they're not showing me any respect and it's unacceptable. I'm also kind of angry and disappointed in them. They know better.