Grumblesandgripes

Hello everyone in blog world. I am going to vent. That's the disclaimer.

I got a job offer today. I am a little stressed. Do I take it? Do I wait for something else? I think I am definitely going to take a new job for next year. The question is whether I should take this one or keep looking. I'm a little stressed.

James is not doing well in Microbiology. He's a little stressed.

I had Parent Teacher Conferences last night and Monday. They were great!!! (please note sarcasm). On Tuesday night I got so bored due to the lack of parent attendance, I decided to count how many parents I could see: 16. We have nearly 2200 students in our school. A whopping 16 parents were there in the lunchroom at one point.

The boys basketball coaches were not in attendance at PTC's. They had to go be "professionally developed" at the state basketball tournament. It wasn't that they just decided to call in sick or use a personal day. They actually had district professional development leave to go to the basketball tournament to learn what they need to do to have a better team next year. Do I wonder what the priorities of my school are?

Another math teacher is concerned that when the new high school opens in Stansbury that she won't have enough students to support and AP Calc class. She took her concerns to the principal. He said he thinks there will be enough. She said, "the principal told me that we have almost 2200 kids. Can you believe that? I thought we were still at 1600." Hello?

Another math teacher came to talk to me. I told her one of her students had been to ask me for some help after school. He said he was sick, missed some days, and is really behind and wondered if I could help him. Her response, "He doesn't even know how to put numbers into the quadratic formula and he put his head down on his desk in class today. I can't help him." Um . . . ok . . . I guess that we should just give up on anyone who doesn't understand the quadratic formula. How many of you out there know how to use it properly? Are you still capable, intelligent, functioning people? How has your life been affected by not fully understanding this important mathematical formula for solving equations with variables raised to the second power? When was the last time you went to the grocery store and they asked you to solve it before you could buy your gallon of milk?

There was a teacher at my school who won the Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year award for Tooele. I think she gets $1000 or something like that. She drives a fancy green mustang and parks it diagonally in a field next to her portable classroom. (Eric, a student, one day told me that he peed on her couch. I asked him not to elaborate. ) But I digress . . . . anyway, so I e-mailed this teacher today because one of my students, call her Kam, has not been to my class since the middle of January. The kids in 8th period told me that she dropped out (even though she's only a 9th grader). When I pulled up Kam's attendance, this particular teacher of the year had consistently NOT been marking her absent. I thought, "Hmmmm .. . maybe she's actually attending this class." The teacher responded,

"No, if it shows she has been attending my class than it is an error and I will go in and fix it. It do not know who she is. Mrs. S. May the Force Be With You."

No, may the force be with YOU even with your green mustang, wal-mart award, and grammatical error in your e-mail . . . . this poor girl has been coming to school (although not accomplishing much while there) the WHOLE year. It's only the last month that she's stopped coming. How do you not know who she is?

Grrrrrrrrrrrr . . . . I think I am done for now. I feel better. Thanks for letting me post my frustrations. Have a good day!