First things first... i'm extremely proud of my girl's for their performance over the weekend. For those of you who don't know, I'm the assistant girl's basketball coach for the 6-8th grade. This past weekend, we had a 3-game tournament in Bowie, M.D. To be quite honest, our first game on Friday night was a disaster. The girls came out flat, goofing around on the court, and they appeared to just be disinterested in the game. We lost by 23. Saturday night, we played another tough team. The girls came our firing .... they were playing with intensity... getting open looks, passing the ball well... and finally... yes finally, they were rebounding the ball. It came down to the last few seconds... and unfortunately, we lost by 2 points. The girls were visibly crushed. The team as a whole really came together that night... no one complained about playing time, the girls on the bench cheered their teammates on... it was just a great feeling to be apart of. I really felt like a proud parent. On Sunday... we had to play a morning game. Everyone was exhausted... and it showed in the way we played. The girls started slowly... again... but they were able to pull the game within 1 with a minute and some change to play. The game ended once again with us falling just a bit short... and we lost by 1. It was a hard 0-3 weekend for the girls to swallow.. but I was proud of the progress they had made in such short time. We still have a lot of work to do, but the girls have seen how well they can play when they're motivated. At times, they play some lockdown defense... and if we can learn to score on a consistent basis.... we're going to be on par with the bulls of the EARLY 90s. Ok... maybe not just yet... but you know what I mean.
Big ups to http://teachersol.blogspot.com/ I've been hitting this DC special education blog up a lot for new ideas, inspirations, and up-to-date news on special education mandates and the like.
I checked out Michelle Rhee's five year plan (draft) for student achievement today. ( http://www.k12.dc.us/chancellor/documents/DCPS_Five-Year-Plan_Draft_Oct_29_2008.pdf) It was certainly well-detailed and left out most of the more controversial issues going on (potentially creating a state of emergency in DCPS and turning schools into charter schools). It's nice to see that Ms. Rhee is not completely wrapped up with the teacher contract/union stuff... as there are changes to be made elsewhere... and we need a plan to do it.
As a Special Educator, you know my main concern was how we plan to address Special Education in the District over the next five years. Rhee outlined her 6 goals/needs for change as being Compelling schools, Great people, Alligned Curriculum, Data-Driven Decisions, Effective Central Office, and an Engaged Community. I decided to search the document specifically for her plan regarding special education, and found the following:
A general blurb about compelling schools: We will do this (create compelling schools) by enhancing the quality of our school portfolio, ensuring accountability for school performance, making schools safer and more modern, and expanding our ability to meet the needs of students with special needs.
I feel like this is all too common in plans in proposals in education-- "We'll give more money and attention to special education... we'll make sure that the needs of our neediest children are met"... with no specific plan in place. How about running special education programs efficiently so that we don't get sued for millions of dollars for being out of compliance? Or maybe we can hire certified special ed. teachers and compensate them according to their work instead of just hiring people who didn't make the cut to teach special education. Maybe I'm just being ambitious here.
I'm excited to get home for Thanksgiving. It will be nice to spend some quality time with friends, family, the dog, and my bed. I also have big plans to begin a phonics-based reading program with some of my lower-level performers when I get back. I was able to sit down (with Jess, my PD) and identify some of the things that are holding certain groups of students from performing at their highest level. Big ups to her-- that was really helpful. I came to the conclusion that certain students lack the basic reading skills that they'll need in order to perform higher levels of blooms. I'm real excited to get that going-- It's painful to see some of my students not being able to read.... what's worse is that they're eager to read, but simply cannot decode anything higher than a three letter word. Sending them to high school without reading skills is not an option. Most literature suggests that students who can't read by the 10th grade are put in survival mode... all hope at reading is abandoned... and the goal becomes to get them to graduation. That's why middle school is so important... we're not only preparing our students for high school.. but preparing them not to be lost in the mix once they get there.
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