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2047. arkymalarky - 9/24/2019 7:20:03 PM

Well looking at my last post, you just think things are going to rock on like they always do but they don't. Dad's bladder cancer came back and he got through surgery fine and we'll see the prognosis tomorrow, but man am I glad I didn't take even a part-time job this year. I have to take Dad for treatment once a week for six weeks in Hot Springs and probably more stuff before and after that. We're babysitting grandson in a week or two and having company after that, then dad's treatment start. No way I could have worked

2048. arkymalarky - 9/24/2019 7:24:45 PM

Still miss it though, still dream about it, still sometimes cry about it. Stan and I were talking today about the fun stuff we used to tell kids. They'd always ask for a free day and stan would tell them it is going to be a free day it won't cost you a dime. And I used to tell mine if they would work extra hard for a couple of days I would give them two free days in a row. It would take them a minute to figure out that that was Saturday and Sunday. They be all excited and then disappointed. Good times.

2049. Ms. No - 9/26/2019 5:21:10 PM

Yeah, I think everyone has this idea of retirement as being nothing to do all day except what you want to do and it never works out that way.


I'm starting to seriously think about my exit plans. Set to meet with a friend in a couple of weeks about what further schooling/certification I need to pursue to make a transition to post-secondary education.

2050. arkymalarky - 9/27/2019 3:12:05 PM

Yeah it's different when you get out because you feel like you have to instead of wanting to and looking forward to it or making a career change. Spook and stan don't get it because they were both ready to get out of teaching. I wasn't. My job was too much with the schedule and the commute , and my life was getting to be too much and I just couldn't do both anymore. And that's just how it is, thankfully I was ready for it financially, but I have to be there for my parents right now. And for my daughter and grandson because we want to spend time with him instead of working all the time.

2051. arkymalarky - 9/27/2019 3:13:40 PM

Keep me posted on what you end up doing. Might not be your thing, but Mose is ecstatic about being a public school librarian. She would not go back to teaching English for anything, not because of the classroom but because of the grading. She never could get a system that kept her OCD in check so that she didn't have to mark every little thing every kid did.

2052. arkymalarky - 9/27/2019 3:16:18 PM

Problem with libraries is that they're disappearing in public schools and I hate that. It's not happening where she is and she's teaching in a high-poverty 95% Latino Middle School.

2053. arkymalarky - 9/27/2019 3:22:54 PM

Here in Arkansas to do post-secondary requires Masters plus 15 in the subject area.

2054. arkymalarky - 9/28/2019 12:13:06 AM

Some good jobs within the system for people who want to build up their retirement are esl, curriculum, reading specialist. I never had any interest in administration or really anything besides the classroom, but got my masters in ESL and did some of that with teaching. Where I am that's not a full-time job anywhere. Counseling and special ed are nightmares because of the paperwork. A good friend of mine went from English teaching to counseling and she hated it. She's retired now. She was a writing specialist for year and I think she hated that as well. Much too much grading

2055. arkymalarky - 9/28/2019 12:16:02 AM

I don't know about California, but I think in Arkansas if you do post-secondary in a state system you get to continue your retirement. To me that's important because once you do have to do at whatever point it's a shock to the system the change in income. I make about $15,000 less than I did teaching. I have AR retirement Savings Program, but I really don't want to use it up before I get Social Security.

2056. arkymalarky - 9/28/2019 12:17:11 AM

That last was a joke. I'm not anywhere close to even putting a dent in it that's because I paid off a lot of debt and did some things in preparation to retire that helped

2057. Ms. No - 10/7/2019 3:34:01 AM

Yeah, I don't know half of what I need to know about retirement and wealth-building. I'm also thinking I should talk to a life-coach/head-hunter/career-coach sort of person.

What I really want is just to do whatever the hell I want to do and not have to worry about money. I want to spend all my time playing with my family and doing art stuff and traveling.

I'm sooooooo lazy.

2058. arkymalarky - 10/7/2019 7:39:18 AM

lol. I never thought about it until my school was closing.

2059. Ms. No - 10/8/2019 8:41:00 AM

Had a conversation with a colleague at Sac State and she's steering me toward an EdD --- which, much as I have railed against them in the past is actually probably the best road for me.

2060. arkymalarky - 10/8/2019 5:01:07 PM

I think you could do a lot with it. Education departments are much improved over what they used to be and their research has much more validity since they quit trying to imitate other departments and are truly looking at research-based improvements. My dad used to say it they start with a small flick of Truth and lather it up using jargon and hoohaw. That's just not true anymore.

2061. Ms. No - 10/20/2019 8:49:06 PM

Well, we did it to ourselves this time, but to be honest, we didn't have all the facts when we made our decision.

We are now into our 7th week with the new principal, and we're having some pretty serious misgivings.

I realized just now, that I'm having a lovely morning and I'd rather not get myself all worked up over this at the moment. ---Yesterday it woke me up two hours before I intended to get out of bed.

So, that said, I'll report back later.

2062. Ms. No - 11/15/2019 12:18:17 AM

Why is it that four day weeks seem to last so much longer than regular weeks?

So. dang. tired.

And we've got another week before Thanksgiving break.


In other news, I've been looking into taking the test for the Admin credential -- rather than spending $8k and 18 mos of my life learning how to do something I have no desire to do.

I was looking over the sample questions and the first time through I only scored about 80%. When I saw which ones I'd missed, however, I think I got the angle: Any time a question can be answered with "implement benchmark testing" or "refer to state standards," that is the answer you should choose.

So, if I can psych myself up and do a little crash-course studying for the exam, I'll hopefully have my prelim Admin credential before long and be able to enroll in the EdD program at Sac State for next Fall.

Honestly, I don't have to get the admin credential before I enter the EdD program, but it would be nice to have it done if only because it gives me job options right away if I need them.

2063. Ms. No - 11/15/2019 12:23:18 AM

When I started this journey 12 years ago (13?) I knew --- and Arky, you said -- it wouldn't be the kids or the classroom that burnt me out. It would be the administrative and bureaucratic bullshit.

Not that I ever doubted you, but fer cryin' out loud. So many people with no clue how do educate kids making all the decisions about how kids should be educated.

Great article by Alfie Kohn, if anyone is interested. I don't agree with him 100% on every item, but I'm pretty close. I don't think he goes far enough with the first item --- we need to quit looking at education as nothing but prep for the workforce.

It’s Time to Rethink Education Policy:
Advice for the Democratic Presidential Candidates

2064. arkymalarky - 11/16/2019 1:54:11 AM

It's one of the main reasons I liked being in small schools. There are bad admins there too, but they don't dominate the dynamic like they can in larger schools and I always felt like I can run my own classroom and ignore the rest of it for the most part. What happened to your principal situation? Is the person going to be staying?

2065. arkymalarky - 11/17/2019 5:40:29 PM

Should have said rural not small

2066. Ms. No - 11/18/2019 5:46:40 PM

Our previous principal -- who'd been here since the school started in one capacity or another -- finally just got burnt out and took a position with the county overseeing curriculum for the Dept. of Corrections.

The new principal sort of snowed us in her interview. We knew she knew a couple of people affiliated with our school. What we didn't know was the extent to which she had been coached and given the "right" answers. Now we're trying to figure out if she's a liar, a district patsy, or just a moron intent on using us to further her own career.

I'm leaning toward all three.

She came into a Linked Learning Certified school -- a career pathway school that provides College Prep a-g instruction through the lens of the health and medical sciences AS WELL AS CTE. We get grant money for being a college prep that offers a legitimate CTE pathway.

And now she's trying to dump our CTE classes and offer a bunch of random electives as well as add AP in order to "attract students" and boost enrollment.

Except AP courses don't serve our student population very well. Dual Enrollment -- which we offer -- does.

And if students don't take the prescribed CTE electives in our catalogue, there isn't any reason for them to come to our school in the first place.

It's like if you took an Academy at one of the comprehensive high schools and put it on its own campus. Reverse that and look at us if we were on a comprehensive campus -- students in our pathway would be required to take specific electives to be in our pathway...or they wouldn't be in our pathway.

We know she's getting pressure from the District to push AP --- but we're already getting extra FTE just to graduate our kids. She's not going to get additional FTE on top of that just to offer electives that kids could get at the comprehensive school.

She's the principal at a school that has been developed and run by staff whose curriculum is being used nationally for health and medical sciences pathways. If there's a medical pathway school opened in the last 10 years, they use some form of the courses that we wrote.

And she's trying to figure out how to make that stuff optional so she can offer what the other general ed high schools offer.

What she doesn't understand is that our maximum physical capacity is 500 students. We don't have the facilities nor will we ever have enough students to run like a comprehensive. We won't have football ever. We won't have ROTC ever. We won't have band or color guard or engineering team or multiple different career academy paths because we are a SMALL SCHOOL.

It's just infuriating. And depressing as hell because the core group of teachers who built this school are ready to walk. If she takes even one of the CTE courses away, there isn't any reason for anyone to stay because we won't be a certified pathway anymore, and there's no use doing all of the extra work we do just to be told that we need to be like the other high schools.

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