5:43 a.m. - Yesterday was a challenge. I tried and tried to accomplish things, but many times it was two steps forward and one step back. The weather arrived as forecasted. I'm pretty sure rotating clouds went over us or just to the west or east of us, as we had three lines of storms move through our area. The middle storm was the one with the rotation; the other two were just wind and rain makers. And more rain is supposed to be here this morning, and all day tomorrow we are supposed to have rain again. That trail run on Saturday at Loud Thunder is going to be a muddy mess of an event. I feel bad about it for the race organizers and the participants that have really been training hard to prepare. Me? I'm out of shape and in no condition to participate, so while it would be nice to have nice, dry trails, I'm just going to get muddy as I'll be walking anyway.
With the weather moving in yesterday afternoon, I thought I would take advantage and take personal day to go into Moline and get chlorine I need for the pool - the green pool I have in the backyard. It wasn't a bad plan, even though I probably could have avoided the personal day because my softball games at Galesburg were cancelled. On the other hand, I'm not sure I would have wanted to be trying to get the chemicals at the end of the school day because that's about the time the first wave of storms was hitting. So I drove into Sentry pool and purchased the chemicals, but then I thought I might as well get a haircut I've been needing. Would you believe I tried three different place for a haircut and failed in all three attempts? Two Great Clips stores were closing early due to the forecasted storms, and a barbershop in Milan only takes appointments now. What the heck? I guess a haircut will have to be another day. Maybe I can do it today after school if today's scheduled games at Orion are washed out.
Yesterday's S.A.T. went okay after a stressful start. To begin the session, I had no idea of what was happening. I later learned that there was a good reason for that; apparently the system wasn't set up enough, so I couldn't find my class to take attendance and read through the script and get the students started. I reported my difficulty to Mrs. Bohnsack, and she resolved the problem. So once we got up-and-running, we then proceeded through without any problems. The 15 students I had in my room at least looked like they were making a sincere attempt. It's all basically pointless anyway, very few people seem to care about the scores, and I hear the state is going to switch providers and go with the A.C.T. next school year - so much for learning the new system.
After the S.A.T. and my trip into get chlorine, Amber and I just watched storm coverage on the television. We made a couple of trips to the basement when things looked rough in that middle wave of storms, but we also stepped outside occasionally to see what was going on. We also checked on all of our family to make sure they had made it through the storms okay.
So on to today. It's an 11:30 dismissal day. Apparently, our main goal for our professional development is to discuss the student handbook. Here's the deal...there will be a lot of opinions - perhaps even some arguing. And maybe there will be a change or two. Unfortunately, I don't have much faith that any possible changes in the handbook for next year will have much impact. Students and their families just don't have the same value of attendance. Our school district doesn't seem to have the same value of attendance. The state doesn't seem to have the same value of attendance. Also, the same value of giving a genuine effort toward assignments isn't the same...students just want to be on their phones and be entertained. And as I've said previously in this blog, I can deal with these cultural shifts and do my best. What irritates me is being judged as a school on students' academic performance and judged as an effective teacher on students' academic growth. It's just not fair to judge me and the school on effectiveness is attendance is optional and poor effort is acceptable. We are basically a teenage daycare provider for a larger percentage of students every school year. And that's okay if that's where our world is headed...just please don't judge me based on the efforts of those students.
At least it's a Free Read Wednesday; I can at least enjoy that and keep my eyes on email to see if the games at Orion are rained out.
Things for School
- enter extra credit scores for completion of 2024 S.A.T. debriefing survey - after Friday at 3 p.m.
- score training path projects
- enter FRW scores for 4/17
Things to do
- finalize removal from May 7 game at AlWood
- spray weeds
- spread weed and feed
- submit costs for colonoscopy for refund
- send registration for Justin Sharp Shootout
- write a letter to Chase and mail - 4/16
- for professional development principal academy training
- complete #3000 (June 17, 2024) register by 6/10
- complete #1865 (June 13, 2024) register by 6/6
- For Summer Camping Adventure
- get truck inspected at Slayden's
- purchase Glacier vehicle registration ticket for west entrance
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