6:00 am – Wake up and get 3 year old ready for preschool. She tells me she I should go back to bed and rest because apparently daddy is better at telling stories at breakfast. I’m not going to argue 🙂
7:00 am – Start the drive north to drop said child off at school. I spend at least 1-1.5 hours commuting in the morning and at least that much in the afternoon. I work in downtown Seattle and the cost of childcare and rent are far above my monthly salary, so the commuting is painful, but unfortunately necessary.
8:30 am – We got five new students today. Our site has 4 teachers, one of whom is out this week. She is the scheduler extraordinaire, so I normally don’t have to do much of the paperwork of new students but I make them a temporary schedule and give them a quick tour of the school.
9:00 am – First period is Geometry. We are working on angle relationships with traversals. Students are tasked with taping the floor and measuring angles.They gallery walk the floor and make predictions. Hopefully a little dancing is in order by the weeks end.
A staff member from our central center stops by to check on the new students, touch base with the ones who started the week before, and give us some paperwork.
9:50 – Second period starts. These are my seniors who are putting together a portfolio of work to get ready for the state test. Its a small group so lots of one on one work to help fill in individual gaps.
A parent stops by to discuss her daughter and the plan for her this week. We make plans to check back in next week.
10:40 – Third period is advisory. I have the juniors and we are working on graduation plans and job/internship searches But first we have a community circle. This is year two of circles and they are going well. Today we talk about police shootings, protests, and the media. Its an intense, but important 15 minutes. We switch gears to planning and goal setting. Lots of our students have interesting high school histories so getting realistic pictures of what needs to be completed for graduation is important. One student actually found out he had caught up and is now ahead of his scheduled graduation, but a few others are getting the opposite realization. We make plans and timelines to complete classes. I edit a few resumes.
11:20 – Fourth period is Bridge to College Math. (If you are seeing a pattern, in that I have completely different classes all day, ding ding, its true. No getting bored here). its my biggest class and always full of energy. We are digging into equivalent expressions and student misconceptions. Students get in small groups and are off and running. If all my classes could look like this hour I’d be thrilled.
12:05 – Lunch!! and even more exciting PREP!!!! We didn’t have a prep period the first two years so having 45 minutes that I can count on (at least most days) is amazing. I still take home hours of planning, but to have the space to make copies, check in with students, and take care of the mountains of paperwork I always seem to have is nice. Today I mostly try to get more information on our new students to make sure they are where they should be in terms of scheduling.
1:25 -Sixth period is first semester Algebra. Most of the students have attempted this class two or three times. The skill levels are all over the place from trying to learn about adding negatives to students who failed the class only due to attendance or other issues. We have more flexibility here and I used standards based grading so students are working on different parts of the content. Introduce a group problem then introduce concepts as needed to each student. All the new students are registered here, but a few think when we get transcripts they might be elsewhere. I get them settled in, make a note to send some emails about transcripts, but jump them right into class, assuring them it will count for credit even if they switch classes.
2:15 – Seventh period is second semester Algebra. Only two students are here today. We work on factoring polynomials. Its quiet, but productive. The change from the earlier scramble to get the new students settled is appreciated.
4:00 – Start the drive north to daycare. Traffic is even worse in the afternoon. I get rear-ended 😦 But the other driver seems nice, we exchange insurance, hang out while the police report is filed. I get my husband to go get our daughter while I wait.
5:30 – Home. Cook dinner. Play with daughter. Start on my own homework (I’m working on a Masters in Finance) and Prep for tomorrow. I actually get to bed around 12:30am. A few more hours until I do it all again….minus the car wreck hopefully.
alternativemath 