Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes to.

[MissThundercat]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

Evening, Lodge! Cookies are in the oven!

 

[goldy_331]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

As long as it wasn't his 7th grade social studies teacher.

Miss Swanson?

 

[gmann]

I'm not going to get into a whole debate about the problems with the public school system in our country, I'm sure there are political threads here in the cafe for that. I will say that none of what you say holds water in my son's case in our school district.

In our schools if the teacher is short of supplies, they simply send out an e-mail to the parents saying "all students need to bring in these supplies for the classroom " and the supplies will come in. The Edina schools are full and if they were not, they could accept more open enrolled students because there are more applying each year than they can accept.

None of what you said explains why his 8th grade math teacher is great, fully organized and on top of everything, and his 7th grade math teacher couldn't find her *** with both hands. There are great teachers at Edina. There are also many mediocre teachers and some awful teachers, many of whom have been there and known to the parents as awful for years. I don't think those teachers stick around in the privates. The teachers union makes it near impossible to get rid of the bad teachers and the principal's main job seems to be to protect the teachers, not help the kids.

My .02 worth. Mrs.g is a fourth grade teacher. She has been teaching for twenty years. She cares about her job and she is a great teacher. She receives a few letters each year from former students who thank her for the things she taught them and how my wife helped mold them into the person they are today.

My wife arrives at school around 6:45 am and works until 4 pm or later nearly every day. She works at school on the weekends and as I type this she is correcting papers and usually spends an hour doing this every evening. Last night she received a phone call from a parent which is very common.

My wife has a masters degree and makes a decent salary. However, the last raise she received was just this past year and it was 1%. Three years prior to that she received nothing and before that it was a 1.5% raise. She has benefits through my employer as the school districts plan is very expensive.

Due to the demographics of her class when she requests supplies from parents she might get 50% of what she needs. She purchases the stuff she doesn't get.

The problem is in funding (or lack there of) and with mandated testing. Teachers have to teach to a test. In say a class of 25 she might have two or three very gifted kids. On the other end of the spectrum she might have two or three kids who just don't have it. Then there all the other kids. My wife does everything to manage the largest population in her class and also to challenge the kids that need it but ends up spending a large chunk of her time with the kids that are more than likely to not score well. It is what it is.

Another factor is that the students home life is lacking in areas and that causes issues at school.

There are (like many professions) people who should not be in the profession they are in. Something needs to change regarding how teachers are evaluated. Not an easy nut to crack as the unions have a stranglehold on common sense.

I will now step off my soap box.

 

[melmac]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

Miss Swanson?

Yup.
She's one of the blue hairs. And was one of my roommates senior year of college.

 

[goldy_331]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

Yup.
She's one of the blue hairs. And was one of my roommates senior year of college.

Was a teacher from Huntington Learning in your wedding?

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

The problem is in funding (or lack there of) and with mandated testing. Teachers have to teach to a test. In say a class of 25 she might have two or three very gifted kids. On the other end of the spectrum she might have two or three kids who just don't have it. Then there all the other kids. My wife does everything to manage the largest population in her class and also to challenge the kids that need it but ends up spending a large chunk of her time with the kids that are more than likely to not score well. It is what it is.

...that sort of sounds like a bell curve with a pretty standard distribution of talents, but that gets into math and that sort of talk isn't wanted around here...

The biggest problem that I've seen is the explosion of administrators and non-teaching people in the schools. There's a position in the Farmington schools - at every school, I'm told - called the "student advocate," and I only learned of it while waiting in line to vote a few years ago and saw the placard on the door to her office. What the hell is that? It sounds like a make work title and something that every teacher and administrator should strive to be. Now it's a paid position? I know where to find some money for more supplies in the classrooms around my district. (Actually, the position almost sounds like a lawyer's title without calling the person a lawyer.)

Also, there are far too many vice principals, too. When I attended my high school we had three (one was the prefect of discipline and the other two played tiddly winks or dealt with parents or something). Now there are five even though the student population has remained roughly the same since I was there. And the same goes with school counselors. I met mine for all of two minutes my senior year, asked me if I'd applied to colleges or had other plans. He'd been assigned to me the whole time I was in school, I'm told. We had six of them at the high school and each had a secretary.

When I look to cutting school budgets or finding money for classrooms, the teachers are not the first to catch my ire.

 

[crazytechfan]

ctf scored well on her ACT's...you're not helping your case.

Hey now.
But yes, 33.
Perfect score on reading.

 

[The Rube]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

Hey now.
But yes, 33.
Perfect score on reading.

So, you can read. That's a start.

 

[hockeyplayer1015]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

My issue with having any sort of performance incentives or goals for teachers is it would be really difficult to come up with any sort of measuring stick. My mom is a Jr High history teacher (retiring this year), and has found that especially in the last 5-10 years, kids just don't care. It has gotten increasingly worse in recent years. So if she had a certain measuring stick (say, kids who score well on the state test) some kids who just don't care enough to do well will end up hurting her 'performance'? It's a very, very tricky area that I'm glad I don't need to tiptoe through.

But yes, our school district is a complete mess, and is arguably amongst the biggest messes in NYS. At some leadership conferences for teachers, they're using our district for examples of what NOT to do. Ya.

 

[MarkEagleUSA]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

Good morning to tLodge!

 

[Ralph Baer]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

Good Morning, MEUSA!


Good Morning to the rest of tLodge!

 

[Ralph Baer]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

Good morning to tLodge!

I think that you are getting a little close to leswp1's "not morning yet" point.

 

[MissThundercat]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

Good morning, Lodge! I need to make more cookies today!

 

[MarkEagleUSA]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

I think that you are getting a little close to leswp1's "not morning yet" point.

It's not by choice...

 

[goldy_331]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

Good Morning Lodge.

Putting the garden in today. Had it rototilled last week and we put the weed block fabric down last night. Tomatoes, peppers, cukes, etc. go in today. Tradition in Minnesota says don't plant tomatoes before Memorial Day. I think we'll be safe this year, or cover them if need be some night.

Edit: Fixed.

 

[melmac]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

Was a teacher from Huntington Learning in your wedding?

Yup. She tailgates with us, too.
Next you're going to tell me you know one of the groomsmen.

 

[goldy_331]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

Yup. She tailgates with us, too.
Next you're going to tell me you know one of the groomsmen.

My son did some Huntington last summer and one of the teachers there said she knew Miss Swanson and was going to be in a wedding with her. It's math, but 2+2=....

 

[leswp1]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

My .02 worth.... The problem is in funding (or lack there of) and with mandated testing. ...Another factor is that the students home life is lacking in areas and that causes issues at school...

There are (like many professions) people who should not be in the profession they are in. Something needs to change regarding how teachers are evaluated. Not an easy nut to crack as the unions have a stranglehold on common sense.

I will now step off my soap box.

This was well stated. I am glad you got on the soapbox because too many people like to simplify things and make it someone's fault instead of looking at the multiple factors.

...that sort of sounds like a bell curve with a pretty standard distribution of talents, but that gets into math and that sort of talk isn't wanted around here...

The biggest problem that I've seen is the explosion of administrators and non-teaching people in the schools...

Math
Our school district is, as I posted, an embarassment. They have cut the Vice Principals in some of the schools with disastrous results. Discipline is a joke, there are more incidents and the teachers are wasting valuable teaching time dealing with discipline issues as isolated events rather than the VP presenting the whole. The troubled students may not care, many of the parents feel there is no problem with their behaviour which makes it difficult to get thte kids to understand they are accountable (we are a suburban school, not inner city). WOndering if 'Advocate' may be a fancy name for someone who deals with all the drek of SPED, other issues. The laws here are ridiculous. We have kids in need that get denied who should for sure have services and others who get services because their parents are very clever and play the system. Would love to have a person paid to sort thru that. Heck I would help pay- I am sick of parents who can't get services despite real dx and parents who want me to sign papers for non-exsistant dx.

My issue with having any sort of performance incentives or goals for teachers is it would be really difficult to come up with any sort of measuring stick. My mom is a Jr High history teacher (retiring this year), and has found that especially in the last 5-10 years, kids just don't care. It has gotten increasingly worse in recent years. So if she had a certain measuring stick (say, kids who score well on the state test) some kids who just don't care enough to do well will end up hurting her 'performance'? ... Ya.

When incentive is attached to performance it isn't just the job you do but what those before you have done. My son had a teacher in one grade who allowed the kids to take tests over if they didn't do well so they didn't take tests very seriously. The next yr his math teacher had a medical problem that resulted in having a string of subs (for 2 months) until they had a temp teacher who's Ukranian accent was so strong the kids didn't understand what she was teaching. He then went the next grade and took the standardized test. That teacher would have been screwed if she was dependent on that group of kids' performance.

I think that you are getting a little close to leswp1's "not morning yet" point.

This

Good Morning Lodge.

Putting the garden in today. Had it rototilled last week and we put the weed block fabric down last night. Tomatoes, peppers, cukes, etc. go in today. Tradition in Minnesota says don't plant tomatoes before Labor Day. I think we'll be safe this year, or cover them if need be some night.

Are you living in the southern hemisphere?

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE!! thursday, close to friday

 

[JF_Gophers]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

Morning.

This thread is getting way too serious. Can't we go back to making fun of ctf and brent?

 

[gmann]

Re: Rep Retirement Lodge #149 - Best adaptation of a movie title-and the lodgie goes

Good morning Lodge.

Using the iPad. USCHO page is displayed as mobile. Can't figure out how to change?????? (I am sure it has something to do with the iCloud and synching with my iPhone)