Teachers

[Bel-Cam Jos]

Well, here's the only negative I'll share: worst final exams time in my career teaching.

There, now that that's out of the way... :brusheshands: All things considered, this year was somewhere in the middle; not too terrible, not totally awesome. Just have to finish grading exams, clean up and close up my classroom, hand in keys and paperwork. Year #11 is almost in the books!

[Maradona]

I've got 11 more school days before turning in final grades and cleaning up. This 12th year of teaching has been my most arduous. We lost a student in February and my friend who taught across the hall from me died in April of cancer-related complications a week short of his 46th birthday. Add to that a transition to being leadership adviser and yearbook sponsor, along with continuing to sponsor the school newspaper and the after school peer counseling program and I ended up with the most trying teaching year I've had. I can hardly wait until the last day of school (June 7), graduation (June 10), staff meetings (June 11 & 12), and grad-nite (June 14) are over. Challenge is important, so I hope the trials of this year help make me a more effective teacher next year.

[Bel-Cam Jos]

Looking back more specifically, and with a decent night's sleep after the last day of finals, here's how this year went:
- first year with new principal (who had been part of the school before)
- WASC review team (of which I was part of the campus leadership committee)
- CA Distinguished School review team (I wasn't on this committee)
- trying to maintain school's strong scores in the area
- first time teaching juniors, including getting a new class two weeks into the year (worked out fairly fine, except for the students who physically challenged me once or twice)
- supposed to have collaborated with the Special Education dept. (scheduling changes ended that, but the computer schedule and paperwork still showed it was going on)
- standard help with HS exit exam, standardized testing coverage
- 2nd recycling scholarship based on collecting items (also to buy HSEE snacks for those students)
- some good colleagues retiring
- stopped our department literary journal (for various reasons, some financial; members of dept. only realized I really wasn't doing it again at the end of the year despite my comments confirming it all year)
- more "facepalm" meetings with parents/counselors/admin.
- my 3-year review (it went interestingly well?)
- upcoming changes to Common Core national standards
- more physical issues (back, feet and toes, sleep, memory) than before

Again, all the good things still outweigh the not-so.