I AM JUST SO DAMNED PISSED!

      Another school shooting.....

      Two teachers...dead

      Two students...dead. Many more injured.

      When will it stop? 

      When will all of the lawmakers do the right thing and take the necessary steps to help alleviate these kinds of tragedies from continuing?

     I know, I know.....

     There's all kinds of blame to go around and we've heard it all:

• It's the parent's fault for not locking up their guns.
• It's the classmates' fault for not noticing something was "off" with another classmate
• It's the school's fault for not addressing the mental health needs of the students

    And the list goes on and on and on....

Bottom line? Until our lawmakers step up to the plate and make this the national problem that it truly is, and allocate the funding to address ALL of it, nothing is going to change. NOT ONE DAMN THING!  We're just going to keep losing teachers who were only trying to protect their children, along with innocent children. While we all just stand back and wring our hands. It's time to #DOSOMETHING

Join me. This is the link to a foundation set up by THE Matthew McConaughey and his wife, Camila, in the aftermath of the Uvalde, TX school shooting.  https://www.greenlightsgrantinitiative.org/   Share it with every school administrator you know, far and wide. Let's start a movement!! For our children and our teachers!

Safety and Protection

      In light of last week's assassination attempt, I'm curious, political affiliations aside, is this going to do anything to change our gun control laws, nationally?  I'm guessing not. I'm guessing that lawmakers will treat it as an isolated incident or the colossal screw up of one law enforcement agency or another.

     This is why it concerns me: If highly trained Secret Service and law enforcement officers are unable to protect a former, running President, what makes ANYONE believe that teachers are capable of protecting a classroom of children?

     In my classroom situation, alone, I have a door that leads directly from my classroom to the parking lot, which borders a busy street. That door is all glass. On the opposite side of my classroom are three, floor-to-ceiling windows. Also all glass. If a shooter wanted to get into my classroom, it would be no problem and it would be over before anyone could respond.

     I'm not saying that this is a building problem. It is a district problem. The district is charged with making sure our buildings are safe for our students. The buck stops at the district office.They have the money.  Can you really put a price tag on the safety of the students?

     It's also a gun control problem. Why does Joe Shmoe, on the street, need an AR-style gun? He doesn't. The only people who need those types of guns are law enforcement and our military. Changes need to be made and they have been needed for quite some time. I hope that this latest assassination attempt opens the eyes of some of the  naysayers.

Do Better!

      As I was driving home from school on Thursday, along a busy street, with no shoulders, I noticed a little girl off to the side of the road. She looked to be about the same age as the preschoolers I teach. Across the road was a small park.  I could just see her trying to dart across the traffic to get to the swings! I slowed down, just in case, and kind of took in the setting. There was no adult to be seen.  The little girl was spinning around the speed limit sign (40 mph, which no one was obeying)

     In this day and age, I was afraid to pull over and take her back to her house, so I called the police. I could just see her getting hit or taken. After giving the dispatcher all of the information, he said they would send someone out "as soon as they could."  I decided to turn around and watch.  Do you know how long it took the police to respond to an unaccompanied child next to a busy street in Topeka, Kansas?  THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES!! Unacceptable!

     By the time they got there, the little girl was off running around her little neighborhood. Even though the police had her description, they merely cruised right past her and kept going. Who knows how far from her actual home she was?  Do better!

#OneWord: 2024-"Engage"

     For the past several years, rather than make a New Year's resolution, that I'm never going to keep, I have chosen one word to be my focus for the ensuing year. I started doing this after reading the book by Jon Gordon and friends, when I learned about the book on a Twitter post.

     Honestly, my word for each year just "comes to me," like an "aha" moment and this year was no different. I started thinking about possibilities for my word, and then, like a bolt of lightning, it hit me: "ENGAGE!"  How had I not seen this before?

     You see, I have spoken at conferences about Family Engagement for awhile now. I wrote the book: Teamwork Makes the DreamWork, about the importance of engage families. It's something I am passionate about in my career. I am the primary-level Family Engagement Coordinator for our elementary building, along with an intermediate Family Engagement Coordinator. PreK-5th grade, we have a student body population of around 570 students.

     Engage my students. Make them want to come to school. Help them to be excited about learning! Heaven knows we don't want them to feel like coming to school is a chore, or boring. Let them play! Children learn best by playing! (That's a whole different blog post!!)

     Engage their families! Invite them in! Let them be a part of our learning experiences! I have a monthly Family Engagement Friday, where the families of our students are invited in for a morning of learning with their children! It's a win-win situation! 

     We also send home monthly learning packets, with instructions, so that families can help their children learn. I believe that many times our families want to help their children learn, they just don't know how. This year, over half my class is non-English speaking, so I send EVERYTHING home in Spanish, as well. I want to be all-inclusive! 

     The response has been amazing! It even led to my classroom being awarded a grant for our Family Engagement Fridays! In December, three members of the Topeka Public Schools Foundation even joined us for our Family Engagement Friday!

     My motto for this school year, which also just came to me during a conversation with our principal, is: "If not us, then who?"  If we don't do, then who will? Who will engage these students? Who will engage these families to help these students, entrusted to our care, become successful humans? It's up to us! IF NOT US, THEN WHO?

Remember Her Name

 Zoey Felix. Five years old. Remember her name.

Zoey Felix was brutally raped and murdered by a man her farther knew.

Zoey, her father and her sister, were homeless, as was her attacker. They lived in a tent in some trees visible from the gas station where her father worked. This is where Zoey was attacked and raped.

Zoey, with her bruised, beaten, and broken body, tried with her last ounces of energy to get to her father, but fell in the field beside the gas station.  With her dying breath, she tried to get help. Remember her name.

Where was her mom? Oh, Mom was on probation for child abuse. Zoey Felix. Remember her name. She was just five years old.

Neighbors looked out for her. She played with their children. She even went to preschool for a time. There were calls to DCF. Before being evicted, they house she stayed in lacked utilities. She was often left alone and wandered the neighborhood. She was FIVE YEARS OLD.  She was failed by DCF. She was failed by her preschool. She was failed by her neighbors. She was failed by her family. Remember her name.

In the past two years, DCF received twenty-three calls regarding the household of Zoey Felix. TWENTY THREE calls in two years. And still, Zoey was at home, left alone to wander the streets of Topeka, being cared for, bathed. and fed by neighbors. DCF did nothing. Remember her name.

Zoey was five years old. She lived in a homeless tent city. She was left unsupervised by her father. She was raped and murdered by a twenty five year old homeless man. She was failed by the very systems and people who were supposed to keep her safe-to protect her. Those people should be held accountable. I hope that they are.

With Zoey's dying breath, she tried to get to her father. EMTs tried to save her life, but her tiny body was too bruised and beaten.

Zoey Felix. Remember her name.

What, Exactly Are We Assessing?

      I know I have been vocal about testing in PreK, and I will continue to be. But, in the midst of fall "assessments", I had an epiphany:  What, exactly, are we assessing?

     Over half my class is non-English speaking this year.  We are required to give an assessment called "My IGDIs."  In the assessment manual, the directions state that the student must answer the question...in English!  How is that even fair to my Hispanic children? It is not a true picture of what they know!  For example, In a subtest, called "Picture Naming," one of the pictures is of a half gallon of milk. The child *should* say milk. My Hispanic children, every.single.one of them said, "leche." the Spanish word for milk, so I could not give them credit for naming that picture because they did not say "milk." Are you kidding me??  They KNEW what it was, they just couldn't say it in English.  What are we assessing?  The assessment says "Picture Naming." 

     On their website, this is what it says about the assessment: 

• Research-based:  MyIGDIs measures and seasonal benchmarks are grounded in years of research by child development experts, so you can have confidence in the reliability and validity of the results. 

     I feel that this assessment is discriminatory toward non-English speaking students, making the students' answers invalid.  Why can't they answer in their native language? It's not meant to test English. It's testing whether or not they know what the picture is. I even tried calling the company, but I needed a district code, which I don't have access to. As fired up as I was, that's probably a good thing!

     I talked to my teaching partners. They have some children who are non-verbal. They can't say "apple."  Why can't there be an assessment for them where there are three pictures and they are asked to point to the apple? Just because they can't say it, doesn't mean they don't know it. This mandated assessment doesn't come close to giving a true picture of where our students are! So when those who are not in our classrooms on a daily basis, who don't know our students, read the data, they aren't seeing a true picture of the students who are in our classrooms. 

     It's not right! It's not fair! It's discriminatory! It doesn't give a true picture of what our students actually know and portrays them in a negative light.

September 19, 1968: My Defining Moment

                                  

     On September 19, 1968 my father;s plane went down just three miles short of the runway in Ubon, Thailand, where he was flying missions over Vietnam. He was killed instantly. I was seven years old. I can honestly say that this tragic event has defined my entire life.

     I had an amazing second grade teacher, Mr,, Maxine Moore, who went above and beyond to comfort a sad, scared, confused little girl navigate some really hard emotions. She allowed me to come into the classroom before the rest of the class to "help" her get ready in the mornings for as long as I needed to.

     We stayed in touch with her, even after my mom remarried and we moved a couple of hours away, meeting up with her any time we came to town. She came to my high school graduation! When I went to college, it was back in the city where Mrs. Moore lived. She invited me over to escape the craziness of dorm life, to talk about trends in education, and even for Sunday dinner if I didn't go home for the weekend.  She taught me about how important relationships are when you're a teacher.

     That's why I can say my father's death defined my entire life. I try my best, every day, to emulate the kind of relationship that Mrs. Moore showed me. I feel that the relationships that I have with my students, and their families, are the key ingredient to my forty-year teaching career. If it weren't for Mrs. Moore's love and kindness, I don't even know if I would have become a teacher. I am grateful to her every single day.