The Dallas public school system is firing more than three hundred and seventy-five teachers to make up an enormous deficit. Whoever's doing the budget for DISD is stupid and corrupt. None of those administrators making six figures is being fired, but some assistant principals and counselors are getting canned. That's in addition to over 200 teachers who took a buy-out package a few weeks ago. Hey, I have an idea! Let's disband high school football programs! No coaches, stadiums, or uniforms! Let the parents pay for that stuff, since they love it so! That might help.
In my neck of the woods, Miss Busty reports that one of her parents is next-door neighbors with "Tony and Jessica," as these two are called in the People-reading familiar parlance of my colleagues. They apparently pal around together. To which I respond (immediately after "Tony who?"), "So what?"
Conferences went great. I have only two or three sets of slightly high-maintenance parents who need me to tell them the ways in which I'll be pushing their five-year-old to excel. Example: I mentioned to one couple that their daughter says things like "sitted" and "tooked" with some frequency, and the mother wrote that down in her notebook, and they discussed whether they could find a workbook that would address that problem. I understand the need to foster improvement, but it's pretty normal for a kindergartner to talk like that. Some things can just be let go. Other than the couple of Type A parents, most of mine are easy-going. We have a nice laugh and then they leave. My conferences took an average of ten minutes each, compared with everyone else's thirty. I'm either doing something wrong or something very, very right.
Still procrastinating, though. I meant to finish up the last of my notes at home tonight for the second half of conferences, but left my assessment sheets at school! Argh! Now I have to go early and get it done before 7:45. If, that is, I can remember where I put the assessment sheets.
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I have a even better idea, close down wall street. Start using the tax dollars for something worth while for a change.
I had been on track to get alternative certification (via Region 10) as an art teacher. Most likely I would have ended up working in Dallas, and so would be jobless right now (and still uncertified). Dodged that bullet, sort of.
Yes, the Administration is well-nigh criminal, only the School Board is worse (they seem to be having trouble with the concept of being in charge of the Superintendent). Personally, I think they should have frozen whatever policies they currently had in place, laid off all but a skeleton crew downtown, and changed nothing at all in the schools. You dont need a downtown administration to teach kids, you do need teachers.
And have you noticed, every time someoney studies the problems at DISD, one thing that they tell them is that the district is top-heavy, and the district's response is always to add take it under advisement, then add another six-figure administrator?
Oh yeah, forgot to say: love the idea of shutting down sports in schools, or at least taking it out of the school budgets. It is the one area in a school that could probably support itself. My wife, who teaches in Richardson, is consistently screwed by the favoritism shown to coaches. I'd be curious to see how well funded school sports would be if the budget for it was separate from that of the schools - I suspect some people would be shocked at how much money is spent on it.
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