A Silver Lining

I know this is supposed to be a molehill, but it's a huge, glorious mountain to me.

The Oregon Department of Education has funding issues. So they have cancelled the 7th grade writing test for next year because it's too expensive to process the tests and pay scorers. (Could it be? There's actually a bright side to the recession!) That's right, no test! For the first time in 8 long years, my students and I will not be slaves to the anxiety produced by the highest of high stakes testing. And while we will still administer writing tests to the students -- probably produced and monitored by my ever-conscientious school district -- it will be at a far more appropriate time in the school year, most likely toward the end of the year. This means I can pace my writing instruction in a way that will be SO much easier for my students to understand and master.

I cannot adequately express how happy this makes me. It's like a "Happy Summer" present just for me! (It's okay, you don't have to care. Just be happy for me.)

Shifting Gears Without a Clutch

As hard as it is to believe, the school year is well and truly over, and summer has officially begun. Today was our first day of summer camp, and it really crept up on me! June swept through like a tornado, taking with it everything you see listed below. If you read the list aloud as quickly as you can, you might understand how crazy it's been in my classroom/house/life/calendar.


A brief glimpse of my June:

lots of meetings
5th grade parent night
8th grade recognition
a couple of intense negotiations sessions with the school district
several meetings
multiple yearbooks (and because I'm a language arts teacher, these had to be signed with something more creative than H.A.G.S!)
a delightful retirement party
an anxiously-awaited 8th grade dance
the end of a novel
even more meetings
the massacre of about 40 Pop Tarts (long story, inside joke, and be sure to check the ceiling)
a scary essay test
a craft order for several hundred dollars
a t-shirt order for even more hundreds of dollars
some meetings with our summer boss
some other meetings
a LOT of complicated grades
lots of laundry
one or two last-minute meetings


This morning I woke up on time, along with my trusty alarm clock, and got myself ready for our first day of day camp. We had 23 campers today, and they were really really small. I've spent the last two years with the same group of middle school students, so I've grown accustomed to them as 13-year-olds amid adolescent growth spurts. Thus, the tiny 4-year-olds with tiny voices that showed up today were kind of a shock, albeit a pleasant one. When I arrived home this afternoon, my brain was waffling back and forth between thinking summer camp had already been going for a few weeks and trying to figure out why I didn't have to be at school today. I'll get used to summer within a week or so, I'm sure, but for now... some mental double clutching might be in order.