Nobody Knows Me At All

Part of what I love about a new school year is getting to know a new group of kids. While I probably already knew about 70% of my kids this year, it's still great getting to actually be their teacher and know them a little better. I'm totally diggin' the no-freshmen thing.. and have been doubly blessed because almost all my physics kids are seniors. My class sizes are down because we went from three sections of physics last year to four this year. So there's not much for me to complain about. It's been a good start of the year and (at least with the physics) I totally feel like I've been doing this my whole life.

That being said, here are highlights from this year's "All About Me" worksheet..

If you could spend a day with anyone (living or dead), who would you choose and why?

My family because they are the best.

I guess it would be Obama, play against him in a basketball game.

I would spend a day with my grandmother because she is dead and their are certain actions that I committed in the past that I would love to apologize for and tell her I love her and miss her.

I would choose a mayan person so I can find out if the worlds really going to end.

I would want to spend the day wiht someone from history that never made it into the books.

I would go wit Hannah Montana I always wanted to meet and kiss her.

If I could spend a day with anyone it would be my parents. It would have to be my parents because I would like to know how it feels to have the two people you love the most reunite.

I would choose Justin Bieber cause his hair is so tight. I wish I could have his hair!!

What do you like most about school? Why?

What I like most about school is that keeps your mind away from things that hurts you just by thinking about it.

The teachers here at school because they are AWESOME!

What I like most about the school is that the teachers are good people.

The one thing I like the most about school is the teachers, because they push you to be succesful and dont give up on you.

My teachers because I know they're there when I need them

I like the hugs.

I get to spend time with my friends and b e a normal teenager and not a mom.

What do you like least about school? Why?

The gangstas! I just don't like them

I don't like how many students are not taking school seriusly.

Economy not enough supplies

What can I, as your teacher, do to make this class more engaging for you?

Just give me an A every-day, noh just kidding, but really though.

Pick on me in class I tend to sleep.

Be as chill as you can because it would make us feel bad and stressed to see you stressed and such.

Just be the Ms. Chew Rocks that everyone always talks about.

Brand New Colony

If I were one of my students, I would be a senior right now. That's right ladies and gents, I am officially starting year four of my illustrious teaching career tomorrow. I have no idea what's in store for me and the school this year. Will it be a good year? Will we emerge unscathed and unbruised with our our brains a little weightier from all the learning that went on? Will our herculean attempts to turn this ship around be fruitful or are we just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic?

New things in store for me this year..

• No more freshmen.
• No more algebra.
• No more earth science.
• No more FRESHMEN!!!
• Teaching my physics curriculum for the fourth year (I'm an old pro).
• Teaching the AVID elective for 11th graders.
• Possibly being team leader for the 12th grade small learning community.
• Probably being a lead teacher for our afterschool program again.
• Quiet time and transcendental meditation rolled out for the whole school over the course of the year.

All in all I'm pretty stoked to finally be teaching classes that I want to teach. I like to think I've paid my dues.. three years of teaching wildcard classes (chemistry, algebra, earth science). But really I'm just lucky and blessed to still have a job and actually be happy with what I've been assigned to for this year. I'm still skeptical about the meditation thing and how it's going to improve our students' lives, but at this point anything is something. I guess I'll update more on the AVID thing later, but if you're curious you can look at www.avid.org for more info on what that's all about.

So yes, day one is tomorrow. Begin the begin. Since it is my fourth year, I know not to get too anxious or excited about what's to come. I've learned to roll with the punches and appreciate the little victories. I am apprehensive about what kind of tragedies are in store for us.. but who knows, maybe this will be a tragedy-free year for the O'C. One can only hope. Without hope, what else is there? Bring it on, year four.

Karma Police

One of the hardest things I contemplate daily is leaving my house and neighborhood. I lost my cousin to gang violence - because of a stupid color. He was not involved in any gangs, yet he was fatally shot. Living in a neighborhood with gang violence and high drop out rates, I feel the need to complete a college education, become a role model, and inspire young kids in my neighborhood to do the same. By pursuing a career in law, not only can I add a little security to my life, but I can also help minimize the violence and crime in a neighborhood and help make a positive change.

I meant to post this a long time ago. This is the bio blurb of one of my students who won a scholarship. Only 50 of these scholarships are awarded to low-income seniors in public schools in SF. I was able to attend the scholarship award reception at the end of the school year. At a time when uncertainty dominated my frame of mind his words brought be back down to earth and reminded me why I do what I do. Hopefully I'll hear great things about him in the future.

Well Thought Out Twinkles

Hey look, I'm done with year three. Seriously, this is nutso. I was talking to one of my credential/masters program classmates and we agree. It's this weird place between feeling like a complete n00b and feeling like a seasoned veteran. I suppose with the crap I've seen in the three years at my school, it's a fast learning curve.

Once again I find that I have a lot of thoughts about the end of this year. I'll write about some of them today, maybe pick up on the others in later entries.

One such thought/feeling that I've only begun to unearth from the depths of my subconscious.. is that I'm tired of being shat on. I personally subscribe to the notion of "being the change you want to be in the world" which is a large part (if not the whole part) of why I decided to teach the particular population that I teach. I don't want to be one of those people who complains about the direction this state/country/society/world is heading in without actually doing anything about it. So I became a teacher. I like to think I'm doing my part, maybe making some small difference for my little sphere of 150 students a year. I'm doing what I can. I'm not saying this to guilt trip anyone into becoming a teacher or volunteering at the local food bank, because what I want to say next is that it's frikkin' hard to believe that you can actually help bring about change in this world.

The end of this school year had a strange flavor to it. I couldn't put my finger on it for the longest time. This year, unlike last year, I was around for all the end-of-the-year planning, meetings, parties, and celebrations. But instead of the celebratory "hey we did/made it!" feeling permeating everything, there was this feeling of.. what the crap are we getting ourselves into?!?!

I think it has to do with our school being attacked from all sides and the uncertainty that it all leaves behind. I already mentioned the bottom 5% designation and how the state is forcing us to restructure. We're going with the transformative model.. which means things like changing things up drastically and extending the learning day. I wrote previously about how our school loses an English teacher and a math teacher each year because of our declining enrollment and diminishing budget, this year is no different. We're also losing a physical education teacher, which is pretty nutso in itself when you take into consideration that the PE dept is only three deep to begin with. We've had these SF Chron journalists on our case all year, hell bent for some reason on smearing our school image (for what? We already have enough trouble getting families outside the neighborhood to be ok with sending their kids to school here).

I should mention that we might be losing our Wellness Center coordinator because of some HR ass-hat-ness. Nevermind the fact that she's been in her position for 8 years, she's facing losing her job to someone with much less experience than her because a credential for her position did not exist in the early years at her job. It's nonsense. Don't get me started. I just know that our kids need her. A n00b would take years to build up the trust they have in her and be able to effectively serve their needs.

So that's how the state and district have been kicking our asses. But here's a new one.. how we're internally kicking our own asses. Each year there's a deadline for voluntary consolidations/resignations, which is really just a courtesy to the other staff members. Think: If you tell us you're already planning to leave, then we don't have to lay off/consolidate someone because we can plan on not having your position anymore. I get that it's a courtesy and people don't always know exactly what their plans are, but for the past three years at least one of the consolidated teachers could have been saved if people who were already planning to leave had the balls to say it. I'd like to think that if it were me, and I was thinking of leaving, I'd let them know as soon as I could (or maybe even before my plans were set) just so they wouldn't have to go through the unfortunate situation of being let go and having to find somewhere else. A little decency, I don't think it's too much to ask.

And that's how we're ending the year. At last count, there are eight staff members not returning next year (nine if our Wellness Coordinator's layoff holds). We have less and less money, less people.. yep. Still trying to "be the change" but it's getting harder to believe.

You Could Be Happy

Because it's too easy to blog about the chaos and crazy at school these days..

Story #1:
I was at the BofA ATM on 23rd and Mission just finishing up some transactions when I hear, "Ms. Chew?" I turned around and there was one of my old students, a senior from my first year teaching. (One of the bus-driver boys.) In the almost two years since he graduated and I last saw him, he graduated from UTI in Sacramento (definitely one of the most unfortunate acronyms a school can have) and is now working as a mechanic at the SF Honda dealership. Ok this is not the most exciting story, but it made me smile after a mess of the last few weeks I've been having. And it's the perfect precursor for..

Story #2:
After singing for service at church on Sunday, I was chatting with some friends and I hear, "Ms. Chew!" I turned around and there was one of my old students. (I have to admit that it took me about half of our conversation to remember his name.. and I feel kind of ashamed that in my head I went to Juan and Jose first. But c'mon, statistically it was a valid guess! He doesn't know I didn't remember his name, I figured it out before he caught me.) He'd been invited to church by a friend and was just as surprised as I was to see me/him there. (Don't know how to make that sentence work. Dang.)

A little background on this particular student--he first took my class as a junior. He failed and repeated it as a senior. He still failed the second time, not because he's not intelligent or a hard worker, but because he had so much going against him outside of school. I don't know everything about his situation, but I'm pretty sure he was basically raising his younger siblings and his parents were for all intents and purposes out of the picture. He was in an unhealthy relationship with another student (who also failed my class), was prone to skipping school (mostly what contributed to his failing), and try as he might, had some really bad days. But for all the hardship he had to deal with in his personal life, he was still a sweet, polite kid. He always appreciated what his teachers were doing for him and treated us all with great respect.

During his last year at the school, some of our staff got him to apply to an all boys boarding school up in Sonoma. He was so excited about this school. He would read me excerpts from the brochures they sent him. It was like nothing he'd ever experienced.. nestled in idyllic Sonoma County, far far away from the broken life he'd known growing up in the Mission. He applied, got accepted, and earned scholarship help to pay his way. That was the last I heard from him.

Fast forward to Sunday after service. He told me he's finishing up his super-senior year at his school in Sonoma. He's doing great. Finally graduating (better late than never!), getting a 4.0 gpa, and even getting involved in Young Life up there. Trying to get his little brother, who still lives in SF, to get plugged in to Young Life here. He wants to become a teacher, to spread God's love to teenagers and maybe teach them some academic stuff along the way (sound familiar? IKR?!?).

It was just so.. incredible? Awesome? Inspiring? Fantastic? Stupendous? (Having trouble with my words today) to see and hear about how well he's doing now. A part of me could be disappointed because what this new school is doing for him I couldn't do, but that's not at all how I feel. I'm ecstatic that he's been able to turn his life around and is in a much better place now. It's not very often that we, teachers of at-risk youth, get to hear stories with happy endings like this one. I'm gonna put this one in my pocket and save it for a rainy day

A Punch Up at A Wedding

Student: "Ms. Chew, when are you gonna get married?"

Ms. Chew: "Well I kind of think you need two people for that sort of thing."

Student: "Can I be your best man?"

Ms. Chew: "Kind of missing a key part of the equation."

Student: "So you're still looking? Or waiting?"

Ms. Chew: "You could say that."

If There's a Rocket Tie Me to It

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/09/MNSC1CCPHU.DTL
http://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr10/yr10rel27.asp

Shit? Fan? Oh, I see you've met.

The four east-side SFUSD high schools (mine included) have all been deemed "persistently lowest achieving" schools by the state, putting them in danger of reconstitution (aka hostile takeover by the state). Let's not sugar coat this.. the east side schools are also the poorest and most under-enrolled schools in the district. Where for art thou, equity??

Begin rant now.

We are the poorest schools. We have little money to fund our sisyphean efforts to improve our schools. Our staff works hard to pull our schools out of the gutters, most of the time paying for our supplies and professional development classes out of our own pockets because we have no money from the state to help. Yet, every year more staff get laid-off or moved around because we have under-enrolled student bodies. For each year I've been at my school, we've lost one English teacher and one math teacher due to consolidations. Now I know money doesn't solve everything, but that's also something that rolls of the tongues of rich people. No, money isn't the solution. But money could sure help. And we're seeing less and less of it every year. For instance.. the last two years at my school the science classes were allocated $500 for supplies. Yes, $500 to buy everything from perishable bacteria samples to pencils and paper. It's not a lot. And this year we got $350.

Oh did I mention that other than being the poorest, most under-enrolled schools in the district, the east-side schools are also those that serve the low-income, largely immigrant/non-native speaking English crowds? Historically disadvantaged, underrepresented.. call it what you will, but I smell a rat. People wonder what it is I have against schools like Lowell. There's nothing wrong with high achieving students in a well-funded, easily over-staffed school. But it's a vicious cycle.. schools in SFUSD get their funding based on the number of students enrolled in the school. With high enrollment, there is more money available to hire staff, buy supplies, support new programs, and operate at a competitive level. With low enrollment, there is less money available which leads to larger class sizes, higher (involuntary) teacher turnover, lower test scores.. Families don't want to send their kids to low-performing schools, so they send them to the high-performing schools (like Lowell) and they continue to flourish while the underenrolled schools shrink to extinction.. chicken, egg, who knows which was first.

All I'm trying to say is it's not our fault that we are consistently low performing schools. Anyone who sets foot into one of these schools will see innovative teaching styles and energetic, dedicated staff trying to make do with the little resources available. We would appreciate help from the state, sure. But "help" does not look like.. replacing the principal, replacing the staff, shutting down and reopening schools under a charter model, etc. "Help", I think, should look like.. come, visit our school. See what we're doing well. Reward what is working. Suggest alternatives to what is not working. Work with us. We obviously don't intend on staying at the bottom of the class (pun intended?) but coming in and cleaning house is not the way to fix things. Not when children are involved. Can you imagine being at a school that hires almost an entirely new staff? What would happen to the relationships you have built with your teachers, some of which might be the only adults in your life that you consider safe to talk to?

And don't get me wrong, our school is improving. Maybe not fast enough by the state's standards. And maybe not on (culturally biased) standardized test scores. But we're doing what we can. So throw us a frikkin' bone, already.

End rant.

A Mess to Be Made

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/23/MNT11C5FO7.DTL

It's getting ugly. So far it's looking like we need to cut the equivalent of 3 FTEs (full time employees). We won't know if we're holding on to our Dream School funding at least for another few weeks, which means we don't know if we're looking at moving to a 6 period day or not. March 15th is the deadline for the district to send out layoff notices.

In the meantime, please join us to show support of public schools this Thursday.. deets:

Join us on March 4 to save our schools!
Statewide Day of Action to Defend Public Education

San Francisco schools are facing $113 million in budget cuts over the next two years. All schools will see layoffs and class size increases. It's time to say enough is enough!

Thursday, March 4, 2010:
3pm - Parents, educators and students from southeast area schools meet at 24th and Mission
3:15 - March together to 16th and Mission
3:45 - March from 16th St. to the State Building at Van Ness and McAllister (505 Van Ness)
4:30pm - Rally with UESF at the State Building, march to Civic Center
5pm - Mass rally in the Civic Center with pre-K through college level students, parents, educators, families from all over the city

Our message to Sacramento: Fully fund public education - reform the state budget process and Prop 13! Cut prison spending, not schools!

Our message to SFUSD Superintendent Carlos Garcia and the Board of Education: Stand with educators and families! No Cuts! No Layoffs! Emergency Funding Now! Defend the Classroom!

Baby Got Back

My coworker brought his newborn to school, dropped by my room while kids were making up work during lunch.

Kid #1: "Ms. Chew.. when you gonna have one?"

Ms. Chew: "Whatever!!"

Kid #1: "Why you say whatever?"

Ms. Chew: "I know it's not how everyone does it, but I'm planning to get married before I have a baby."

Kid #2: "Go Ms. Chew!!"

Ms. Chew: O_o "I just figure it's easier that way."

Ballin' on a Budget

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/22/MNCG1BLM6G.DTL

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/27/MN2E1BNVD8.DTL

It is bad-news-bears for the state of California as far as money is concerned. Well, that's not news.. it's been that way for a while. Somehow one of the richest states has one of the largest debts. Blame it on the Governator--but chances are it was this way long before he ever got here. (He just hasn't done the best job getting us out of it.) While I won't proclaim to know a lot about government spending or tax reformation or progressive taxes or anything.. what I do know is what it all does to the bottom line of our schools.

In short, we're looking at making $113 million in cuts over the next two years. Where will these cuts be made? To anything and everything. It's going to get real ugly. The obvious place for cuts is teacher layoffs. Then there are things like.. cutting positions at the district office, unpaid furlough days, cutting funding to special programs, cutting summer school, freezing teacher salaries, and taking the caps off class sizes.

You might think, well all that stuff's not so bad as long as you get to keep your job, Ms. Chew. Not really. All these things effect the classroom and effect the students. Take class size caps. It won't make much of a difference for my classes, I've had as many as 41 students in one class before. But where it will make a difference is in elementary school. Where they learn how to read and do basic math. Think about it.. if a student doesn't properly learn how to read or add and subtract in elementary school, who's going to make up for that? Especially if they grow up to go to middle schools and high schools that are overcrowded as well.. we're preparing our kids for a lifetime of remedial education.

Let me not belittle how horrible teacher layoffs really are. Or, more precisely, how horrible the process for teacher layoffs in the face of budget cuts are. It's one thing to get the axe because you're a horrible teacher. It's another to get fired because you simply don't have the seniority to save your ass in times of budget crises. Teachers who are on the brink of retirement and could care less about their students' education cost the district the most but will always, always keep their jobs over less experienced, but more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed newbie teachers. (This is not to say all teachers who've been in the schools for long don't care about their students. Or that all new teachers are a gift from God. I'm generalizing.) That's just disheartening. To know that how good a teacher you are has no bearing on whether or not you keep your job.

My coworkers keep telling me that I should be ok for this round, I'm a math/science teacher and they always need those somewhere. Needless to say, none of this is sitting well with me. I get a sick feeling in my stomach when I think about the next year. Bleghhh.

Murder, She Wrote

http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Two-juveniles-charged-in-deadly-pizza-melee-80748947.html

Yep. This story is about one of our sophomores. Arrested at school for double homicide. Seriously? Kind of threw me and my coworkers for a loop.. I mean, we know our kids are bad, but killing people bad? I didn't know the kid personally, can't even put a face to the name, but apparently the cops had been investigating his connection with the murders for some six weeks before they made their arrest. And in that time he had been showing up to school regularly. Crazy.

Papa Don't Preach

Yesterday one of my students says to me, "Ms. Chew, you're about to be a grandma." Which was her way of telling me she's pregnant. She's due in July, after graduation. I mean.. what am I supposed to say to that?

I have another girl who I'm so sure is pregnant, but I have no idea how to go about asking. Do I ask her friend? Should I just ask her? And if I find out she is.. what am I supposed to say to that?

There's a boy and a girl in one of my classes who had a kid together their freshmen year. His mother took the baby in and is the main caregiver nowadays. They're on and off again as a couple, which means sometimes they're not talking to each other. And sometimes they sit together in class and cupcake. So really.. what am I supposed to say to that? "Listen, I know you two have a kid together so obviously you have a hard time keeping your hands off each other.. but you're both failing this class so can you please get it together??"

Seriously.