Holy Preparations!

All the words to describe the school year I just finished are inappropriate for a teacher to publish on her blog. My students were great. The politics and the bureaucracy were not.
     The short version is: I was "mandated" to give my students test...after test...after test...and at the end of it all, I was labeled "Minimally Effective" because of...the mandated tests. The formula used to calculate the 'scores' has been discredited by the American Statistical Association (and a number of other research-based organizations). And yet, we persist in using it in New Mexico. To top it off, I am stuck at Level I ($32k a year) until my label improves to "Effective" or beyond. Fantastic.
     There are many things I love to do. I love to travel. I love to eat unprocessed, natural foods (especially when someone else makes them for me). I also love to teach. If I didn't LOVE my job, there is no way I would do it.
     Here's why. This minimally effective teacher and her mother spent the first two weeks of summer packing up a fifth grade classroom. Now, we are cleaning out a kindergarten classroom that is so out of date The Beatles probably had short hair when it was built.
When the 2015-2016 school year begins, I will be teaching my third new grade level in three years (fourth, fifth, kinder). Thankfully, before that happens, I will spend six weeks in Europe...