Omorka's Lair

A week ago Friday was the last day of school for students. Teachers had to come back on Monday for our last day, which except for one student coming back to take a retake and not arriving on time, was relatively uneventful.

( Work stuff )

I technically have two more report days plus the graduation ceremony, but for all practical purposes I'm pretty much finished with grading - there's just the requisite end-of-year paperwork to do, and getting everything stored away for summer.

It's a good batch of kids we're graduating this year. Should be a nice ceremony.

My brain is already overflowing with plot bunnies to write. I have banged out just under 2500 words on a fic I didn't even think of until yesterday, with two other WIPs open and glaring at me. *sigh*

I genuinely can't tell if I really am this anxious or if I've just overdosed on caffeine.

*jitters*

Bad News: The Texas State Board of Education passed their stupid Islamophobic resolution.

Very Slightly Mitigating News: Only by one vote. (7-6, if anyone was curious.)

Somewhat Amusing News: Then they had to amend it to remove a factual error concerning one of the textbooks they were complaining about. *headdesk*

I do have to say, there are very few things in the world that could make me grateful for Lawrence Allen, but these cuckoos are seven of them.

Wow, two great "I quit" stories and it's only Tuesday: a would-be broker, by e-mail, with surprise revelations about the boss, and a flight attendant, by the emergency chute, with beer.

Tomorrow is the TAKS English Language Arts test for all high-school grade levels.

We will be testing from 8:30 am until 12:30 pm, if all goes well. If all does not go well, then we will go longer than that.

We lose two whole instructional periods to this mess. Really, we lose the whole day, because enough of the sophomores and juniors will still be testing during 7th period that we can't really do much, and 8th period is short.

Tomorrow, there will be Ranting. |-(

Oh, holy crap. It looks like Governor Goodhair is trying to appoint a fundamentalist home-schooler to chair the state Board of Education.

How is someone who thinks public schools are "unconstitutional" even qualified to hold that position?

Grr arrgh.

So my department head asked if I'd be interested in piloting the new math course next year.

And being a fool, instead of saying "No, I think I have about all I can handle on my plate right now," I said "What new math course?" Which is not quite the same as saying "Sure, hit me," but the distinction is minimal. (The DoI called me a "pitcher-in" earlier this week, and I'm afraid to say he's got me there.)

The answer is this new math course. Advanced Mathematical Decision Making, developed by the UT Dana Center (and other partners, but this is mostly the Dana Center's baby, to be proposed to the Texas Legislature as a full mathematics course - that first link is essentially the proposed TEKS (that's Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, the state curriculum, for those of you who are out-of-state or who haven't set foot in a school since the '90s or before).

If they actually teach it to the intent outlined here, this is a Good Thing. It means that kids who are not necessarily ready won't be funneled into Precal just because they need a fourth math course to graduate and weren't scheduled into Math Models; one of the things that's been freaking us out this year is that in two years we're going to have an incredible influx of kids into Precal whose math backgrounds won't be any better than the half of the senior class that stopped after Algebra II this year and will need to pass it to graduate. I refuse to water down Precal. It also means we'll finally have a course in the high school curriculum other than AP Stats that does probability and statistics! I have been arguing that, for just basic media literacy, the vast majority of our kids need prob & stats much, much more than they need to know how to find the zeroes of a polynomial function.

Which brings me to why the department head asked me. I have pointed out before that I teach The Fourth Course. Among other things, this means that I can do mathematical modeling and prob & stats. While the stuff isn't hard, and anyone on the math faculty should be able to do it, I'm the only one who has anywhere-near-current experience, due to having taught AP Stats. And I like teaching seniors.

The problem is I'd have to go up to the Dana Center several times over the course of the year - up to 6 different times - and that introduces travel issues and, more importantly, the IB Math Studies kids potentially missing me for 6 days of class. I don't think I can do that. If those days are negotiable, or can be done on Saturdays, then it's all good, but I can't jack the IBMS kids for six days of class and still feel like they'll be really ready for the exam.

So - any thoughts? Should I do it? Do I have the right to bitch if I don't, and someone else does it poorly?

Home for break. Brought way too much home with me to do. I have been behind Sisyphus's boulder ever since Ike. Maybe I can manage to get caught up over the next couple of weeks.

Have some of my holiday shopping done, but not enough. And doing it this weekend is going to be hellish.

*collapses*

Sent home from work as soon as school let out for the day. School cancelled tomorrow. We're supposed to check the weatherline/website to make sure our schools are open on Monday. However, they are not moving the progress report deadline.

*scratches head*

Much grading brought home to do tomorrow . . .