Two things are going on

Thing 1: I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Last week, I again replaced questions on the reading test with questions from another source (the previous basal, which had the same story). Rotney made a 70. My favorite part of this (gotta get some joy from the extra work) was his written response to one question, which bore absolutely no relationship to the question asked, but did answer the question I discarded. Can you say, "Gotcha!"? I sent home his report card, with a modified 70 (D) in place of the 65 (F) he had actually earned. I don't think I'm going to get thanked for my trouble since he didn't make the honor roll (also, he made some C's so he wasn't going to make it anyway). I've emailed the EA to send her the social studies study guides and my long-range plans, but haven't heard a peep in response. Today my princiPal told me to cc the emails to her, so that the EA knows she's in the loop on what I'm doing. And, so I wait. Anxiously.

Truthfully, thinking about Rotney and grades, this is my lowest ability class ever--only one child made the honor roll, and I did everything I could to increase their grades. I dropped the lowest test score, gave them some softball grade opportunities that they disregarded, and prayed that they would get their acts together. It didn't work and it wasn't even close. Sigh. If I hadn't done what I could to remedy the poor scores, lots of students would have gone home with D's and F's. As it was, lots did go home with C's and D's. And I've heard not a peep from the parents. Wake up, folks! You can make a difference in your child's achievement.

Thing 2: I haven't been at school much lately. I was out on professional leave on Thursday, I took a half-day of sick leave Friday, and I had more professional leave today and will have it tomorrow. I hate being out of my class so much! I hate writing sub plans! I hate being sick with a cough and not sleeping much and not being able to take a couple of days ( or even 1 whole day) off to recover. And, now I'm off to write yet another set of sub plans. . .