Teaching Turmoil

As you may know, I teach in Memphis at a low-income, low-performing school.  I absolutely adore my school and the children I am blessed to work with daily.  It has been very hard, but for the last two years I have cherished every moment of every day with my babies.  I taught eighth grade science last year and teach seventh grade science this year.

Since our school is so low-performing, we were taken over by a special district called the "i-zone" for innovation zone of schools last year, within our regular school district and throughout the state of Tennessee.  Every spring, we get evaluated based on a cumulative average of our evaluations throughout the year, surveys our students take rating our performance and something called TVAAS- where we are evaluated based on our test data.  Some teachers do not have TVAAS data- librarians, gym and band teachers, first and second year teachers and special education teacher.  TVAAS is based on a three year average of your test scores from state standardized tests.  When you do not have TVAAS data, you do not have a choice but to have your score averaged based upon the school's score.  Since my school is a low performing school, our school received a 1 out of 5 last year on this scale.  This means that our librarian, gym teacher, special education teachers and first year teachers all got 1 out of 5 on TVAAS- regardless of our own successes or failures in the classroom.



To be hired in a low-performing school, a teacher must earn a 3 out of 5 in their cumulative score.  Because of being averaged with the school's low score of a 1, this group of us would have theoretically been out of the running.  However, since we were all actually high-performing teachers with good observation scores and our own test data (regardless of the school's data) was quite high, we were allowed to reapply for our jobs and stay another year.

I love the teachers I work with and am blessed to work with supportive, loving, believing, faithful wonderful men and women.  These people truly care for the children they serve and work hard all day in their classrooms and stay hours after work, tutoring and mentoring, coaching and praying.

Yesterday, we were told that because of our TVAAS, we would not be allowed to return to our school next year.  Even though our own data is fine, even though our own evaluations are 5 out of 5, even though we love these children with our whole beings and give our entire lives to serve and teach them- a flaw in the system and an administrator who is not willing to fight for us is meaning we have to lose these opportunities and apply to work at other schools in the school district that are higher performing. 

Yes I can work at another school.  But I have a heart for my Hamilton Wildcats.  This was my first school after working in summer school in Atlanta and doing my student teaching in Virginia.  These are my babies.  They taught me to love.  They taught me what caring is.  They taught me about commitment, about inner strength, about never giving up.  And I'm not ready to give up this part of my life yet.  

No more connect four to review parts of a cell and cell organelles.  

No more cheerleading practice.  

No more adorable quotes: "Ms dean what if I took off Desmond's arm? It would grow back?" " can you eat starfish?" Can that starfish see us? What do they taste like? Why is it red? How many starfish are in Japan? (?) why didn't nemos fin grow back?"

No more having my sweet fiancé come to Saturday school and work with my boys on their math skills. He's wonderful with my kids and they LOVE and need positive male role models.

No more little lovelies begging to play with my hair and asking adorable questions about why it feels that way, why it grows that way, why it doesn't hold a curl or a braid like theirs does.

No more twin days.

No more having my facebook hacked when I leave my phone on my desk and my ladies upload selfies to my facebook instagram and twitter (happens weekly! haha)

No more cheerleading practices and basketball games, the girls convincing me to put on a uniform and show them my "flips" and do a back handspring (and be limping for weeks afterward!)

No more notes from my eighth graders as they leave to go onto high school and accomplishing every dream their sweet hearts can ever dream.

I don't want to leave.  

High Five for Friday

My first High Five for Friday Post!

1.  We live fifteen hours (at least!) from all of our family and friends back home, so care packages are always welcomed with open hearts and a sweet reminder of the wonderful people who love us and raise us.  My sweet Great Aunt Grace sent me the most darling package as she was cleaning out her house.  I worked at a Mexican restaurant in high school (bring on the chips and salsa addiction!) and she thought of me when she found a collection of hispanic-styled cooking supplies and shipped them to us for our new kitchen.  So sweet!

2.  Our closet completely came CRASHING down in the middle of the night.  But it's a high five because I did some major cleaning out, aka now I justified going on some major online shopping sprees and got more of my favorite shirts (urban outfitters daydreamer la - they are a DREAM to wear with anything.  Similar fabric and fit to those fabulous PIKO shirts everyone is talking about, at a fraction of the cost.  I seriously have multiples, in every color.  And 3 black, and 2 grey.  Not a problem at all...)

3.  After days on days of color-coordinated spreadsheets and address-checking from the West Coast to England, our wedding invitations are all DONE and MAILED OUT.  Check!

4.  I teach seventh grade science and my kids and I had a BLAST playing Connect Four on the smartboard as a review game of cell organelles.  Love when the kids actually connect with a lesson :) 

5.  Tonight for dinner Chris and I ordered in sushi and Chinese, and this was his fortune.  Perfect, because we got reminded that there are only 63 short days until our wedding - thus 64 short days until our Caribbean honeymoon cruise.  Take me away to warm sand beaches and a margarita, please!

What are your high fives for Friday?

Linked up with Lauren at From my Grey Desk for this high five for friday :)

Wedding and Marriage Planning

Planning a wedding from fifteen hours away has been the ideal circumstance for my fiancé and myself.

When we got engaged last June 4, one of the first things we talked about was how we did not want to jump right into wedding planning.  We wanted to really embrace this season, be happy and celebrate us for right now, and just have fun at this special time that we would never ever have again.  You really are only engaged to that special person one time, and that time is too often bogged down with stress over cake-tasting and dress-fittings, matching table-linens and candle colors, meeting with seventeen different florists to pick the perfect sized roses to accompany your arrangements.  We vowed not to do that.

We live in Memphis and are getting married in our hometown in Maryland, and so for a large part, most of that decision was made for us.  Honestly, my mom has called me an apathetic-zilla instead of a bride-zilla because I refuse to sweat the details of this wedding.  It will be beautiful, people will come, it will be an unforgettable celebration of sweet love.  Will it be a performance?  Holy smokes, no.  Will I be screaming at florists and caterers because some shade of yellow is just slightly off and the roses are the wrong size?  My word, I plan not to!

We intentionally planned very slowly, with the mindset that we knew what we wanted to happen and it would all work out.  We are getting married in my parents' church where we met as middle schoolers on a mission trip when I was 10 and Christopher was 12.  The ceremony will be at five in the afternoon, technically not black tie, but late enough in the day that the reception will be dark and dancing and drinking can ensue under sparkling lights and tulle.  The men ordered tan suits, I bought the third dress I tried on from a boutique in Maryland.  I don't have shoes yet- I will wear white and gold Jack Rogers or my cowboy boots and be comfortable and feel pretty.

We booked a caterer, ordered tents for my parents' property (we're doing the reception in their backyard) and bought our flowers from Costco (who knew- they have a wedding florist!  It runs about 1/4 of the cost of private florists and the arrangements are simple and gorgeous.  Exactly what we are going for.  Plain yellow roses.  Delightful!)

The honeymoon is booked, I bought my invitations from exclusivelyweddings.com and they are to DIE for, and I handwrote all of them in one weekend infront of an endless SVU marathon on my couch.  Sent them out this Monday.

These are the invites we ordered, but all the writing was in navy blue embossed type, no odd swirly thing at the top? and then our envelopes had navy blue inserts.  But we did have the yellow around the outsides of the invites and reception cards/response cards.  All navy and yellow!

There is too much stress about wedding planning, and not nearly enough emphasis on marriage planning.  Christopher and I know we are getting married, and that the wedding will be a very important, special and magical day. But more important, special and magical will be our marriage.  We want to focus our efforts, prayers, concerns and energy on planning for that.  We are taking pre-marital counseling at a church here in Memphis, which is a prerequisite to get married in the Presbyterian church.  But it's been fascinating to answer the questions and have the honest conversations, to hear about one another's childhoods in a raw honest form.

More-so than premarital counseling, Chris and I moved in with each other and living together before marriage has been so good for our relationship.  I am so so glad that we did this before we got married. It has set up the most wonderful foundation for our marriage, and much more than wedding planning, I am so happy we are mutually focused on marriage planning.  We now know who hates folding laundry, who really struggles with early mornings, who needs to listen to music in the shower to calm down.  We understand who appreciates help with groceries, who needs to  be alone after work and what it looks like when one of us really just needs a hug.  We understand who listens to rock music when they're angry, who cleans as a way of dealing with stress.  We now know so much more about ourselves and one another than we ever did before.  We are marriage planning rather than wedding planning, and it is the best decision we could have made for our future success as husband and wife.

How did you plan for a marriage instead of just your wedding?

Any wedding planning advice?